http://oneanglersvoyage.blogspot.com/2014/12/contemplating-conflicts-of-interests.html

thanks Mike Jones for putting a link to it on the MSBA facebook page


and this is the jist of it here copy and pasted


Thus, a fisherman may only harvest a very small percentage of the total landings for any species. But if that species accounts for a big percentage of that fisherman’s income, and he sits on a Council or ASMFC, you can pretty well be that he will be more interested in maintaining a healthy cash flow, rather than a healthy fish stock.

When you’re worried about paying the bills next month, you’re not too concerned about rebuilding the codfish, or the striped bass, within the next decade.

And decisions made, and votes cast, by folks with those kinds of worries have been setting back fisheries management efforts since the first such efforts were made.

It is long past time for a new paradigm.

A conflict of interests occurs any time “a direct or indirect financial interest…conflicts with the fair and impartial conduct of official duties.”

If anyone worries that a proposed conservation or management measure would, if passed, have an adverse impact on their income, they must be barred from casting a vote that reflects such concern.

" However, there is absolutely nothing that would prevent a groundfisherman who sits on the New England Fishery Management Council from voting for measures that provide him—and every other groundfisherman in New England—a short term economic benefit even if it imperils the health of the stock in the long term."

Not true. The Magnesson- Stevens Act, which established the Councils requires that the councils immediately stop overfhing in any fishery and also requires the councils to develop a rebuilding plan for any species that is overfished that will rebuild the fishery to Maximum Sustainable yield within a specified time frame. NMFS overseas these requirements and they have rejected Council approved measures that NMFS feels would fail to meet these requirements.

As for the ASMFC each state gets three members, one appointed by the Governor, which is almost invariably one of the leaders of that state's marine fishery authority. So that seat is given to an individual who is a state employee and has no possible conflict of interest. Another seat goes to a legislator from that states legislature who should have little or no conflicts. Since each state only gets one vote, the two state employees outweigh any possible conflict from the third member.

The state advisory boards, RIMFAC, and the NYMFAC are both advisory panels with no authority to do anything other than make recommendation.

Sometimes I have a lot of problems with Charlie's logic, although we do agree on some things, but this is not one of them. Who is more capable of managing the fisheries other that those who spend time on the water? By his logic the technical committees and the Scientific and statistical committees, which basically drive all fishery management decisions should all be disqualified, because they have a direct interest in keeping their jobs, which is to manage the fisheries.

I do agree with him that the ASMFC and all of the other State waters management groups should be brought under the authority of the Magnesson-Stevens act. But with the state vs fed controversy over red snapper in the Gulf, I don't see much support for that notion from the gulf states.

I read that as anyone who has more then a 10% financial interest is already banned from voting.
If the voting members had absolutely zero interest in the fishery, It would be totaly shut down because you hurt the fishys.

one could make the argument that even the solitary guy on the beach, with 1@28" to feed his family, Is in fact financially benefiting from the free food...
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that is overfished that will rebuild the fishery to Maximum Sustainable yield within a specified time frame. NMFS overseas these requirements and they have rejected Council approved measures that NMFS feels would fail to meet these requirements.



I believe that the heart of the issue is "a fault" (a major fault) in The MS Act is the decree to manage for "Maximum Sustainable Yield". The target should be: "abundance". How can we get that changed?.....JC

Mike enough . are you so blind that you don't see what has happened. cod gone,hake gone,monk fish gone,Tommy cod gone, pollock almost gone. i mean come on enough is enough. what does it take to take the steps needed so we have fish in the future?Haddock,halibut,yellow tailed flounder. I used to see them all the time as a kid.Stripers,Mackeral,Pollock,winter an summer flounder,fluke an so on. how many speicies need to dissappear till we do what needs to be done. I mean come on enough is enough. I make custom lurs,rods,flies an so on. I still push for catch n release. Why? I've lived through the moritoium. Been there done that. how bout we finally stop bein so damn greedy that we do something for the fish we chase an love.

I believe that the heart of the issue is "a fault" (a major fault) in The MS Act is the decree to manage for "Maximum Sustainable Yield". The target should be: "abundance". How can we get that changed?.....JC

Good luck defining abundance.
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Good luck defining abundance.
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Thanks! Perhaps it will be as lucky as they have been defining "maximum". We need to err on the side of the fish stocks.

JC

I heard that there was some disagreement with my last blog post, so I thought that I ought to come over and join the conversation, because some of what was posted sort of ignored the real world.

" However, there is absolutely nothing that would prevent a groundfisherman who sits on the New England Fishery Management Council from voting for measures that provide him—and every other groundfisherman in New England—a short term economic benefit even if it imperils the health of the stock in the long term."

Not true. The Magnesson- Stevens Act, which established the Councils requires that the councils immediately stop overfhing in any fishery and also requires the councils to develop a rebuilding plan for any species that is overfished that will rebuild the fishery to Maximum Sustainable yield within a specified time frame. NMFS overseas these requirements and they have rejected Council approved measures that NMFS feels would fail to meet these requirements.

The problem is, the New England Council never did get around to actually rebuilding many overfished stocks, nor did they always end overfishing.

That is because they were very careful to avoid the one tool that works to constrain fishermen's harvests--and incomes--which is the imposition of hard quotas that keep the boats tied up at the docks once such quotas are filled.

Instead, they used "input controls" such as days at sea, etc. They never capped harvest at all. Thus, enterprising fishermen, abetted by their colleagues on the Council who drafted plans that depended on such "soft" measures, could find ways to land large quantities of fish despite the restrictions. For example, if you ran a groundfish gillnet boat, your "days at sea" only counted when your boat was out fishing, even though you had nets out killing fish when your boat was in port. Combine that with the fact that the Council allowed the use of "fractional" days, rather than charging the boat with a full day any time it left the dock, and there was room for plenty of fish-far more than was biologically reasonable--to be killed.

Finally, the situation got so bad that catch shares, with their hard quotas, were imposed. Now you hear the fishermen crying even louder about the restrictions, because for the first time, if they kill too many fish--either in directed effort or as bycatch--their nets can't be set. It's something that should have happened a couple of decades ago, but thanks to fishermen on the Council who fought like tigers against any hard quotas at any time they were proposed, we have--or perhaps more properly, we don't have--today's cod fishery in the Gulf of Maine.

As for the ASMFC each state gets three members, one appointed by the Governor, which is almost invariably one of the leaders of that state's marine fishery authority. So that seat is given to an individual who is a state employee and has no possible conflict of interest. Another seat goes to a legislator from that states legislature who should have little or no conflicts. Since each state only gets one vote, the two state employees outweigh any possible conflict from the third member.

Not in the real world.

In the real world, the two appointees--the governor's appointee and the legislative appointee (who usually doesn't show up, but rather sends a proxy with industry ties) can outweigh the vote of the state's professional fisheries manager.

Let's look at the striped bass states, between Maine and North Carolina, to see who the governors actually appoint.

In Maine and Massachusetts, they appointed lobsternen, Stephen Train and William Adler, respectively. Adler, far from being the head of any state fishery authority, uses the Massachusetts Lobstermen's Association for his mailing address, so yes, I think that there's some possibility of conflict there.

Otherwise, the governors' appointees are relatively benign, although in New Jersey, Tom Fote, who has long been tied to the Jersey Coast Anglers' Association, always tries to find a way to kill more fish, whatever the species; in New York, Emerson Hasbrouck is from Cornell Cooperative Extension, and tends to favor industry interests (he was asking questions that seemed intended to torpedo the one-year rebuilding plan at the Striped Bass Management Board meeting in October) and Virginia's rep, Catherine W. Davenport is, so far as I can tell, owns an interest in a boatyard, and has strong commercial ties. But others are scientists and former government biologists, so we can't complain too much there. But the governors' appointees, as a group, are anything but government employees, as Mike maintains.

It's the legislative appointees that create the problems, because most of the legislators don't show up, and give other folks their proxies. And those other folks often have very strong economic interests in the fisheries that they are supposed to manage "impartially".

Let's take a look at the May Striped Bass Management Board meeting, because we have an attendance sheet for that one, and see who was actually casting the votes.

Out of twelve states with legislative appointees, eight--fully two-thirds of those eligible--sent proxies. Now let's see who those proxies were.

New Hampshire sent Dennis Abbott, a former legislator who normally votes with the fish's interests in mind.

Rhode Island sent Capt. Rick Bellavance, a charter boat owner and head of the Rhode Island Party & Charter Boat Association. Clearly, we have financial interests represented there.

New York sent Pat Augustine, who was making his last appearance. Augustine is a former charter boat mate and rodbuilder, among other things, but doesn't currently make any money from fishing as far as I know. However, it should be noted that in October, New York's legislative rep sent Kathy Heinlein, who represents the Captree Boatmen's Association (made famous last year when one of their boats advertised withy a photo of the female deck hand standing knee-deep in big, dead stripers while the ad trumpeted "STRIPED BASs SLAUGHTER!"). So, again, we have financial interests represented.

New Jersey sent Capt. Adam Nowalsky, who was one of the folks who pushed to have 2-fish options included in Addendum IV. Once again, there are financial motivations.

Pennsylvania's legislative proxy was Metchell Feigenbaum, who owns the Delaware Valley Fish Company. Enough said.

Delaware's legislative rep sent Bernie Pankowski, a charter boat captain. Also has clear financial interest in the striped bass fishery.

Maryland went over to the commercial side, with its legislative rep giving his proxy to Russel Dize, a commercial fisherman--or "waterman" as they call them down there--who noted at the October meeting that he'd been a waterman for 55 years and never saw so many striped bass--and there were too many, because they were eating all of his blue crabs. So yes, money was talking again.

And North Carolina sent Mike Johnson, a wildlife consultant and "outfitter" from Dare County. Not quite sure what kind of "outfitter" he is, but there is at least the potential that some income comes from promiting recreational fishing (although, to be fair, he may be all ducks and deer).

But the bottom line is that the potential for actual conflict is quite real at ASMFC. Both the governors' appointees and the proxies of the legislative reps can and often do make money from the harvest of the same fish that they allegedly manage, making "impartial" decisions more an ideal than reality.

The state advisory boards, RIMFAC, and the NYMFAC are both advisory panels with no authority to do anything other than make recommendation.

True, but at least in New York, the statute requires that the Department of Environmental Conservation strongly consider the MRAC recommendations, and to explain in black and white, in the memo that accompanies the regulation, why the MRAC advice was not followed. So while it has not actual rulemaking power, the votes do have a significant impact on the outcome of the rulemaking process.

Sometimes I have a lot of problems with Charlie's logic, although we do agree on some things, but this is not one of them. Who is more capable of managing the fisheries other that those who spend time on the water? By his logic the technical committees and the Scientific and statistical committees, which basically drive all fishery management decisions should all be disqualified, because they have a direct interest in keeping their jobs, which is to manage the fisheries.

Who is more capable of managing the fisheries other than those who spend time on the water? The answer is, people who are indifferent to the outcome of the science, and are willing to either increase harvest or shut down a fishery based solely on objective interpretation of the data, without worrying about the impact of those decisions on their--or maybe more important, their friends' and relatives'--ability to pay next month's rent if the fishery is shut down. We already manage everything else--ducks are perhaps the best analogue, since they, too, are migratory--based solely on science and the US Fish & Wildlife Service's best judgment, without Councils and Commissions to write the management plan. Hunters can have input at the Flyway Council, but only with respect to whether a short season and larger bag limit, or longer season and smaller bag, etc. would be preferable. They have no input into the size of the harvest itself, which is as it should be.

Both the Councils and the Commission have advisory panels to inform the folks who vote. That is where the fishermen's input should occur. The folks who actually act on that input should not have a stake in the outcome.

I have said for a long time that we should be managing salt water fish in the same manner as we manage deer, ducks, grouse, yellow perch, etc. And that's by professional managers, not amateurs with an interest in the outcome. That way, we can place the emphasis where it needs to be--on the long-term health of the stock, not on the short-term economic concerns of the harvester.

I read that as anyone who has more then a 10% financial interest is already banned from voting.
If the voting members had absolutely zero interest in the fishery, It would be totaly shut down because you hurt the fishys.

one could make the argument that even the solitary guy on the beach, with 1@28" to feed his family, Is in fact financially benefiting from the free food...
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You're reading it wrong. A person has to harvest or process, or represent those who harvest or process, 10% of the TOTAL LANDINGS OF THE MANAGED SPECIES in order to be disqualified. The impact of the species as a percentage of the individual's landings is not the criterion used--although I believe that it should be.

And if you found a way to make catching fish free--I suggest that you quickly patent the process. When all costs incurred are considered, recreationally-caught fish are, in most situations, a lot more expensive than those caught in a store.

Thanks for the update Charles. What has me concerned is the behind the scenes meeting held in Rhode Island. My source who was there informed me that RIs legislative member Sosnowski attended. Some how the Rhode Island Party & Charter Boat Association members were able to fill the room when very few others seemed to even know about the meeting. Their members filled the senator with tales of woe if they couldn't get a second fish. It's been eerily quiet about what transpired at this meeting.

Charles - thank you for jumping in and welcome aboard! Good work. :btu:

Thanks Charles. I've always found your posts on the other site very informative.

Mike enough . are you so blind that you don't see what has happened. cod gone,hake gone,monk fish gone,Tommy cod gone, pollock almost gone. i mean come on enough is enough. what does it take to take the steps needed so we have fish in the future?Haddock,halibut,yellow tailed flounder. I used to see them all the time as a kid.Stripers,Mackeral,Pollock,winter an summer flounder,fluke an so on. how many speicies need to dissappear till we do what needs to be done. I mean come on enough is enough. I make custom lurs,rods,flies an so on. I still push for catch n release. Why? I've lived through the moritoium. Been there done that. how bout we finally stop bein so damn greedy that we do something for the fish we chase an love.

You really do need to check your facts before posting. Atlantic Halibut were depleted before the turn of the last century. We are at the southern end of their range and they will never be "abundant" in our waters. Tommy cod have never been managed as they are not commercially fished, so any local scarcity is due to something unrelated to fishing. Monk Fish (goosefish) are doing well, when was the last time you fished for them? Same thing goes for yellowtail flounder, have you ever caught one on a hook and line, unless they were snagged? Summer flounder are also doing well, winter flounder are down, but that's a state matter. I want to see what kind of lures you make to catch yellowtail flounder. :)

The point has nothing to do with whether or not a specie has been successfully managed, it has everything to do with the people who manage the fisheries. If you really want to point a finger at the management failures, you should point it at the so called "scientists." The councils have to follow the scientific recommendations of the SSCs.

Thank you for joining in Mr. Witek:btu:

[QUOTE=MakoMike;1059944]

As for the ASMFC each state gets three members, one appointed by the Governor, which is almost invariably one of the leaders of that state's marine fishery authority. So that seat is given to an individual who is a state employee and has no possible conflict of interest. Another seat goes to a legislator from that states legislature who should have little or no conflicts.

and a quote from Go Local Providence, RI, 8/23/2014:
"Rhode Island has made real progress, but much remains to be done. The culture of corruption has not vanished, but we had to outlaw specific behaviors . . . but the struggle against corrupt public officials will continue."

Yeah, right. State employees or legislators couldn't possibly have any conflict of interest.

Thanks for the kind words, guys.

We have a problem with this fishery, and with plenty of others.

Like so many other problems folks face, to fix it, first we have to admit that it exists. And when you look at the folks casting votes at ASMFC, it certainly does.

Who is more capable of managing the fisheries other than those who spend time on the water? The answer is, people who are indifferent to the outcome of the science, and are willing to either increase harvest or shut down a fishery based solely on objective interpretation of the data, without worrying about the impact of those decisions on their--or maybe more important, their friends' and relatives'--ability to pay next month's rent if the fishery is shut down. We already manage everything else--ducks are perhaps the best analogue, since they, too, are migratory--based solely on science and the US Fish & Wildlife Service's best judgment, without Councils and Commissions to write the management plan. Hunters can have input at the Flyway Council, but only with respect to whether a short season and larger bag limit, or longer season and smaller bag, etc. would be preferable. They have no input into the size of the harvest itself, which is as it should be.

Both the Councils and the Commission have advisory panels to inform the folks who vote. That is where the fishermen's input should occur. The folks who actually act on that input should not have a stake in the outcome.

I have said for a long time that we should be managing salt water fish in the same manner as we manage deer, ducks, grouse, yellow perch, etc. And that's by professional managers, not amateurs with an interest in the outcome. That way, we can place the emphasis where it needs to be--on the long-term health of the stock, not on the short-term economic concerns of the harvester.

Several points I'd like to further explore, but first, welcome aboard Charlie.
Lets talk about the way the system is set up right now, as opposed to history before the current versions of the Magnesson-Steven act was passed. I'll agree that many of your criticisms were valid before the act was revised.
As far as people willing to expand to restrict the harvests. That we already have. The SSCs set ACLs, Target SSBs and most of the other specs for any given fishery. The councils have to follow those recommendations. Where the councils have some discretion is in how those parameters can be met, and that IMHO is appropriate. The folks who sit on the councils are the ones with the best insights on how to meet the SSCs goal without causing undue pain to the industry (both recreational and commercial) Lets not forget that most (all?) of the councils have representatives from the commercial and recreational sectors and also representative from various "green" NGOs so all users and some non-users are represented. This IMHO ensures that there is a somewhat balanced representation oh to meet the parameters set out by the SSCs.

You and I agree that the ASMFC and all the state compacts that manage fisheries in state waters should also be subject to the MSA. But given the conflicts over red snapper in the Gulf of Mexico I hold little hope of that being enacted as part of the current reauthorization of the MSA. Again IMHO we could easily fix the problems at the ASMFC by using the same approach to divided management as used by the councils.

Any analogy to wildlife management on land is flawed, since there is little to no commercial component in those species' harvest.

Merry Christmas!

Several points I'd like to further explore, but first, welcome aboard Charlie.
Lets talk about the way the system is set up right now, as opposed to history before the current versions of the Magnesson-Steven act was passed. I'll agree that many of your criticisms were valid before the act was revised.

Yes, things have improved since Magnuson was revised in the waning hours of 2006, but just looking at the last few months, we see Councils unwilling to do their job to manage the fishery. After the updated Gulf of Maine cod assessment, the Council refused to adopt interim management measures that addressed the collapse--instead, they did nothing and shifted the burden onto the Regional Administrator.

And earlier this month in the Mid-Atlantic, the Council voted unanimously to request the SSC to reconsideer black sea bass management, because they were unwilling to adopt measures consistent with current data and the current management plan.

Maybe the latter action was justified by the big 2011 year class of black sea bass; we'll see what the SSC decides. But up in New England, the Council just lacked the moral courage to do what was necessary. As has ever been the case.

As far as people willing to expand to restrict the harvests. That we already have. The SSCs set ACLs, Target SSBs and most of the other specs for any given fishery. The councils have to follow those recommendations.

The point is, this should not have been necessary. I once held a seat on the Mid-Atlantic Council. Before you can cast your first vote, you're sworn in, and part of that oath is that you will uphold the law and act in the best interests of the nation at large. If Council members had any honor at all, they would have stood true to that oath, and wouldn't have needed the 2006 reauthorization, which gave the SSC's decisions on such matters binding effect. [/QUOTE]

]QUOTE]Where the councils have some discretion is in how those parameters can be met, and that IMHO is appropriate. The folks who sit on the councils are the ones with the best insights on how to meet the SSCs goal without causing undue pain to the industry (both recreational and commercial) [/QUOTE]

I actually don't believe that is true. Too often, Council members react as if ANY pain is "undue" pain and try to avoid it completely, particularly if it affects their business. They lack the necessary distance to make objective judgments. Recreational reps are more than willing to cut commercial harvest, for-hires try to get a leg up on the private boat recreationals and the commercial boats continue to fight for their share.

Later in your post, you reference the Gulf of Mexico red snapper fishery, and that is a classic example of the situation. The recreational side was clearly overfishing, but worked within their organizations (and I was a member of one of those organizations for a very long time, and so know for a fact that this is true) to maximize recreational kill and remove any buffers (20% was the one most often proposed) that might allow for management uncertainty. As a result, they never stopped overfishing, and so kept getting tighter and tighter regulations aimed at ending the overage, which just fueled more efforts to frustrate the rules among the recreational community and their representatives on the Council. The commercials finally got tired of seeing their allocation cut as part of a general quota reduction, so the big boats got together to put in a chatch share plan, which made it difficult for the smaller commercials to operate, but made the big boats happy because they could now buy the small boats' quotas and do pretty well. The next step was for the for-hires to carve their own quota out of the overall rec quota, which pleased them, but pretty well screwed the provate boats who want to fish in federal waters, which now are carrying most of the conservation burden there (but are not without fault, as they have been fighting for more liberal rules in the states, where NMFS has no say, but the for-hires with federal permits can't fish when the federal season is closed). Bottom line is that everyone is concerned with their own pain, and could care less about the pain of others and of their duties to the general public. It would have been far better to have the matter resolved by wildlife managers with no direct personal connection with the fishery.

Lets not forget that most (all?) of the councils have representatives from the commercial and recreational sectors and also representative from various "green" NGOs so all users and some non-users are represented. This IMHO ensures that there is a somewhat balanced representation oh to meet the parameters set out by the SSCs.

Your statement "so all users and some non-users are represented" sets forth a lot of the problem. Natural resources, including fish, are a public resource, and should be managed for the overall public good, and not primarily for the good of the users (although, in many cases, that may be the same thing). Forage fish are the best example. Perhaps we shouldn't be allowing species such as Atlantic herring and menhaden to be harvested at the current industrial scale. Perhaps they should be managed for "ecosystem services" first and foremost, not merely as forage for other popular fish, but for their role in supporting everything from mergansers, gannets and osprey to humpback whales, porpoises and seals. That is the sort of decision that could better be made if folks who owned the mid-water trawlers did not have a seat at the mangement table.

And the NGO reps are very few and far between. I know that there was one up in New England, representing Connecticut; don't recall if she is still there. None on the Mid-Atlantic. I don't think that there are any in the South Atlantic, and I'm pretty sure that there are none in the Gulf. So we basically still have the fox watching the henhouse, although the SSC and, on a larger scale, the Magnuson Act restrict just how far those foxes can go.

You and I agree that the ASMFC and all the state compacts that manage fisheries in state waters should also be subject to the MSA. But given the conflicts over red snapper in the Gulf of Mexico I hold little hope of that being enacted as part of the current reauthorization of the MSA. Again IMHO we could easily fix the problems at the ASMFC by using the same approach to divided management as used by the councils.

This time, we're going to be lucky to get out of the Magnuson reauthorization process with the key parts of the law intact, much less extend anything to ASMFC. As you point out, the red snapper anglers are willing to throw away the best fisheries law in the world if it means that they'll be able to kill a couple more fish. But yes, the fix to ASMFC would be simple; all we need to do is make ASMFC's management plans subject to the same conservation and rebuilding requirements as currently apply to federal plans--prohibiting overfishing, requiring overfished stocks to be rebuilt within a time certain and requiring the best available science to guide management decisions--along with a provision clearly permitting judicial review of final ASMFC actions.

Any analogy to wildlife management on land is flawed, since there is little to no commercial component in those species' harvest.

Merry Christmas!

But there was extensive commercial harvest at one time, and determining whether that is appropriate is part of the management process.

Given that all but a small percentage of the fish now eaten in America is imported, part of the public debate should be whether it is still appropriate to commercialize wild stocks for sale, or whether the better public policy would be to promote the artificial culture of appropriate species. Those would be species which could be farmed on a large scale in dry-land facilities that do not threaten the health of wild stocks, and most likely species that could be fed on manufactured feeds that do not require the large-scale harvest of forage fish stocks. It would strictly limit what is available to consumers, but that is what we face today with other products--basically, if you want meat, you get beef, chicken, lamb, pork and turkey, with some things such as goose, duck, rabbit and quail, altong with exotics, sold as specialty food. Anything else, you have to go out and harvest for yourself.

Remember that we once had significant commercial operations taking bison, ducks, geese, passenger pigeons, various shorebirds (including the Eskimo curlew), elk, etc. There is a wonderful piece written by Mark Twain, discussing all of the wild game that could be purchased in New York markets during, I think, the 1880s. But you can't buy it any more. So just because a large commercial fishery exists TODAY doesn't mean that it should exist TOMORROW.

Instead, it may make sense to maintain commercial fisheries for certain species, such as monkfish, swordfish, tilefish, etc.--cod, too, if we can ever restore reasonable levels of abundance--that can be properly managed for sustainable commercial harvest after the public's personal-use harvest has been considered, just as we have freshwater commercial fisheries for yellow perch in places such as Lake Erie, and for fish such as catfish, buffalo, carp, etc. throughout much of the south and midwest, and sharply restrict commercial harvest of other species that are less abundant in absolute numbers or which are so popular in the personal-use fishery that there is little sustainable harvest remaining that can safely be privatized and sold.

One of the big problems of fisheries management is that we spend too much time worrying about keeping things the way that they were in the past--catch histories, historic harvest allocations, etc.--and don't spend anywhere near enough time thinking about what makes sense in the future, which is what we reallty should be thinking about. And in the future, every option should remain on the table.

And yes, a belated Merry Christmas to you, and to all reading this post.

Charlie - sorry - this got stuck in moderation (happens frequently on first several posts.

I too appreciate Mr. Witek's input . It is always good to have the other side of the coin.
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Thanks! Perhaps it will be as lucky as they have been defining "maximum". We need to err on the side of the fish stocks.

JC

It's "maximum sustainable"...big difference between just "maximum"
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Yes, things have improved since Magnuson was revised in the waning hours of 2006, but just looking at the last few months, we see Councils unwilling to do their job to manage the fishery. After the updated Gulf of Maine cod assessment, the Council refused to adopt interim management measures that addressed the collapse--instead, they did nothing and shifted the burden onto the Regional Administrator.

As I understand it, the council had no choice, if they wanted something done quickly, then it had to be done via an emergency rule, which only the regional administrator can issue. The NEFMC is now working on FW43, which will restrict the catch of cod using the council process.

And earlier this month in the Mid-Atlantic, the Council voted unanimously to request the SSC to reconsideer black sea bass management, because they were unwilling to adopt measures consistent with current data and the current management plan.

Maybe the latter action was justified by the big 2011 year class of black sea bass; we'll see what the SSC decides.

I'd like to think I was part of that by pointing out to the entire council that there has been some tagging studies which indicate there are three distinct population segments along the portion of the coast managed by the mid, and that the northern DPS is booming.




Your statement "so all users and some non-users are represented" sets forth a lot of the problem. Natural resources, including fish, are a public resource, and should be managed for the overall public good, and not primarily for the good of the users (although, in many cases, that may be the same thing). Forage fish are the best example. Perhaps we shouldn't be allowing species such as Atlantic herring and menhaden to be harvested at the current industrial scale. Perhaps they should be managed for "ecosystem services" first and foremost, not merely as forage for other popular fish, but for their role in supporting everything from mergansers, gannets and osprey to humpback whales, porpoises and seals. That is the sort of decision that could better be made if folks who owned the mid-water trawlers did not have a seat at the mangement table.

Up until I read that I thought we were talking about national standard one. But it seems from that quote that you are in favor of jettisoning the other nine national standards?

But there was extensive commercial harvest at one time, and determining whether that is appropriate is part of the management process.

I disagree, deciding whether or not commercial or recreational harvest of any living resource is a political decision not a management decision.

Given that all but a small percentage of the fish now eaten in America is imported, part of the public debate should be whether it is still appropriate to commercialize wild stocks for sale, or whether the better public policy would be to promote the artificial culture of appropriate species. Those would be species which could be farmed on a large scale in dry-land facilities that do not threaten the health of wild stocks, and most likely species that could be fed on manufactured feeds that do not require the large-scale harvest of forage fish stocks. It would strictly limit what is available to consumers, but that is what we face today with other products--basically, if you want meat, you get beef, chicken, lamb, pork and turkey, with some things such as goose, duck, rabbit and quail, altong with exotics, sold as specialty food. Anything else, you have to go out and harvest for yourself.

Once again, policy is set at the political level, not the management level. If that is your objective you need to influence congress to amend the MSA to reflect that policy. As it is now the country's policy is to allow commercial harvest of all species (with some exceptions under the endangered species act).