CASTING COMMENTS SeeingisBelieving By Ted Venker, Conservation Director, Coastal Conservation Association
W W
E WANT TO BELIEVE. Recreational anglers want to believe in the existence of good intentions from
NOAAFisheries in spite of evidence to the contrary. Dr. Jane Lubchenco, Administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmos- pheric Administration, has said some encouraging things to the recreational angling community since she was sworn in in 2009. As a marine ecologist and environmental scientist, Dr. Lubchenco raised a lot of eyebrows when she was tabbed to run the agency. Her resume, while certainly impressive, did not look anything like that of her predecessors. The fact that she had served on the board of the Environmental Defense Fund was a red flag in some quarters. Her selection was a dramatic departure from the norm, and the angling community was cautious to say the least. To her credit, Dr. Lubchenco came
into office with an open door to recre- ational anglers. Clearly, she also came with a vision that includes a number of things that are unpopular with anglers, including catch share programs. But, she speaks often of her personal con- nection to the outdoors, having grown up hunting and fishing with her father. She almost immediately committed that the agency would work to estab- lish a stronger partnership with the recreational fishing community. During a national meeting hosted by the American Sportfishing Association, she pledged to be a champion for recre- ational angling, undoubtedly a first for a NOAAAdministrator.
Under her watch, the agency has hosted a National Recreational Salt- water Fishing Summit, appointed a NOAA National Policy Advisor for Recreational Fisheries; created the Marine Fisheries Advisory Council Recreational Fishing Working Group, and has incorporated input from
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anglers into the agency’s work toward re-allocation of federally managed fish- eries and into the federal Catch Share Policy. President Obama, with input from
Dr. Lubchenco, recently issued a Presidential Proclamation recognizing the value of our oceans to all Amer- icans. Most importantly, the President recognized the important role that recreational fishing plays in strength- ening communities and contributing to the economy. With confusion still swirling around the President’s Nation- al Oceans Policy, this could be a signif- icant statement. Most recently, Dr. Lubchenco at- tended a meeting hosted by CCA Louisiana this spring to discuss the region’s recovery from the Gulf oil spill and commended CCA for its leader- ship and habitat restoration work dur- ing and after that disaster.
Even her harshest critics would be
hard pressed to find another Adminis- trator who has ever engaged the recreational angling community to this degree.
Nonetheless, this community has
been more than a little reluctant to sing Dr. Lubchenco’s praises, and it stems from the fact that while the new tune from the Administrator is somewhat encouraging, the same old song still seems to be emanating from NOAA Fisheries, the agency buried within NOAA that makes the decisions that directly impact anglers through the fishery management councils. It is impossible to change the direc- tion of an agency overnight, especially one that is so haunted by the ghost of the Bureau of Commercial Fisheries. However, Dr. Lubchenco,
from her
words and actions so far, seems to see a better course for recreational fisheries. The question is, when will the ship respond to her commands? With highly unpopular proposals like splitting the recreational sector into private boat and for-hire/headboat cat- egories and enacting catch share pro-
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grams for recreational fisheries still percolating along at the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council, for example, it is hard to tell if the Administrator’s message of being a partner to anglers is filtering all the way down. Congress, four Gulf state governors and the recreational angling community have all voiced opposition to catch shares, especially in recreation- al fisheries — why is that still in play? When NOAA staff continues to
instruct the Councils to use past catch history to set allocations for fisheries because “there is not enough time” to follow the agency’s own guidelines to use modern economic, social and con- servation criteria, it is easy to believe it is business as usual at the Councils no matter who is in the wheelhouse. And almost every recreational fish- ery debacle today is tied somehow to a data issue — either there is not enough of it or it is too old to be useful. It is easy to see why when you look at where NOAA Fisheries is focusing its attention. In the North Pacific and the North Atlantic, the agency does rough- ly 65-70 stock assessments every year on fisheries that are overwhelmingly commercial. For the entire Gulf of Mexico, South Atlantic and Caribbean, where recreational fisheries dominate, the agency does about six per year. The apparent disconnect between
what the Administrator says and what NOAAFisheries does makes it difficult to see how things are getting better for recreational anglers. The keys to recre- ational fisheries are reallocation and gathering better data to create well- managed fisheries that make economic sense for the country, conservation sense for the resource and common sense for anglers. When those compo- nents begin to fall into place, there is no doubt this community would have a better attitude toward federal fisheries management.
Until then, we’ll continue to want to believe. TIDE
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