There’s
a new buzzword circulating throughout the recreational fishing community of
late; a word that’s actively being embraced by many saltwater anglers because
of its simple, seemingly straightforward connotation that gives those who speak
it a sense of ample warmth and coziness.
That
word is abundance.
Recently,
the Recreational Fishing Alliance (RFA) issued a bulletin encouraging saltwater anglers
and industry representatives to participate in an ongoing national saltwater
recreational fisheries policy discussion with NOAA Fisheries. At the same time, members of the environmental
business community have tried to keep anglers away from the active discussion,
calling the NOAA meetings “a lot of
wasted time and effort,” while supporting an end to “liberal size, season and bag limits” as if U.S. recreational
anglers somehow were hoping for even more restrictive seasons on cod, haddock,
summer flounder, black sea bass, and red snapper.
These
individuals who work for the environmental organizations – whether salaried
directly by Pew Environment Group and Environmental Defense Fund, or simply working
via one of their heavily funded offshoots – are running a ‘name game’ against
individual anglers, urging them to pay no attention to the man behind the
curtain but instead to listen to the words of the great and mighty wizard of
environmental oddity.
“The last thing you want to do attend one of those irritating meetings,”
is what one Environmental Defense Fund advisor and regional fishery management
council member advises his followers, explaining that the political process of
open dialog is “too much like work.” Instead, this full-time environmental grant
administrator and anti-industry leader is telling his loyal subjects to just
stay home and “take five or 10 minutes
tops, to submit a note about how you want the recreational fishing policy,
first and foremost, to emphasize managing for abundance.”
So,
what is abundance exactly?
Actually,
Oceans of Abundance was originally an
‘action agenda’ developed by Environmental Defense Fund, Marine Conservation
Biology Institute, and the World Wildlife Fund, with financial support from the
Walton Family Foundation. According to the
Oceans of Abundance final report, to
achieve a certain level of abundance
in U.S. fisheries, the Environmental Defense Fund coalition group says “President Obama should ensure that all
federal fishery management plans are evaluated for catch shares by 2012, and
that at least 50% of federal fishery management plans feature catch share management
by 2016.”
Furthermore,
Environmental Defense Fund states in their Oceans
of Abundance final report that “the
U.S. Congress should ease bottlenecks in order to achieve the President’s goal
by passing legislation to require that catch shares be considered in all
fishery management plans by 2012.”
In
other words, Environmental Defense Fund and its lobbyists, advisors, funding
recipients, general minions and peculiar bedfellows simply want saltwater
anglers from every walk of life to ask NOAA Fisheries for a policy directive
that would consider placing all fishery management plans in the United States
under a catch share program designed to ‘cap’ fishing participation and ‘trade’
access rights amongst individuals hand-selected to own the resource.
That
means fish tags, auction houses, and state-run access lotteries as our future
of recreational fishing, all in the name of abundance!
You
can view the document for yourself at http://www.edf.org/sites/default/files/oceans-of-abundance.pdf - it’s part of the entire
Environmental Defense Fund catch share movement that has led to the funding of
groups like the Gulf of Mexico Reef Shareholders Alliance and the Charter
Fishermen’s Association, as well as the recent lawsuit to enforce a nine-day
red snapper season upon recreational anglers.
Thanks to Environmental Defense Fund, catch share champion Dr. Jane Lubchenco
was appointed to NOAA Fisheries during President Obama’s first term, and we are
now facing new sector separation mechanisms to divide the recreational fishing
community into bits and pieces because of the insidious appointments of ideologues
posing as fishermen to regional fisheries councils in the United States.
In
other words, asking for abundance is
another way of saying ‘please, take away
my right to fish.’
I
know it sounds good when presented by well-spoken, hip conservationists who
claim to be friend to both fish and fisherman.
Ripping a page from the 21st century progressive’s handbook,
these angling elite tear into the fishing industry, demonizing those who earn
profit in some way, shape or form from the harvest of fish, while pledging to build
our oceans to levels of abundance
never seen in our lifetime on behalf of the ‘99’ percenters who apparently struggle
to catch even a single fish in these dire environmental times.
Anyone
who has spent significant time on the water during the past 30 or 40 years will
freely admit that the environmental movement of the 1970’s and the enactment of
federal fisheries laws during that decade have led to many success stories in
coastal fisheries. And while mostly
cyclical, the fishing (when we’re allowed by law) today and overall state of
our coastal waters is far better in 2014 than it was during the second part of
the 20th century, but that matters little to the environmental
hipsters masquerading as nuts and bolts fishermen.
The
soothsayers of the conservation movement readily admit that “we have to comply with federal fisheries law
anyway,” which makes the entire abundance
argument that much more ridiculous. Fact
is, the federal fisheries law (Magnuson Stevens Act) was originally enacted in
1976 to
ensure fishery resources were managed
for the greatest overall benefit to the nation, particularly with respect to
providing food production and recreational opportunities here in the United
States. By law, those two words – FISHERY and RESOURCES –
have very specific meanings when it comes to managing our federal fisheries for
continuing sustainability.
By
NOAA Fisheries’ legal definition, resources are “a natural source of wealth and revenue,” including “anything that has value; living and
nonliving components of nature such as fish, oil, water, and air.” At the same time, NOAA says “a fishery is an activity leading to
harvesting of fish.” As much as the
progressives would like you to believe that ‘fish’ should have no economic value,
the fact that they DO have intrinsic worth by law is precisely the reason why
they’ve been protected and conserved with such vigor and tenacity during the
past 38 years.
By
the very basic tenets of the Magnuson Stevens Act, our nation’s fishery
resources are managed under something called Optimum Yield, which is defined as
“the harvest level for a species that
achieves the greatest overall benefits, including economic, social, and
biological considerations.” Optimum
Yield is the annual ‘yield’ of harvest which in turn provides for the greatest
overall benefit to the nation in terms of the wealth, revenue and continued
sustainability of our nation’s fisheries.
Economic, social and biological in turns means fish, fishermen and the
fishing industry (coincidentally, much in line with the stated mission of the Recreational Fishing Alliance).
Under
those very definitions, rebuilding fish stocks while denying fishermen access
is actually a violation of the federal law originally intended to foster robust
coastal fishing opportunities. And
asking NOAA Fisheries to manage our recreational fishing community for abundance in turn is asking for
something which in turn violates federal law.
The
‘fish first’ conservationists are talking a good game and leading some folks to
believe that oceans of abundance will
punish greedy business owners while leaving more fish in the ocean to catch,
but it’s really just a ploy to build support for reduced fishing participation
through shortened seasons and bag limits.
“It's all psychological,” says Mayor Vaughn in Jaws, “You yell ‘barracuda,’ everybody says, ‘Huh?
What?’ You yell ‘shark,’ we've got a panic on our hands on the Fourth of July.”
The
word ‘overfishing’ is like that word shark, or cancer…they’re terms that strike
fear into the hearts of men.
Abundance? Heck, that’s like
asking to cuddle a puppy, or for another slice of apple pie for crying out loud
– and who’s opposed to cuddly puppies?!?!
As
a saltwater angler, before you go sending an email to NOAA Fisheries in request
of abundance just because some well-heeled
light tackle and fly guy suggested you do so, consider this scenario. In the summer flounder fishery, the
commercial sector gets 60% of the annual harvest, while the recreational
community gets 40%. If commercial folks
manage for ‘optimum yield’ they’ll
use 100% of their quota; yet if the recreational community wants to manage for
‘abundance’ does that mean that we’ll
opt to use only 50% of our allotted quota in order to build fish stocks?
Is
that what we expect of our regional council members in terms of a vote? We have an increasing abundance of red
snapper in the Gulf of Mexico, yet saltwater anglers are incensed at the lack
of access while the shoreside businesses are collapsing. Pragmatically speaking, that means the
Magnuson Stevens is failing.
Of
course, abundance in the recreational
sector should make the commercial guys pretty happy. By taking a deeper than required harvest cut
this season, it would mean more abundant fish stocks, so that next season our
combined quotas will be larger and the commercial fishermen can harvest more of
the fish (optimum yield), while I guess we would take yet another precautionary
cutback (abundance).
Here’s
the bottom line – managing for abundance
sounds wonderful. Theoretically
speaking, in fisheries like tarpon, bonefish, permit, and even Atlantic marlin,
managing for abundance is fairly easy
considering the lack of commercial pressure in these fisheries. However, in mixed-used stocks like snapper,
flounder, grouper and sea bass, abundance
is simply a buzzword created by Environmental Defense Fund to manipulate
the conservation ethic of saltwater sportsmen; to once again steal that
conservation moniker in the name of grand theft fisheries which will only lead
to reduced angler access and a collapsed recreational fishing industry.
Be
proud of the economic output that you provide this nation as a hardcore
saltwater angler; remind your member of Congress, as well as the guy down the
street, that when you fish it keeps people working. Fish within the law, keep only that which you
plan to consume, and respect the resource - but don’t allow elite
conservationists to make you feel guilty about taking home a legal, sustainable
American fish for the dinner table.
Beyond
everything else, don’t let some zealot put words in your mouth; tell the
federal government what you want as a
saltwater angler, not what someone else tells you to want.
Don’t
buy into the abundance of crap that these
sharks are selling; they smell blood in the water already, and now they’re looking
for the big kill!
