THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, November 6, 1994 TAG: 9411050705
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY CHRISTOPHER DINSMORE, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 204 lines
For the first time in years, Walter Tate didn't skipper a trawler to Massachusetts to drag for flounder.
He canceled the annual fishing expedition, not because of a lack of fish but because of a morass of regulations.
``We took a couple of months off this summer because it wasn't worth going up north,'' he said.
Instead, Tate gave up two months of income and lived off his savings because of a federally mandated flounder quota that would have required him to make costly trips back home to North Carolina to unload his catch. Massachusetts landing limits were too small.
Tate, captain of the trawler Theresa Marie, based in Wanchese, N.C., and others in the commercial fishing industry say the flounder quota is too low and unwisely applied, if not unnecessary. The flounder stock has rebounded since its 1989 collapse, they argue, and restrictions on the catch should be eased.
But the government says the stock hasn't been given a chance to rebound. Stock assessments show a dwindling, decimated and overfished flounder population.
Whatever the truth about the flounder stock, the quota has cut into the incomes and livelihoods of the fishermen who rely on the bottom-dwelling flatfish. Packing houses that count on flounder as one of their most consistent products and the charter boat operators and tackle shop owners who cater to the recreational flounder fishermen are also smarting financially from the restrictions.
It's a classic debate pitting resource conservation against economic livelihoods, not unlike the decade-long dispute between Chesapeake Bay watermen and Virginia fishery regulators.
On one side come scientists, armed with statistics, fighting to preserve the summer flounder species. On the other are desperate fishermen armed with experience and intuition struggling to feed their families.
It's a debate that resounds with acrimony. The government says the stock is overfished. Commercial fishermen say the government doesn't know what it's talking about and is practicing bad science.
Both are trying to determine the total state of the summer flounder stock based on their own limited samples. The scientists have their statistically defensible random sampling. The fishermen navigate coastal waters hunting the fish as they've done it all their lives. The fishermen say they know where to look, so it's only natural that they catch whatever flounder are out there.
The recreational fishermen weigh in on the side of the government, accusing commercial fishermen of decimating the flounder stock. Flounder are more valuable as a sport fish, anglers argue, than as a crop harvested by a relative few commercial operators.
``It's a big rodeo out there to see who can catch the most fish,'' said Bob Pride, state chairman of the Atlantic Coast Conservation Association of Virginia, which represents recreational fishermen.
The anglers back up their argument with numbers.
In Virginia, recreational fishing contributes about $400 million annually, a lot of that in tourism. By contrast, commercial fishing injects about $250 million into the state economy each year.
For years the regulatory pendulum swung in favor of the commercial fishermen, and they were given free rein to haul fish from the seas. Population after population collapsed as overfishing took its toll.
The pendulum stared swinging the other way - toward conservation - as the government stepped in and imposed quotas on some fisheries and even shut down others. Now the commercial fishermen argue that pendulum has swung too far, particularly on the flounder issue.
At least one federal court seems to agree.
U.S. District Judge Robert G. Doumar ruled Oct. 28 that the government had erred too far on the side of conservation without proper consideration of the impact on the fishermen. He ordered the Commerce Department's National Marine Fisheries Service to roll back the 1994 commercial flounder fishing quota to about 19 million pounds from about 16 million pounds.
At the root of the debate is the difficulty assessing any given underwater population - whether summer flounder or some other species such as oysters. Conflicts arise when the government uses specious data to set catch limits.
``Quota setting, and everybody admits it, is an imperfect science,'' Doumar said. JUST NOT WORTH IT
Summer flounder range from the Carolinas to New England, following a temperature band north in the summer and south in the winter. Federal regulations give each coastal state a portion of the quota based on what their fishermen have caught in the past.
North Carolina and Virginia received nearly half the quota because their boats are among the biggest and most active in the fishery. North Carolina and Virginiatrawlers follow the flounder and used to go to the nearest ports to land their catch.
The quota up north fills quickly. That means fishermen from the south have to make a long trip home to land their catch in Virginia or North Carolina, where the quota is still open.
The North Carolina quota stays open the longest because the waters of Oregon Inlet are so treacherous. Many North Carolina trawlers land their catch in Virginia because it's easier.
Late last year Wanchese Fish Co. had two boats run aground trying to get into Oregon Inlet because North Carolina was the only state with an unfilled quota, said Tim Daniels, vice president of the fishing company.
Tate said, ``The quota has got things really screwed-up. It's not fair.''
The government should set a coastwide quota, he and others in the industry believe.
But such a quota would be unenforceable. The fisheries service relies on the states to interpret and enforce their portions of the quota. Different states apply the quota differently.
``It puts different states' fishermen at odds with each other,'' Tate said.
It also kept him from going north this summer.
Massachusetts wouldn't let commercial fishermen land more than 100 pounds of flounder at a time. Tate's 90-foot boat can land 1,000 times that. The state limited catches to preserve its allocation of the quota for its native small-boat fishing fleet.
For Tate it wasn't worth hauling a bigger catch south to a state that would allow a bigger landing. DATA NOT GOOD ENOUGH
Scientists admit they are far from certain about stock size, rate of population growth, called recruitment by scientists, and the impact of other environmental factors, the judge said in his ruling. ``Species may become extinct for reasons unconnected to human factors.''
The government concedes the quota is imperfect, but it's the best method available.
``The problem is we're sitting here in mid- to late '94, using data from 1993, trying to predict what's going to happen in 1995,'' said David Keifer, executive director of the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council, a combined federal and state board that recommends quotas to the fisheries service.
``We know the fishermen are out there saying there are a lot of fish,'' Keifer said. ``They sure are filling the quotas quickly. Maybe recruitment is better than our data shows it is, but we have to use the best available scientific data and that's what we have.''
The fishery council's assessment shows that flounder stocks were down last year from 1992.
At a Tuesday meeting in Norfolk, the council will likely approve its recommendation of a 27 percent decrease in the 1995 flounder quota to 19.4 million pounds. The catch would be split 60-40 between the commercial and sport fisheries.
Federal judge Doumar criticized as deficient the survey the government used to set the 1994 quota. One major flaw was the government's disregard for the importance of sea-surface temperature to flounder populations.
``The issue around how you generate a number estimating stock is by no means a simple one,'' said Roger Mann, a marine biologist with the Virginia Institute of Marine Science who is embroiled in a similar debate about oysters in the Chesapeake Bay.
One way a stock assessment survey may be skewed is by failing to sample appropriate undersea layers, or strata.
``How you define your stratification is up to you - you can do it by temperature bands, depth, any number of variables,'' Mann said. `It comes back to the question of what is the best strata to use.''
Government biologists select random survey points within particular geographic strata. By contrast, commercial fishermen use sea-surface temperature to locate flounder.
``I just don't think the federal government has a very accurate count of flounders,'' said Tate, who's been fishing 42 of his nearly 62 years. ``We've got a lot of people in the fishery that don't know what they're doing.'' LEAVE IT TO NATURE
Flounder, like many other sea dwellers in decline, will rebound - naturally - without major government interference, commercial fishermen argue. The summer flounder is a remarkably fertile fish, they say. The stock can rejuvenate itself in two or three years. A single female can produce a tremendous number of spawn, which grow to adult size in a little more than a year.
Commercial fishermen say they're already seeing strong signs of a flounder resurgence.
``I don't believe the flounder stock's in as much trouble as it was two or three years ago,'' said Tony Penello, a Norfolk-based flounder fisherman and captain of the 100-foot trawler Anthony Anne. ``I believe right now the flounder fishery's coming back.''
Penello attributes the comeback, in part, to wise government regulation. A large net mesh size, mandated first by Virginia and later the federal government, lets the majority of young adult flounder escape. Sea turtle excluders are also allowing some bigger flounder to escape too, fishermen say.
Despite these gains, government scientists keep coming back with weak stock assessments, which frustrate fishermen.
The biggest problem is the number of year classes they are finding. There appear to be a lot of 1- and 2-year-old fish but not enough adult flounder out there spawning, regulators say.
``It's as if the fish spawn, they grow up and as soon as they hit 13 or 14 inches - the catch size limit - they're cropped off by the fishery,'' said Jack Travelstead, chief of fisheries for the Virginia Marine Resources Commission, the state's fishing regulatory body. ``This past spawn as I understand it was very poor.''
But this too goes back to how they survey to come up with the numbers to set the quota.
While some fishermen like Tate believe they aren't hurting the stocks, others in the industry concede the need for some level of management.
``There's no question some management is needed,'' said Charles R. Amory Jr., president and owner of L.D. Amory Co. Inc., a Newport News fish-packing plant that counts on flounder for a significant portion of its revenues.
``What they're trying to do is good,'' said Daniels, vice president of Wanchese Fish Co., which operates packing plants in Hampton and Wanchese and has about 20 affiliated trawlers. ``I don't want to see my fishery go to pot. I've been here 30 years. I want to be here 30 years from now.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
DREW C. WILSON/Staff
Walter Tate, captain of the trawler Theresa Marie in Wanchese, N.C.,
is one of the commercial fishermen upset by the government's
flounder quota. The quota has cut into the livelihoods of fishermen
who depend on flounder.
by CNB