THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, December 31, 1995 TAG: 9512280641
SECTION: CAROLINA COAST PAGE: 05 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Letter
LENGTH: Medium: 92 lines
The recent fishing series by The Virginian-Pilot hopefully was as informative to others as it was for me. As a commercial fisherman, I became aware that not only do I need to be a member of the North Carolina Fisheries Association, but also possibly the National Rifle Association, since several area tackle shop owners see the need to carry guns ``just in case.'' Paranoia is often contagious, and I can only hope their intent is to keep the peace on Cape Point during a drum blitz rather than possibly aim at me.
Anyway, other than such drivel, I thought the series tried to be both objective and informative, although I do have a few problems with it. First, as an adviser to the ASMFC Weakfish Board, I am tiring of our fisheries being constantly classified as ever-dwindling and equated to the New England groundfish crisis. Phil Coates, director of the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries, was to my knowledge the first to compare weakfish as the ASMFC's groundfish and thus preach of impending doom. To compare is ridiculous. The differing biologies between each area's species won't allow it.
Second, New England has a crisis that preceded the Magnasun Act in 1976. This act excluded foreign vessels, right? No, they just created joint ventures with a burgeoning fleet of domestic vessels that supplied full tail bags to foreign factory ships. Add to that McDonald's fish fillet, supermarket fish sticks and the fresh markets, and you have a recipe for disaster. The equipment instrumental in this destruction was a fleet of about 450 vessels out of Gloucester, Mass., with more than 100 of these vessels more than 100 feet in length.
Conversely, weakfish (a species our state catches 70 percent of) in their peak of 1980 had perhaps 100 gillnetters and 50 trawlers, which quickly dwindled by 1989 to but 12 to 15 trawlers and 25 gillnetters. The various fisheries agencies would have you believe the reason for the dwindling effect was directly related to the stocks or lack thereof. Actually, it was simple supply and demand, coupled with developing fisheries that allowed diversification, which, in effect, created a catch-22. Fewer boats fishing for weakfish meant fewer landings, which, according to the feds, meant impending problems. Hence, the EEZ Moratorium Proposal on weakfish. They claim that the moratorium was not solely based on landings, even though anytime you pick up a paper they base their reasons on declining landings.
To be fair, in this year's stock assessment, they studied 17 juvenile indexes the ASMFC and NMFS used to evaluate the present situation. Of these, they used five to make their case for a need for the moratorium. Of the 17 indexes, five showed a decline, 12 showed an increase and nine were above the historical mean. Need I tell you which five they used to make their case? Little wonder our fisheries association and states' Division of Marine Fisheries has chosen to challenge NMFS in court for impermissibly biased and selectively using data to further their agenda.
If I sound less than in awe of the feds' fisheries science. . . . At a recent board meeting of the ASMFC, they were having a problem assessing how to evaluate the mortality within the weakfishery. So how did they solve it? They took a vote, which led me to question whether I was in ninth grade biology or political science 101. Does it sound like a science or an assumption?
Don't get me wrong. As fishermen, we are not against sensible regulation, but when we see the ulterior motives that fuel such processes, we chafe. With weakfish, the intent is to reintroduce the species to 1980 levels of citation-sized fish from Delaware Bay north. For the record, Massachusetts, the state most vocal in this process, caught not one metric ton commercially between 1949 and 1971. Furthermore, considering their own ineptitude at fisheries management, do they deserve any? Conversely, cod, which is the mainstay of the groundfishery, is listed in the Encyclopedia Britannica as ranging from Cape Hatteras northward. If you think they are concerned about reintroducing cod to the outer limits of their range (North Carolina), you are as crazy as they would be to want to share their bluefin quota with us.
Finally, as was stated in the series, commercial fishermen are universally convinced of cycles. To make my case for this, I again point to weakfish as well as the Atlantic croaker. Keeping in mind that there has been no management plan prior to the present attempts, I point to my benchmark year of 1967. That year was the lowest for weakfish landings since the beginning of record keeping, which dates back over 100 years. It is but 13 short years between my benchmark year and NMFS's of 1980, or 3.1 million pounds to 36 million pounds, all without a management plan. If you still have doubt, then let's talk croakers. Six years ago, nobody would have had a problem convincing a waterman that there might be a problem in this fishery.
Today, we fear they are going to eat the keels off of our boats. Likewise with spot, which still are listed as threatened.
The bottom line is this: The next time a fisherman or Damon Tatem in his fishing report mention how good the fishing was that day, please just explain to them that it must be a figment of their imagination. Why? The government says so!
Happy New Year and good fishing!
Jeff Oden
Hatteras by CNB