SFA Statement opposing Red Snapper ban
SOUTHEASTERN FISHERIES ASSOCIATION INC.
Tel 850/224-0612 Fax850/222-3663
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July 24, 2009
NOAA FisheriesService
Southeast Regional Office
Sustainable Fisheries Division
St. Petersburg
Ref: Public comment on a proposed rule (74 FR 31906) to implement interim management measures to reduce overfishing of red snapper in the
Greetings:
Southeastern Fisheries Association (SFA) is a 501 (c) 6, fisheries trade association founded in 1952, in
We submit these comments knowing that input from the fishing/seafood industry rarely changes the outcome of a Council/NMFS initiative once the decision has been made to adopt regulations reducing fishing. We are watching our once robust fishing industry in the southeast vanish because of flawed scientific data. Fix the stock assessment protocols and return to the scientific method,then we - the regulated - would change our opinion of NMFS science and its antiquated stock assessment system. There have been major technological improvements in the measuring of fish stocks since the enactment of M-S FCMA thirty-three years ago. Use them.
The managers,who make decisions on fish harvests, should not be in control of the scientific quality issues of the data they use in their decisions. The data collection should be under the oversight of independent academicians. We need checks and balances, and fear if this is not done and done soon, fisheries will become a chapter in the history books, rather than the proud and productive industry contributing important aspects of independence to the character of our society, putting heart-healthy seafood on menus across the nation, generating billions of dollars to our economy and reducing our trade deficit.
It is our conviction the red snapper ban is not justified because there is healthy recruitment and increasing numbers of older spawning fish in most areas we fish. We believe there is a necessity for major changes in the spatial characteristics of managing the red snapper because the current practice does not protect the spawning aggregations that we fish, which are likely to be distinct stocks.
Fishermen have historically caught large numbers of older spawning red snapper at several specific locations in the spring of each year, year after year, suggesting that these aggregations have unique site and timing fidelity for spawning,which with the above observations suggests there may be several distinct stocks within the management area that has been arbitrarily designed and used by NMFS. This should be the highest priority of research, and the research needs to be independent of the council.
We are and always have been in support of science-based management to maintain healthy fish stocks and sustain the industry and our livelihoods. However, even with continued compliance we have seen continued losses in both fish stocks and fisheries. This has made us take a harder look at what management has done to affect our once robust fishing industry. We make these specific points.
1. Based on the scientific information available to us, the red snapper ban proposed by the South Atlantic Council and NMFS is not justified. The data needed for stock assessment determination does not exist. Council staff has said as much in testimony before a national commission. Bad data creates bad decisions.
2. There are no facts on the number of red snapper stocks in the
3. NMFS conclusions based on bad data are used to develop models that cannot predict with any certainty the number offish there are, how old they are and what their relative abundance is now compared to five years ago, ten years ago or fifty years ago.
4. NMFS intends to implement red snapper regulations on the "best scientific information"available, but NMFS determines on their own what “best scientific information” is used, so peer review or independent evaluations don't occur until after the process is well on the way to conclusion.
5. The SEDAR process is so tightly managed that before stock assessment and other information is available to fishermen and NGO’s not part of the inner-circle, most decisions are practically cast in stone.
6. There are no checks and balances in the manner NMFS controls fishing from beginning to end. For instance:
1. NMFS screens council nominees submitted by Governors
2. NMFS recommends appointments to the Secretary of Commerce
3. NMFS conducts or pays selected grantees for desired research
4. NMFS interprets the research submitted to them
5. NMFS helps draft proposed fishery management regulations
6. NMFS interprets the management regulations they helped prepare
7. NMFS recommends regulations through the council process
8. NMFS approves or rejects council proposed regulations
9. NMFS enforces the regulations
10. NMFS administrative judges sentence violators of NMFS regulations
11. NMFS fines are placed in a seldom audited NMFS law enforcement fund
These comments are not aimed at individuals. They are aimed at the management process and policies put in place over the past decades because of voids in oversight not spelled out in law.
7. The current management system in the southeast uses defective stock assessments resulting in unfair and unnecessary regulations. This is what the southeastern fishing industry believes and will continue to believe until convinced otherwise by factual, peer-reviewed science.
8. The practical solution to the South Atlantic Council’s red snapper problem is to redo the assessment after correcting the selectivity problem and addressing the other issues raised by Dr. Frank Hester in his report submitted to the council during their June, 2009 meeting in
9. It’s possible to do this without missing the administrative deadlines. It’s unjust to even consider bad science to meet an arbitrary, one size fits all, deadline.
10. A second possible solution lies in the administrative interpretation that requires an approximation of K to be estimated and used as a “recovery” benchmark.
11. We applaud the decision to continue and expand the otoliths work in
12. The red snapper fishermen and many non-government scientists are convinced old and flawed data was used by the SSC and Council on which to base their conclusions to ban red snapper fishing.
13. The selected scientific data used to justify a red snapper ban does not reflect the actual sizes of red snapper and extent of biomass of red snapper available for sustainable harvest.
14. Use of commercial and large enough recreational fishing boats as platforms for acoustic surveys and sub-sampling acoustic targets for biological information has to be developed. How else can the spawning aggregations be measured on a routine basis?
15. Monitoring of the status of the fish stocks, their environment and change over time has been the responsibility of NMFS.This needs review and Congressional oversight.
16. The development of methods, and data analysis should be independent of NMFS control to avoid the perception, or reality, of their tweaking the science to accomplish a political or social goal.
17. One of my associates offered the following as an option to improve the system. It seems to be worth consideration and discussion.
Select a peer review team of experts to individually critique a new plan.
Revise the plan and bring the team together to discuss and fine tune.
Some key elements:
- Work with fishermen in local coastal areas in a comprehensive fashion.
- Use time-space coded echo-integration survey approach with fishermen to sea-truth acoustic data.
- Use local area expertise at as many coastal communities as necessary
- Expect a five year developmental period for basic approach for the easy species.
- Target large signal species first, or measure what you can because it is likely that it is affecting whatever you are interested in looking at for answers.
- Development of trophic structure model with large signal species, and hypotheses for testing of the effects of natural and anthropogenic factors.
- Definition of stocks, abundance and distributions, overlap, and spatially-temporally strategies for monitoring, and enhancing natural productivity.
- Development of in-season, empirical management methods
- Development and testing of specific stock models
- Identification of spawning and nursery areas for managing fishery.
- Identification of efficient species-specific, removal/harvest strategies
- Identification of dominant species dependencies, such as, prey importance and influence on the abundance of dominant predators, migration routes, etc.
18. Is it possible NMFS used a one stock assumption in the development of the stock assessment for
If there wasn’t a genetic stock structure, did NMFS assume none existed? As a colleague opined,“As to who knows the truth, or who has the correct intuition, it is probably the mossback fishermen, with their knowledge of the spawning aggregations because some of them may have been here when it started. Hence, the old-timers know some things that could be extremely important if we are ever going to restore fish stocks to highly productive status, and have prosperous fisheries.”
19. Another statement I received concerning the interim red snapper regulations asked, “You should be asking why anyone in the fish management or research business would not be trying like mad to find any possible way to get an accurate count of the fish? What kind of scientist or manager will accept and use "highly uncertain" data? Call it a politeness or etiquette or whatever you like, but it is basically "I won't be critical of you if you won't be critical of me." How did the fisheries discipline get this bad? How can scientists and managers not care about the quality of data, or even fail to understand the natural priority of abundance data in the learning process?” For red snapper it seems NMFS played an arbitrary game of setting harvest rates on fictitious stocks of unknown abundance. That’s the real problem.
20. What do we think is necessary to provide better science to better manage the fisheries? One associate offered,
- First, fishermen need to be interviewed who are willing to share information about when and where red snapper have spawned in the past. This information needs to be put into a GIS data base to support the following steps.
- Second, acoustic surveys of the past spawning areas will have to be planned; prioritized and implemented (this will include capturing fish for identification and demographics).
- Third, areas that are found to be holding spawners have to be established as annual survey sites to determine/document temporal and spatial fidelity and precision obtainable by repeating acoustic surveys.
- Fourth, if multiple spawning sites and timings are found, the fish captured at each location will need to be compared to identify any effects of segregated spawning, such as demographics, DNA, etc.
- Fifth, extent of the dispersal of spawning fish on feeding migrations will be determined by tagging studies.
- Sixth, catch reporting areas will be redefined for each unique group of spawning fish and quotas will be establish separately for each area based upon the precise estimate of fish that are in the area.
21. Weak and strong spawning stocks are a fact of life that management does not recognize. Identifying the spawning stocks, estimating their biomass and age structure, and documenting their fidelity in time and space are keys to fitting the management to the fishery in the future. It is not that difficult to accomplish
22. Many
23. Another associate said, “If you want to have prosperous fisheries, including snapper and grouper, you need to develop fishery independent surveys, spawner escapement practices, and ease the governments out of the preseason stock assessment business.” This surely seems worthy of discussion by a panel of scientists not paid by the Council.
24. The cost of lost jobs and income as a result of the proposed red snapper ban is the area of concern that received the least attention in the development of the red snapper ban. It’s as though the economic demise of fishermen or fishing related businesses has no validity in implementing a rule based on such inadequate science. People don’t seem to count in the equation.
25.
26. I could continue with numerous other points but conclude by respectfully requesting the Secretary of the US Commerce Department to send the Interim Red Snapper Plan back to the Council and continue with current management until a new stock assessment is completed under a protocol allowing full participation and transparency from beginning to end.
Respectfully submitted,
Bob Jones
Bob Jones,Executive Director
Southeastern Fisheries Association
850/224-0612
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