Anglers debate who's catching what: he said … she said …

Boat/US Magazine, Nov, 2004 by Ryck Lydecker

Call it "the cast heard 'round the fishing world."

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

A week before the big Labor Day sportfishing weekend, a Florida State University research report hit the air waves, laying greater blame for saltwater fish stock declines on recreational anglers than previously thought.

The study said that recreational fishing "accounts for nearly a quarter of the total take of overfished populations" and challenges the "conventional wisdom" that anglers take but a small portion of fish harvested.

Reported in the on-line version of Science magazine Aug. 26, to be printed in the prestigious peer-reviewed journal at a later time, the study concluded that recreational anglers take roughly 10% of total landings nationally. That number excludes species harvested exclusively by the commercial industry, like pollock and menhaden. For some of the most valuable species like red drum in the south Atlantic, red snapper in the Gulf of Mexico and bocaccio in the Pacific, the number rises to 56%, 59% and 87%, respectively.

The study, funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts, compared state and federal landings data for the past 22 years. In a press release, its lead author, Dr. Felicia Coleman, an FSU biologist, said "saltwater sportfishing's aggregate impact is far from benign."

And the media took the bait.

Newspapers, radio, TV and Internet news outlets nationwide covered the story. Opinions from various sides, as quoted in the resulting articles, ranged from an "it's about time" attitude from certain commercial fishing interests to a "this is nothing new" shrug from federal fishery managers to "this is nothing but junk science" from at least one recreational angling organization.

Jim Donofrio, executive director of the Recreational Fishing Alliance condemned the report as a politically motivated ploy to "force arbitrary no-fishing zones on the recreational fishing public.

"This paper will wind up in the briefing folders of Pew-funded lobbyists who are seeking to block the passage of the Freedom to Fish Act and to establish no-fishing zones." Donofrio said in a prepared statement.

The Recreational Fishing Alliance is lobbying for state and federal legislation to ensure that waters cannot be closed to anglers without credible scientific evidence that sportfishing is the cause of a population decline in a given area.

But the Coastal Conservation Association, a recreational fishing group with 15 state chapters from Texas to Maine, had a different take on the study.

"We agree with the overall point of the study," reports Ted Venker, a spokesman for CCA. "Recreational anglers are a large component of the total fishery management picture and we have argued for more than 20 years that anglers deserve more representation on the (federal fishery management) councils and more input to fishery management, in general."

Where's the Beef?

For his part, the government's chief fishery scientist says the study. The Impact of U.S. Recreational Fishing on Marine Fish Populations breaks no new ground.

"This study is based on an erroneous premise," reports Dr. Michael Sissenwine, director of scientific programs for the National Marine Fisheries Service. "It assumes that there is a perception in the management field that recreational fishing does not have an impact on fish stocks. That's just not true."

Recreational fishing has a significant impact, Sissenwine says, but managers take that into account when developing management plans and setting regulations, and have done so for years.

"I don't think the study offers anything new to the science of fishery management," Sissenwine adds.

Other management professionals think the study is downright disingenuous.

"One of the concerns I have with the research is that it suggests that these findings are somehow a surprise and that this reflects a failing in the management process," reports Eric Schwaab, former head of fisheries for the Maryland Dept. of Natural Resources who served on both the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission and the federal Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council. "We already know recreational landings are a big factor and that's why we account for sportfishing in overall management decisions."

One Fish, Two Fish

The study's author, Dr. Coleman, calls her work the first comprehensive analysis of the impact of saltwater sportfishing, which is based on analysis of 22 years of federal and state data for all federally managed fish. They found that recreational landings accounted for about 4% of total landings, not the 2% figure often quoted.

They then removed the commercial-only species to arrive at the conclusion that, in actuality, recreational fishing accounts for 10% of landings. After adjusting for what they called "gaps" in recreational fishing data, the researchers went on to look at species classified by the National Marine Fisheries Service as "overfished" or "experiencing overfishing."

Comparing figures for 2002 landings, the last year such statistics were available, they came up with the numbers that made headlines.