CASTING OFF: MARITIME NEWS

The battle over offshore bottom fishing comes home to Charleston this month when the South Atlantic Fisheries Management Council meets Sept. 14-18 in Charleston.

The meeting will pit angry fishermen from South Carolina, Georgia and Florida against government fishery managers shaping a plan to ban red snapper catches and severely curtail fishing for grouper off the entire Southeast coast.

The meeting is open to the public, and will include informal Q&A sessions with top fisheries mangers as well as public comment periods.

One of the most contentious aspects of the plan — collectively named amendments 17A and 17B to the Snapper Grouper Fishery Management Plan — features various alternatives for closing off vast swaths of ocean to recreational and commercial bottom fishing. Some alternatives bring this no-fishing zone close to the Lowcountry coast, others relegate it to waters off Georgia and northern Florida.

Whichever alternative the council eventually adopts, provided they stick within the confines of the current proposal, the move would send ripple effects well beyond recreational offshore anglers. Tackle shops, charter fishing companies, commercial snapper grouper operations, seafood retailers, restaurants and state law enforcement agencies could all feel the bite from such a ban. Even dive shops would be touched by the decision, though perhaps beneficially; all the current alternatives exempt spearfishing from the ban on bottom fishing, so many traditional hook-and-line anglers might take up diving.

The council, which is based in Charleston, has not endorsed a particular alternative, but could at its September meeting. A more likely outcome would entail council developing a draft amendment that includes some or all of those alternatives, then making a final decision after public hearings are held over the next few months, said Robert Boyles, deputy director of marine resources for the S.C. Department of Natural Resources and a voting member of the SAFMC.

“The council needs to hear from the people on the issues on red snapper,” Boyles said.

Boyles, who represents South Carolina on the SAFMC, said he has not decided which alternative he will support but would prefer to limit the ban to “the smallest area possible to end the overfishing, so we’re not just completely decimating fishing in the region.”

“It’s going to be tough,” he said, to “balance the need to take care of business but also be sensitive that this is going to be very, very disruptive, not only to commercial sector, but also the recreational and the for-hire sectors.”

If the council does not pick an alternative at the Charleston meeting, it could at meetings in either December or March, Boyles said.

From there, SAFMC’s draft amendment would go to the National Marine Fisheries Service and eventually the Secretary of Commerce. If approved at all levels, the new snapper-grouper restrictions could go into effect next year.

“A bycatch problem”

The SAFMC began developing Amendment 17 in 2008, under pressure to meet the mandates of a revamped Magnuson-Stevens Act, the nation’s top fishery management law. This new and stronger version of Magnuson-Stevens requires the nation’s regional fishery management councils to establish measures to end overfishing and rebuild overfished stocks by 2010. This effort must include annual catch limits and accountability measures which cannot exceed the recommendations of the councils’ scientific committees.

Simply put, by enacting a tougher national fishery management law, Congress now holds bureaucrats’ feet to the fire when it comes to overfishing. The law requires that once scientists determine that a species is in serious trouble, officials must act quickly, despite political pressure from anglers to do otherwise.

Popular bottom fish such as vermilion snapper, black seabass and gag grouper were among the first species to fall into this legislative hopper. Over the past few years, these tougher federal mandates have forced the SAFMC to develop a series of tighter bottom fishing regulations, some of which are now being enforced by state and federal wildlife agents patrolling the waters off Charleston.

Some rules tightened bag limits and established closed seasons for many species of grouper. Another measure closed a long-standing loophole that has allowed anglers and charter boat operators with state-issued “land-and-sell” permits to sell individual bag-limits worth of snapper-grouper catches to seafood wholesalers.

The onslaught of restrictions has been blamed partly for the decimation of the commercial fishing industry and “head boat” tourism business in the Lowcountry. Charter boat captains say they’re getting squeezed out, and recreational fishermen say they no longer can make trips worthwhile.

The changes also spawned heated debate at fishery management meetings, various online petitions against the new rules and at least one lawsuit, filed in Florida.

The issue heated up even further once council turned its attention to red snapper. According to council scientists, red snapper have been overfished since 1970, and are still being overfished at about eight times the sustainable limit. A stock assessment completed in 2008 through the Southeast Data, Assessment and Review (SEDAR) process found that the total mortality of red snapper must be reduced 85 percent in order to end overfishing.

In response to these scientific findings, the SAFMC proposed an “interim rule” that would temporarily ban all recreational and commercial red snapper catches for up to one year, giving the council time to develop permanent measures. The National Marine Fisheries Service is currently considering the interim rule. If approved, the closure is likely to begin in October.

Simply banning red snapper fishing, however, would not solve the problem, according to government scientists. Statistics seem to indicate that in order to reach an 85 percent drop in total mortality of red snapper, the council would have to ban virtually all types of bottom fishing where red snapper are most concentrated.

“The red snapper problem,” Boyles explained, “is a bycatch problem.”

Most red snapper are caught in waters relatively deep, typically 90 to 200 feet off Charleston. Even if a fish is released, it’s likely to die due to the changes in pressure from being brought to the surface from such depths. And since there’s no practical way to keep a red snapper from biting a bait meant for another species of fish, the only way to ensure red snapper aren’t killed is to stop to that kind of fishing altogether. This is why spearfishing would still be allowed under the plan — divers pick out specific fish to shoot, so there wouldn’t be much chance of red snapper bycatch.

Many anglers throughout the Southeast, including a strong contingent of Lowcountry offshore fishermen, balk at the government’s plan. They argue that red snapper catches have improved over the years, thanks to regulations that went into effect in the 1990s. Many also question the government’s data on catch and release mortality, along with new government findings about snapper population’s age structure.

In an interview earlier this year, 28-year-old recreational fisherman Wes Covington of Norway said red snapper are “in better condition now than they’ve been in my entire lifetime,” and that skilled anglers can often “limit out” on snapper in a matter of minutes off Charleston.

Government scientists and conservation groups, however, argue that this perceived increase in snapper catches is simply the result of a few good years of snapper reproduction and that the population lacks the larger fish, which are more prolific breeders.

Faced with the complicated issues specific to red snapper, the SAFMC decided during its June meeting in Stuart, Fla., to divide Amendment 17 into separate parts, 17A and 17B. Red snapper management measures will be addressed in 17A, while 17B will include measures to address nine other species: golden tilefish, snowy grouper, speckled hind, warsaw grouper, black grouper, black sea bass, gag, red grouper, and vermilion snapper.

The amendments will remain on similar timelines for development.

“These are new days”

The drastic tightening of regulations governing all types of bottom fishing, along with other management initiatives currently under development, have left anglers and policy makers scratching their heads. No matter what council does in regard to red snapper, most people familiar with fishery management issues expect drastic changes to the status quo over the next few years.

At a recent Q&A discussion of the issues hosted by The Coastal Conservation Association South Carolina, CCA Atlantic States Fisheries Director Richen Brame predicted the commercial pursuit of snapper and grouper would become a “boutique industry,” with fewer boats and higher prices for such seafood.

The regulations governing recreational offshore bottom fishing, he said, could eventually resemble those governing waterfowl hunting: Anyone wanting to catch and keep grouper or snapper would have to comply with a collection of state and federal regulations, there will be specific types of tools and techniques allowed, and there would be a very limited season.

State and federal agencies also face an uncertain future when it comes to enforcing this bevy of new laws, particularly potential area closures related to red snapper.

After all, if catching grouper and snapper is banned in some areas but not in others, how would officers checking boats at the dock know where an angler caught a fish? And would anglers near closed areas shift their efforts into areas just outside the closed areas?

Some worry that such logistical challenges may reignite a push for federally mandated vessel monitoring systems for commercial and recreational boats, so fishery managers could track where and when anglers of all kinds are fishing.

Such issues are sure to keep fishery managers stuck between a rock and a hard place for some time to come.

“We are constantly trying to balance the need to protect the fish with the question of how much government is too much government,” Boyles said.

“These are new days, and I don’t think anything is off the table.”

Fisheries meeting

The South Atlantic Fishery Management Council will meet Sept. 14-18 at the Charleston Marriott Hotel, 170 Lockwood Blvd., Charleston.

The meeting is open to the public and will include informal Q&A sessions with top fisheries mangers as well as public comment periods.

For a more detailed agenda, call 866-SAFMC-10 or visit safmc.net.

Monday, Sept. 14

1:30-4 p.m. Limited Access Privilege Program Committee

4-5 p.m. Spiny Lobster Committee

Tuesday, Sept. 15

8:30-10:30 a.m. Mackerel Committee

10:30-noon Joint Executive/Finance Committee

1:30-3 p.m. Law Enforcement Committee

3-5 p.m. Snapper Grouper Committee

Wednesday, Sept. 16

8 a.m.-5 p.m. Snapper Grouper Committee

5:30 p.m. Informal Public Q&A Session

Thursday, Sept. 17

8:30 -10 a.m. Joint Ecosystem-Based Management and Habitat Committee

10-11 a.m. Golden Crab Committee

11 a.m.-noon Dolphin Wahoo Committee

2 p.m. Open Public Comment

4 p.m. Public Comment on Ecoystem-Based Amendment 1 (deepwater coral)

1:30-6 p.m. Council Session

Friday, Sept. 18

8:30 a.m.-noon Council Session

To reach Tideline Senior Editor Matt Winter, e-mail matt@tidelinemagazine.com or call 843-937-5568.