It seems amazing to those of us in the industry, but there is an obvious perception among the general public, that commercial fishing is insufficiently regulated, and because of it, the stocks of multiple marine species are either in a state of collapse, or being severely over fished. To understand how unfounded the perception is, it’s necessary to have some idea of the regulatory quagmire a person must wade through just to be a fisherman.
All across America, commercial fisheries are being plagued by a bewildering barrage of rules, regulations, paperwork, and bureaucracy. It would, however, be hard to imagine a local fishery anywhere, in which fishermen face a greater diversity of issues, and a more complex rules structure, than they do in the Florida Keys. Both fishermen and law enforcement are in a constant quandary over what is legal when – how much can be caught at a given time – what area a fish can be taken – what size in which zone – where a boat may be anchored or pass through – what equipment is required in which area – what report must be filed at what time, and by whom – which areas are off limits at what time – who can legally run a boat, and even who enforces what?
In the trapping industry alone, there are lobster traps, stone crab traps, fish traps, and golden crab traps – all regulated as separate fisheries. In the lobster fishery, there are also commercial divers, bully netters, drop netters, and a huge, clandestine, underwater habitat fishery. The net fisheries also include wrap around gill nets, shrimp nets, purse seine, and cast nets.
There are dozens of year round commercial fish species under intense regulation, including multiple varieties of snapper such as Yellowtail, Mangrove, Mutton, Red, Vermillion, Yellow-eye, Hambone, Dog, and Cubera. Groupers include Red, Black, Gag, Yellow-fin, Strawberry, and Scamp, and the deep water species of Snowy, Yellow-edge, Kitty Mitchell, and Warsau. Pelagic and seasonal fisheries include Kingfish, Mackerel, Cobia, Mahi-Mahi, Swordfish, Tuna, Pompano, and Trout. Then just for good measure, we have substantial fisheries in Grey and Golden Tile, Hogfish, Blue Runner, Porgy, Grunt, Amberjack, shark, and sponge, all with individual rules and permits attached to them.
Bait catching is another major fishery, so we have to have rules for Ballyhoo, Herring, Mahoa, Spanish Sardines, Mullet, Ladyfish, and live shrimp. Adding a little spice to the license buffet, are such boutique fisheries as live rock, and tropical fish. To more or less round out the list, we have species that were once thriving fisheries, but are currently off limits. Jewfish, Nassau Grouper, and Conch, could theoretically –though highly unlikely – be re-opened to some type of commercial catch, while Snook, Redfish and turtle will always be closed, but still need regulation and enforcement. In addition to hook and line, traps, and nets, fishery rules must also deal with commercial spear-fishing, long lines, deep drop rigs, bridge fishing, dip-netting for shrimp, live wells, and sponge hooks.
Once on the ocean, fishermen must be aware of the complex of regulations designed to limit their catch. There are species quotas and individual quotas, along with day limits and trip limits. There are seasonal closures, periodic closures, quota closures, and permanent closures. There are areas closed to fishing, areas closed to anchoring, and areas closed to gear types. In appropriate fisheries, boats are required to have Turtle Excluder Devices, venting tools, Vessel Monitoring Systems, live wells, or turtle release kits – all intended to limit catch, or protect untargeted species.
To add as much confusion as possible to the rules making and permitting processes, there are four major regulators of our commercial fishing effort in the Keys. All waters North of US 1, and West of Rebeccah Light – including Dry Tortugas – are governed by the Gulf of Mexico Fisheries Management Council. All area South of US 1, is considered ocean waters, and falls within the domain of the South Atlantic Fisheries Council. Florida, like all coastal states, controls all waters on the Atlantic side out to 3 miles, but to confuse just a little more, has the same authority out to 9 miles in the Gulf of Mexico. To throw one last little kink into the regulatory overlap, 3,000 sq miles of ocean – virtually all of our commercial fishing area – are under the absolute control of the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary.
Florida Keys fishermen, of necessity, must participate in multiple fisheries. They all require separate and costly permits, which must be renewed each year. The State of Florida requires all commercial fishermen to purchase a Saltwater Products License. However in order to be able to sell their catch, they must also have a sufficient amount of commercial fishing income, to qualify for a Restricted Species endorsement. The SPL and RS however, still do not allow you to sell anything without a species license. The State will, for example, issue you a lobster license, which then gives you the right to sell lobster to a licensed dealer.
But not so fast! In order to have something to sell, you must catch it first. Diving and trapping are the only practical, commercial methods of harvest for lobster, and each license presents a neat twist. To put out traps, you must purchase a certificate for each trap you wish to put in the water. When purchase price, transfer fees, and special taxes are added up, expect to pay about $60 per certificate. And, oh yes, the State takes 10% of your transferred certificates and eliminates them permanently from the fishery, and you must purchase a $1.00 tag for each trap, each year.
Of course you can always dive for lobster – except for one little thing. Yes! You must have a Commercial Dive license. In 2004, when the current dive license program was instituted, only those with a history of commercial diving could qualify. However, in one more little last minute catch that regulators are noted for, a person who had a history of both trapping and diving, had to make a choice between the two licenses. And, oh yeah! Those few dive licenses that were issued are non-transferable. So, no! You can not just buy one, and make money diving for lobster.
The State of Florida also issues such disparate licenses as Lobster, Stone Crab, Pompano, Sponge, Purse Seine, Live Shrimp, Blue Crab, and Marine Life. Each license has its own list of qualifiers, as well as multiple twists and turns in the individual permitting process. As a general rule, National Marine Fisheries, through National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, handles permitting for finfish species. However, the State of Florida will not allow a federally caught fish to be sold without a Florida license, and a fish caught in state waters cannot be sold without a federal license.
On the federal level, the typical Florida Keys fisherman must have separate licenses for Gulf Reef Fish, South Atlantic Snapper-Grouper, Kingfish, Dolphin-Wahoo, Red Snapper, Spanish Mackerel, and Lobster Tailing. Each federal license must be renewed yearly on the license holder’s birth date, and if not done on time, is forfeited. With each license, there are special requirements, such as Vessel Monitoring Systems on boats with a Gulf Reef License, a special photo ID card for Dolphin-Wahoo permit holders, and dozens of license specific restrictions such as; neither grouper nor Red Snapper can be caught in the Gulf of Mexico without possession of Individual Fishing Quotas.
Even on the ocean, fishermen are subject to multiple checks and searches. Because of our tropical climate, and our proximity to Cuba, it seems that every enforcement agency in the country has a reason for being in the Keys. We would assume that all fisheries in America are subject to being checked by the Coast Guard and marine enforcement officers. Patrolling the waters in the Keys however, are also U. S. Customs, Immigration and Naturalization, National Park Service, Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, Great Heron State Park officers, and Border Patrol, as well as a multiplicity of environmental activists, researchers, and recreational fishermen, who are always keeping a sharp eye on our commercial activities.
A fisherman may also enjoy the privilege of being selected for the observer program. Each yearly quarter, certain boats are honored with the presence of a federal fisheries observer on board. The boat must have a special Coast Guard inspection to insure the safety of the observer, and the Captain must give 48 hour notification before leaving the dock. The observer must be provided with all crew benefits, including sleeping quarters and food. In their boldest Orwellian move yet, NMFS is now proposing – for the convenience of the fisherman, to be sure – to replace some of the human observers with video monitors.
After the fish is caught and sold, the fun still goes on with reporting requirements. Each boat must maintain a federal fisheries logbook, in which all details of each individual catch must be reported monthly. The same information must be supplied to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission with individual Trip Tickets, but there is no interchange between the agencies, so the duplication of effort is necessary. In addition to the daily catch logbook, fishermen may also be required to maintain a Marine Mammal Interaction Logbook, a Release logbook, or an economic logbook. Failure to report results in non-renewal of the license.
I could go on, but I am only telling fishermen what they already know, and it should be enough for others to get the picture. For frustrated fishermen, there exists an unfathomable combination of rules, regulations, and enforcement interpretations, that all interact, conflict, and confuse. As tortuous as the rules are for individual fishermen, it would take an entire book to explain what a fish house must go through to be fully compliant with the labyrinth of rules and paperwork. And, of course, fishermen and the fish houses are subject to penalties ranging from fines to loss of license, for any infraction of the rules – inadvertent or not.
For the fishing bureaucracy however, no amount of rules and regulations is ever enough. No fish is ever well enough protected to leave alone, and no fishery is ever so strong that it is exempt from the incessant ‘tweaking’ by fishery managers. There is a constant flow of new rules in the pipeline, all of which must have studies, research, staff assignments, committees, public hearings, votes, permits, implementation guidelines, enforcement penalties, and new employees to handle the inevitable backload of paperwork. Once a new rule is fully in place, it then moves into the ‘perpetual tweaking’ column, and is subject to ‘revisiting’ anytime, at the whim of a fishery manager.
The re-authorization of the Magnuson-Stevens Act – the guiding legislation for the protection of fisheries – is a Trojan Horse filled with an infinite amount of survival perils for fishermen, but is a cornucopia of delight for the bureaucracy. It is essentially the Endangered Species Act of commercial fishing, and gives the fishing bureaucracy unlimited power to read anything into the legislation that they wish, make any interpretation that suits their agenda, and is used as justification for any rule or regulation they wish to implement.
So, No! Commercial fisheries are not insufficiently regulated. They are in fact over-regulated. Waaay over-regulated, and no end in sight. Fishermen can thrive with efficient stock management, but they cannot survive if they are fully absorbed into the regulatory chaos of the bureaucracy. If the Florida Keys are to maintain their traditional and historic small boat fisheries, the avalanche of regulation and expansive bureaucratic control must be halted. And it must be halted now!
Under-regulated fishermen?
Wednesday, June 2nd, 2010 Posted in Commentary, Industry
It seems amazing to those of us in the industry, but there is an obvious perception among the general public, that commercial fishing is insufficiently regulated, and because of it, the stocks of multiple marine species are either in a state of collapse, or being severely over fished. To understand how unfounded the perception is, it’s necessary to have some idea of the regulatory quagmire a person must wade through just to be a fisherman.
All across America, commercial fisheries are being plagued by a bewildering barrage of rules, regulations, paperwork, and bureaucracy. It would, however, be hard to imagine a local fishery anywhere, in which fishermen face a greater diversity of issues, and a more complex rules structure, than they do in the Florida Keys. Both fishermen and law enforcement are in a constant quandary over what is legal when – how much can be caught at a given time – what area a fish can be taken – what size in which zone – where a boat may be anchored or pass through – what equipment is required in which area – what report must be filed at what time, and by whom – which areas are off limits at what time – who can legally run a boat, and even who enforces what?
In the trapping industry alone, there are lobster traps, stone crab traps, fish traps, and golden crab traps – all regulated as separate fisheries. In the lobster fishery, there are also commercial divers, bully netters, drop netters, and a huge, clandestine, underwater habitat fishery. The net fisheries also include wrap around gill nets, shrimp nets, purse seine, and cast nets.
There are dozens of year round commercial fish species under intense regulation, including multiple varieties of snapper such as Yellowtail, Mangrove, Mutton, Red, Vermillion, Yellow-eye, Hambone, Dog, and Cubera. Groupers include Red, Black, Gag, Yellow-fin, Strawberry, and Scamp, and the deep water species of Snowy, Yellow-edge, Kitty Mitchell, and Warsau. Pelagic and seasonal fisheries include Kingfish, Mackerel, Cobia, Mahi-Mahi, Swordfish, Tuna, Pompano, and Trout. Then just for good measure, we have substantial fisheries in Grey and Golden Tile, Hogfish, Blue Runner, Porgy, Grunt, Amberjack, shark, and sponge, all with individual rules and permits attached to them.
Bait catching is another major fishery, so we have to have rules for Ballyhoo, Herring, Mahoa, Spanish Sardines, Mullet, Ladyfish, and live shrimp. Adding a little spice to the license buffet, are such boutique fisheries as live rock, and tropical fish. To more or less round out the list, we have species that were once thriving fisheries, but are currently off limits. Jewfish, Nassau Grouper, and Conch, could theoretically –though highly unlikely – be re-opened to some type of commercial catch, while Snook, Redfish and turtle will always be closed, but still need regulation and enforcement. In addition to hook and line, traps, and nets, fishery rules must also deal with commercial spear-fishing, long lines, deep drop rigs, bridge fishing, dip-netting for shrimp, live wells, and sponge hooks.
Once on the ocean, fishermen must be aware of the complex of regulations designed to limit their catch. There are species quotas and individual quotas, along with day limits and trip limits. There are seasonal closures, periodic closures, quota closures, and permanent closures. There are areas closed to fishing, areas closed to anchoring, and areas closed to gear types. In appropriate fisheries, boats are required to have Turtle Excluder Devices, venting tools, Vessel Monitoring Systems, live wells, or turtle release kits – all intended to limit catch, or protect untargeted species.
To add as much confusion as possible to the rules making and permitting processes, there are four major regulators of our commercial fishing effort in the Keys. All waters North of US 1, and West of Rebeccah Light – including Dry Tortugas – are governed by the Gulf of Mexico Fisheries Management Council. All area South of US 1, is considered ocean waters, and falls within the domain of the South Atlantic Fisheries Council. Florida, like all coastal states, controls all waters on the Atlantic side out to 3 miles, but to confuse just a little more, has the same authority out to 9 miles in the Gulf of Mexico. To throw one last little kink into the regulatory overlap, 3,000 sq miles of ocean – virtually all of our commercial fishing area – are under the absolute control of the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary.
Florida Keys fishermen, of necessity, must participate in multiple fisheries. They all require separate and costly permits, which must be renewed each year. The State of Florida requires all commercial fishermen to purchase a Saltwater Products License. However in order to be able to sell their catch, they must also have a sufficient amount of commercial fishing income, to qualify for a Restricted Species endorsement. The SPL and RS however, still do not allow you to sell anything without a species license. The State will, for example, issue you a lobster license, which then gives you the right to sell lobster to a licensed dealer.
But not so fast! In order to have something to sell, you must catch it first. Diving and trapping are the only practical, commercial methods of harvest for lobster, and each license presents a neat twist. To put out traps, you must purchase a certificate for each trap you wish to put in the water. When purchase price, transfer fees, and special taxes are added up, expect to pay about $60 per certificate. And, oh yes, the State takes 10% of your transferred certificates and eliminates them permanently from the fishery, and you must purchase a $1.00 tag for each trap, each year.
Of course you can always dive for lobster – except for one little thing. Yes! You must have a Commercial Dive license. In 2004, when the current dive license program was instituted, only those with a history of commercial diving could qualify. However, in one more little last minute catch that regulators are noted for, a person who had a history of both trapping and diving, had to make a choice between the two licenses. And, oh yeah! Those few dive licenses that were issued are non-transferable. So, no! You can not just buy one, and make money diving for lobster.
The State of Florida also issues such disparate licenses as Lobster, Stone Crab, Pompano, Sponge, Purse Seine, Live Shrimp, Blue Crab, and Marine Life. Each license has its own list of qualifiers, as well as multiple twists and turns in the individual permitting process. As a general rule, National Marine Fisheries, through National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, handles permitting for finfish species. However, the State of Florida will not allow a federally caught fish to be sold without a Florida license, and a fish caught in state waters cannot be sold without a federal license.
On the federal level, the typical Florida Keys fisherman must have separate licenses for Gulf Reef Fish, South Atlantic Snapper-Grouper, Kingfish, Dolphin-Wahoo, Red Snapper, Spanish Mackerel, and Lobster Tailing. Each federal license must be renewed yearly on the license holder’s birth date, and if not done on time, is forfeited. With each license, there are special requirements, such as Vessel Monitoring Systems on boats with a Gulf Reef License, a special photo ID card for Dolphin-Wahoo permit holders, and dozens of license specific restrictions such as; neither grouper nor Red Snapper can be caught in the Gulf of Mexico without possession of Individual Fishing Quotas.
Even on the ocean, fishermen are subject to multiple checks and searches. Because of our tropical climate, and our proximity to Cuba, it seems that every enforcement agency in the country has a reason for being in the Keys. We would assume that all fisheries in America are subject to being checked by the Coast Guard and marine enforcement officers. Patrolling the waters in the Keys however, are also U. S. Customs, Immigration and Naturalization, National Park Service, Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, Great Heron State Park officers, and Border Patrol, as well as a multiplicity of environmental activists, researchers, and recreational fishermen, who are always keeping a sharp eye on our commercial activities.
A fisherman may also enjoy the privilege of being selected for the observer program. Each yearly quarter, certain boats are honored with the presence of a federal fisheries observer on board. The boat must have a special Coast Guard inspection to insure the safety of the observer, and the Captain must give 48 hour notification before leaving the dock. The observer must be provided with all crew benefits, including sleeping quarters and food. In their boldest Orwellian move yet, NMFS is now proposing – for the convenience of the fisherman, to be sure – to replace some of the human observers with video monitors.
After the fish is caught and sold, the fun still goes on with reporting requirements. Each boat must maintain a federal fisheries logbook, in which all details of each individual catch must be reported monthly. The same information must be supplied to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission with individual Trip Tickets, but there is no interchange between the agencies, so the duplication of effort is necessary. In addition to the daily catch logbook, fishermen may also be required to maintain a Marine Mammal Interaction Logbook, a Release logbook, or an economic logbook. Failure to report results in non-renewal of the license.
I could go on, but I am only telling fishermen what they already know, and it should be enough for others to get the picture. For frustrated fishermen, there exists an unfathomable combination of rules, regulations, and enforcement interpretations, that all interact, conflict, and confuse. As tortuous as the rules are for individual fishermen, it would take an entire book to explain what a fish house must go through to be fully compliant with the labyrinth of rules and paperwork. And, of course, fishermen and the fish houses are subject to penalties ranging from fines to loss of license, for any infraction of the rules – inadvertent or not.
For the fishing bureaucracy however, no amount of rules and regulations is ever enough. No fish is ever well enough protected to leave alone, and no fishery is ever so strong that it is exempt from the incessant ‘tweaking’ by fishery managers. There is a constant flow of new rules in the pipeline, all of which must have studies, research, staff assignments, committees, public hearings, votes, permits, implementation guidelines, enforcement penalties, and new employees to handle the inevitable backload of paperwork. Once a new rule is fully in place, it then moves into the ‘perpetual tweaking’ column, and is subject to ‘revisiting’ anytime, at the whim of a fishery manager.
The re-authorization of the Magnuson-Stevens Act – the guiding legislation for the protection of fisheries – is a Trojan Horse filled with an infinite amount of survival perils for fishermen, but is a cornucopia of delight for the bureaucracy. It is essentially the Endangered Species Act of commercial fishing, and gives the fishing bureaucracy unlimited power to read anything into the legislation that they wish, make any interpretation that suits their agenda, and is used as justification for any rule or regulation they wish to implement.
So, No! Commercial fisheries are not insufficiently regulated. They are in fact over-regulated. Waaay over-regulated, and no end in sight. Fishermen can thrive with efficient stock management, but they cannot survive if they are fully absorbed into the regulatory chaos of the bureaucracy. If the Florida Keys are to maintain their traditional and historic small boat fisheries, the avalanche of regulation and expansive bureaucratic control must be halted. And it must be halted now!