A reader posed this question via email:
Okay, an article in yesterday’s Star-Advertiser reports a 20% increase in the quota for bottom fish.
All we learn is the pro-fishing side of the debate. Completely missing is the conservationist side.
I have to say the article was actually an improvement over an earlier news brief, apparently based solely on a press release from the fishery council, which described the council’s action as reducing the quota rather than increasing it.
The council also reduced the annual catch limit for 2011-2012 for seven prized species of deep-water bottom fish in the main islands by 6 percent, to 325,000 pounds from 346,000.
The 6 percent reduction was set to make sure the quota was not exceeded, the council said.
So this item points to a reduction, and presents it as being done out of the council’s concern to stay within the quota.
The follow-up story clarifies the latest “reduction” was required to meet five-year old federal requirements.
So the situation is confusing and the reporting reflects that. The catch limit has been increased over last year, but is lowered somewhat from the original calcuation to allow for a “margin of error” in estimates of fish populations.
Looking over the story, the criticism seems justified. There’s no indication that the reporter attended the meeting. It looks more like a follow-up to a press release from the council. We don’t know, for example, whether there was any debate, the substance of the debate, or whether there was disagreement over the proposed new quota as there has been in the past. What about documents circulated at the meeting in regards to this agenda item.
Although there is a discussion of past quotas, we don’t get any sense of the ongoing political struggle between elements of the fishing industry and those favoring conservation of marine resources.
As to the quota, the reader added a comment:
Bottom fish play an important role in the ocean eco-system. Maybe the reason bottom-fish numbers have increased is because the quotas have been left alone. Wouldn’t it make sense that it continue to be left alone?
Perhaps. But we don’t know, and the reporting didn’t help readers understand the big picture.
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This begs the question of whether this is just negligence and mediocrity on the part of the Star Advertiser, or if it is part of a broader policy of pandering to the status quo. Or both.
Kitty Simonds has been running that fishery council as a personal fiefdom for quite awhile. Her hubby was a bigwig at the S-B years back
Hmmmmm . . . . . am I missing something here?
While I agree that the Saturday bulletin about a 6% reduction of the bottomfish catch, standing alone, gave the impression that the overal catch ahs been reduced and/or that the stock is in danger, the Monday article, I thought, gave the full picture, as follows:
1. Preliminary catch quotas were set in March;
2. The preliminary quota was finalized for the season beginning Septmeber 1 by reducing it by 9% to meet conservation requirements in federal law and by a further 6% to account for the fact that the catch quota may actually have been met and/or exceeded by the time the figures are in and the season can be closed.
3. Even with the 15% reduction, the catch quota represents an increase over the 2010 quota because “The stock is not overfished and there is no overfishing going on.”
However, what struck me about these pronouncements, which came out of a three-day meeting of the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council last week, is that the Council also weighed in during that meeting with its disapproval of a NOAA plan to designate some/all of the main Hawaiian islands as critical habitat for the monk seal so that juvenile female pups can be moved from the northwest Hawaiian islands to increase the number that survives to reproductive age. According to the Council, “the proposed critical habitat in the main islands would have negative effects, such as depleting fishing stock.” An article on that position can be found here: http://www.staradvertiser.com/news/20110618_NOAAs_plan_for_seals_chafes_fishery_panel.html
So my questions are these:
1. Which one is it? Is the stick overfished or not?
2. If not, as indicated by the increase in catch from 2010, why is it a problem to temporarily move female juvenile monk seal pups to the main Hawaiian islands?
3. Perhaps more importantly, if we have to choose between fishing by humans — who have the ability to eat and work doing things other than fishing and who exist in numbers far in excess of the environment’s ability to sustain them — and fishing by the critically endangered monk seal — which can only survive by eating fish and is on the brink of extinction — there is no choice: create the habitat, adjust the catch if necessary, and let the humans adapt while the tiny number of seals involved tries to get the species back on its feet.
So there.
The scope of the issue is beyond a narrative that could be provided by the S-A or any other print media.
There is too much history, culture, disagreement, and bias and not enough space, time, ink, or solid science to accurately tell this story.
One could, though, at least acknowledge the controversy.