A Policy for Oceans

Because shark-fin soup is increasingly popular in Asia the practice of "finning"-slicing off the fins and dumping the rest of the animal, frequently when it's still alive-has become de rigueur with shark fishermen on the high seas. For Americans, finning is at last proscribed by law. But countries like Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Portugal and Spain, catching sharks as bykill on marlin and swordfish longlines, have more than taken up the slack. At this writing, the European Union is debating finning regulations; but, led by Spain, the nations doing the finning have watered down the regs to the point that there might as well not be any.

Meanwhile, in the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico NMFS is allowing slow-growing, slow-reproducing coastal sharks to be fished out. Five years ago, after hearing detailed advice from scientists, NMFS wrote a plan for the recovery of 22 large coastal shark species. This elicited a barrage of lobbying and lawsuits from the shark-fishing industry; so, NMFS never implemented the reduced quotas or size limits. Scientists then determined that quota cuts of at least 50 percent were needed. Nevertheless, on Dec. 27, 2002 NMFS hiked the quota by 33 percent and deep-sixed a minimum-size limit that would have protected juveniles. Accordingly, the Ocean Conservancy and National Audubon Society have filed suit.

It's important for fish advocates not to give the impression that the condition of earth's oceans is hopeless, and that "the tragedy of the commons"-whereby scientists are shoved aside in a feeding frenzy-has doomed marine fish stocks forever. "I think the problems in the ocean are very fixable," says Mike Nussman, president and CEO of the American Sportfishing Association. "We've not dammed the oceans. We've not paved the oceans. We've done some things that are pretty significant, and there are problems we need to solve. But I think we know what most of them are. The question is can we come up with solutions that make sense-not only for a developed nation like the US but for developing nations."

In formulating a US oceans policy it's necessary to look at the successes as well as the failures so that we can understand why both happen. The New England council, for example, has traditionally rejected quotas of any kind, opting instead for painless alternatives that never work, like trip limits. The Mid-Atlantic council, on the other hand, is occasionally willing to swallow effective, bad-tasting medicine. That is why anglers are starting to catch a fair amount of big weakfish in New York and New England. The species has been gone so long we've forgotten that this is its natural range-that's why it's called "northern weakfish." This happy state of affairs is the result of a moratorium on big bottom-scouring flynets off Hatteras, where most of the weakfish on the coast spend the winter. (As I write, commercial fishermen are trying to get it lifted.) Before the moratorium weakfish the size of ground-down pencils were being sold as pet food. "We're seeing weakfish in Great South Bay up to ten pounds," reports CCA's Witek. "We haven't seen that in years. "Red drum are back down south. Goliath grouper [formerly jewfish] are hanging out under docks again. Red snapper and king mackerel are doing well in the Gulf."

Actually, Huxley was half right. The oceans really are "inexhaustible"-provided humans implement a sea change in which commercial fishing is transformed from profit-driven extraction to science-based husbandry. If it happens, it will happen first in America.

Note: It's usually a waste of time to write your governor. But now that the governors are participating in drafting a policy for the oceans, you need to make yourself heard. Governors, especially in states where commercial fishermen wield political clout, are in desperate need of education. Have at it.