New Legislation Proposed in California
Forage is the heartbeat of the ocean, the life-giving sustenance that keeps the thousands of species of large food and sport fish alive and robust. Nothing, no other category of fish, determines the fate of our favorite seafood as much as the availability of sufficient forage to keep them healthy and reproductive. Forage fish are the transfer agents. They convert the microscopic phytoplankton and zooplankton into usable protein, protein that the entire upper oceanic food chain depends upon.
Over-fish the forage, and the rest of the marine species are in trouble. And they are being over-fished. This is the sad fact of modern fishery management.
Rapid and continuing expansion of fish farms throughout the world – especially in China and other Asian countries – is creating an enormous demand for forage fish to be ground into fishmeal and used as feed for a variety of farmed fish, including tilapia and salmon. This poses a huge threat to our entire ocean’s ecology at its most vulnerable point, the location in the oceanic food chain where the take of only a few species can cause the most harm, can actually threaten all of the larger important food species in the ocean. If we continue to allow this expansion of the taking of forage species in record numbers, we threaten the economic livelihood of the entire recreational fishing industry and most of the commercial fishery.
Which species are most under attack? Squid and sardines are the two largest on our Pacific Coast. Both are being harvested in record numbers. Herring, in a mind-boggling mismanagement of a species, are routinely harvested on their spawning grounds in San Francisco Bay while they are concentrated in one place – not just for the fishmeal to be made from their carcasses after they have spawned – but before they spawn, so that a very privileged few can sell the roe for one of the most misguided profits in commercial fishing.
These three species, along with anchovies and krill, are the most critical forage species, the food upon which the entire food chain of larger species depends. When we harvest these fish, we are threatening our sport and the very livelihood of commercial fishermen. And you need only look at the economic decline of recreational fishing to realize what the impact of the lack of forage is doing in rebuilding our fishing stocks like yellow-eye, canary rockfish, and many other species. We are taking medicine away from the patient!
Some forage species are managed by the Federal Pacific Fishery Management Council, and other species are managed by the states. Here in California, the entire squid harvest is managed by the Fish and Game Commission, as is the embarrassing SF Bay herring fishery. All of these species are managed in isolation, with almost no regard for the needs of the ecosystem. The philosophy is clear: Take all of the squid you can find, and never mind that the other species need that food. We’ll just make sure that we leave a breeding population for further harvest, and the rest of the species that depend upon that food be damned.
At the Forage Species, Food Web, and Marine Ecosystem Management Symposium held in San Francisco in 2008, Dr. Alec MacCall of NOAA Fisheries said, “We may never know enough to take an engineering approach” to managing forage in an ecosystem context. Dr. MacCall went on to say that “traditional fishery thinking may not apply” to forage management. Indeed, he felt that “Reasonable fishery questions may not have reasonable ecological answers” (e.g., how much does the ecosystem need?).
One interesting comment from an early Anchovy Fishery Management Plan by a Dr. Art McEvoy stated, “The conclusion which arises from the ecological considerations is that the benefit to the nation occurs by leaving these fish in the ocean.”
So now we have some proposed legislation moving forward in California to protect these species. Do we need total protection for them? Probably not, at least at this stage. The higher predators are so depleted that some harvest is justified, and the entire recreational fishing industry is dependent upon using these fish as bait, so we would hope that the legislation will include some protection for our industry. But we must get the harvest under control now. If we sever the food chain at its most vulnerable spot, or even over-harvest by a small amount, we risk permanent damage to the ocean.
Since the fishery managers cannot seem to grasp the concept of managing an ecosystem, blinded by single species analysis, it seems we need some clarifying legislation. Pressure from the de-mand of fish farms around the globe is enormous, and we need to support protections for our forage species, or our recreational fishing industry and the sport we love are doomed.
You can check Darrell’s blog at www.PCSportfishing.com/blogs for the latest on forage legislation. Darrell is lobbying hard for basic protections for baitfish use in the bill.
