Monday, Nov. 02, 2009

Council weighs what to save: Fish or jobs?

Pending closures of vast portions of the South Atlantic fishery could put hundreds of area residents out of their jobs and take local seafood off the table.

Already, the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council has ordered that most grouper fish be left alone from Jan. 1-April 30, a blow to the local fishery as well as restaurants and their patrons, people involved in the industry say.

The latest proposal would shut down huge areas of the ocean to fishing to allow the red snapper population to restore itself. The council says red snapper are dangerously overfished and are at 3 percent of the level they were measured at in 1945.

The moves affect both recreational and commercial fishing, and could eventually affect tourism if people can't come and catch the fish they want, or if they can't dine on the local fresh-caught fish they expect.

"I think there's a lot of areas that can be affected," said chef James Clark of Waterscapes in Myrtle Beach. He participates in the sustainable fishery movement and helps train other chefs in ways to cook fish that are not on the limited list, but fears the shutoff of some areas will cut access to all local fish, forcing restaurants to use less-fresh and less-tasty imports.

"There's so many different varieties of grouper, some are sustainable, some are not," Clark said. Commercial fishers could bring in the unrestricted fish, but he thinks local boats will not go out at all if they can't harvest what has been the majority of their revenue.

Clark is right, said Wayne Mershon, a Murrells Inlet fish wholesaler who buys from nine inlet boats. Those fishers are not going to be able to afford to go out for a smaller catch that will take more time to find, Mershon said.

"Thousands and thousands and thousands of places that depend on the seafood," from restaurants to stores and fuel sellers, will lose out along the coast from Virginia to Florida, the area covered by the new rules, he said.

"They're getting ready to put a lot of us out of business, and it's all based on incomplete scientific data," Mershon said. "It's not really justified that they've closed this stuff down. It is not overfished."

Mershon is among plan opponents who believe the council is operating with faulty data. Fishers, wholesalers and others involved with the trade have to report in detail on their catches, but the council does not process the reports fast enough, he said.

Tom Swatzel, president of Capt. Dick's Marina and one of South Carolina's members of the fishery council, agrees with that analysis.

"Usually we're a year or two behind. It's stone-age stuff," Swatzel said.

His recreational party boat business has already been affected by the gradual clampdown on fishing and will be even more so by the new rules, he said. Capt. Dick's had six boats a few years ago but is down to one.

"Our market dwindled quite a bit" because of the catch limits, he said.

Mershon said the inlet had 30 commercial vessels a few years ago but is now down to 15. This year, the state issued 215 commercial fishing licenses in Horry County and 147 in Georgetown, numbers that have fluctuated in recent years.

Not all of those fish at sea in federal waters, state officials said. Fishing more than 10 miles offshore also requires federal permits.

"At one time, Murrells Inlet was one of the larger snapper-grouper fishing ports in the South Atlantic," Swatzel said.

The latest shutdown could deal a final blow to commercial fishing in the area and the businesses surrounding it, such as Mershon's, and the ready availability of local fish for restaurants. Which areas of the sea the council decides to close off would have differing effects on South Carolina.

Swatzel and Mershon question whether a shutdown is warranted. Mershon has been advocating a trip-limit system, which would allocate a certain number of pounds per boat per trip, but the council has not indicated it will consider that, he said.

David Cupka of Charleston is the other South Carolina member on the council. He said red snapper is so badly overfished that not even shutting down the fishery is going to save it, and that other action also will have to be taken.

That is why the proposal includes closing off fishing in some areas for almost all fish. Many red snapper are killed while people are trying to catch other fish, Cupka said.

The council is aware of the economic impact of the moves, Cupka said. Its own analysis by its oversight agency, the National Marine Fisheries Service, shows that under two of the proposals, South Carolina commercial fishers could see a 5 percent revenue increase.

But revenue would decrease up to 34 percent under the other two proposals.

The recreational fishery in the state could either gain $600,000 or lose $2.4 million, depending on which closure plan is adopted, Cupka said.

Those figures do not take into account further losses from the proposal to limit catches of nine other snapper-grouper fishes, Cupka said.

The Pew Environment Group has a Campaign to End Overfishing in the Southeast. It agrees with the council that the shutdown is necessary and disputes that the data used to back up that position is inaccurate.

The information collected on the status of the fishery "has been extensively peer-reviewed," said Holly Binns, manager of Pew's Southeast fishery campaign. Though some have pointed to a recent slight uptick in the red snapper catch, "it's not the norm," Binns said, and the fish are also too small to reproduce properly. They must be left alone long enough to grow to the proper size to reproduce and restore the fishery, she said.

Such methods do work, Binns said. It worked for striped bass in the mid-Atlantic years ago, and the fish were restored to a sustainable amount.

"I think there's a lot of reason to be optimistic," she said. Even though the shutdown will be painful for some, "I think it's in the best interest of everyone long-term."

Swatzel said he has heard a steady stream of complaints and fear from those who make their living in commercial and recreational fishing; he encourages them to come to the public hearings and state their case.

The council's action is not a done deal, even though that's the way some people feel, he said, "and if you don't get your comments on the record, it won't be considered."