The author is the owner/operator of a commercial longline boat operating in the shark and grouper fisheries of the Gulf of Mexico.
Now where did all the tilefish go?
First off, I'm pretty sure that nobody really knows what the population of Golden Tile is in the Gulf of Mexico. I'm not sure what the NMFS is using for stock assessment1 but this is an extremely deep water fishery and nobody is really sure just how many tilefish there are and where exactly they all are at any given time. As they so often do, the NMFS seems to be assessing a stock by counting the dead fish rather than the live ones.
The last stock assessment I can find from the government web sites doesn't even mention the Gulf of Mexico but seems focused on New Jersey and Long Island fleets. It is dated December 2006 which seems fairly recent to me.
And, what was the conclusion of that one?
"The biomass of Golden tilefish has increased ... Thus, the stock is not in a overfished condition and overfishing is not occurring."
Yet, the same government agency that paid good money to produce that stock assessment has, with six days notice, summarily closed tile fishing in the Gulf of Mexico as of April 18, 2007.
April 18?
This is a fishery that has stayed open until at least mid-November in the past. This is a fishery where historically the best months of production are in the summer, months that are not yet here. Yet the fact that there are apparently so many golden tilefish in the Gulf of Mexico that this deepwater fishery can catch its entire quota in the first three and a half months of the year, despite the fact that it is an extremely deep water fishery that is inaccessible to many boats until later in the spring, means only that the season will be closed, according to the fishcrats.
The NMFS fishcrats sit back and say "Well, let's see, maybe around 2009 or 2010 we'll take another look at things and see how they are going." (I didn't make that up: see page 7, paragraph 5)
In the meantime, the majority (if not all) of the boats that have been fishing for tilefish will target another species and once again the balance of the whole fishery is upset and undue pressure is put on one stock in the name of "protecting" another stock that doesn't need protecting. Can anyone say "clumsy and ineffectual management"?
Nobody in the NMFS, apparently, considers that maybe, just maybe, the quota is arbitrary, ridiculous and far too low. Once again the commercial fishing industry of the United States has the distinction of being perhaps the only industry in history to be punished for doing well.
"The biomass of Golden tilefish has increased ... Thus, the stock is not in a overfished condition and overfishing is not occurring."
The NMFS shut down trap fishing so what do the trap boats do? Do they fold up and close down operations? No, they go fishing, they are fishing boats. How many of them are now tilefishing? I don't have any idea but I do personally know three that have targeted tilefish since the shutdown of the trap fishery...somehow I believe there are more.
They virtually shut down shark fishing in the Gulf this year, changing the first trimester season from a proposed 120 days to 7 days at the last minute and now proposing to roll the second and third seasons into one 21 day season... so what do all the boat owners that have been counting on shark for a large percentage of their yearly income do? Do they sit at the dock and breathlessly await the proposed 21 day opening in September? No, they go fishing, that's what fishermen do. How many of them were tilefishing? I have no idea but as with the trap boats, I know for sure some were.
They close shallow-water grouper for a month while leaving all the deepwater fisheries open. What do all the red grouper fishermen do? If they have the gear for it they go out in deep water and target tilefish and yellow edge grouper is what they do.
So, while NMFS is closing this and closing that, putting tremendously increased pressure on whatever is left open, they are also planning and discussing in depth studies to be carried out some long way down the road, misinterpreting (or downright ignoring if it suits their agenda) the information given them by fishermen, and funding lengthy, expensive, time consuming assessments of the stocks... which they then ignore. What comes of all this? They close down the tilefish fishery and send all the tilefish boats chasing after other bottom fish. Then the fishcrats sit back on their self satisfied haunches and spend another huge chunk of the federal budget discussing which fishery to strangle next while the whole industry struggles for survival and while completely puzzled fishermen wonder why they can't make a living and support their families anymore despite reports like this:
"The biomass of Golden tilefish has increased ... Thus, the stock is not in a overfished condition and overfishing is not occurring."
The obvious conclusion? The fishery is in an over-regulated condition and over-regulation is continuing to occur.
Michael Athorn: for grouperboat.com
1Shortly after posting the above, I received the following email from Eric Schmidt, a bandit fisherman from Madeira Beach, FL, shedding a little light on the "scientific process" that NMFS and the Gulf Council had based this arbitrary and destructive action on.
I thank him for his input and his permission to share this email.
Hi Mike,
was on your site tonight and read your rant about tilefish. I was at the gulf council meeting, July 2001 when the quota of 440,000 pounds was set for ALL tilefish in the gulf. The gulf council had just voted to move longliners out to 50 fathoms (ignoring the fact that they would recieve the outcome of the new red grouper stock assessment the next month) and decided there would be a big effort shift out to deepwater. So a three year average landings of all deepwater grouper was made, thus the 1,000,000 pound deepwater grouper quota. (never mind the only yellowedge stock assessment was inconclusive and no stock assessments have been conducted on any other GOM deepwater groupers) and the 3 year average landings on all tilefish were totaled up and reduced by 105 (we have to be precautionary you know) and viola-we have this assanine quota of 440,000 pounds for all tilefish. No one around here wanted to listen to me at the time this happened, and this year everyone is appalled that all tilefish are included, even grays.
Well no shit sherlock.
I am not a tilefish fisherman, but I have a bug up my ass about this fishery. A few friends of mine do it, but it's a fishery which can relieve pressure from the grouper fishery and I believe it can support an annual harvest of 1 million pounds, especially when you factor in the gray tiles. This management decision was flawed in several ways. First, gray and goldens are different creatures, living in different habitat. Second, how can the gulf council arbitrarily set a quota based on no science? Third, with the re-authorization of the magnuson act this year, and catch limits needing to be set for all species harvested in the EEZ which live longer than 1 year, don't ever think you'll ever see and increased amount of tilefish harvested in the gulf anytime soon. Fourth, there is discussion at the grouper IQ advisory panel level as well as the council in regards to the development of deepwater grouper shares and tilefish will simply be lumped in with deepwater grouper. Fifth, the years the gulf council used in determining the average harvest were also the historically highest years of landings for shallowwater groupers. 1998-2000. Many boats were catching so many shallow water groupers that they didnt bother to go deepwater fishing. How the council can act on a three year window like a snapshot of the fishery is and continues to be a mystery to me. Landings show we harvested well over a million pounds of golden tiles from the gulf in the late 1980's, but that was never taken into account. Quite simply it was a decision made by a biased council at 4pm in the afternoon with about 10 minutes of discussion. The council chairman couldnt wait to ajourn the meeting to hold a celebratory party in his room after they passed the motion to eliminate shallow water grouper longlining. 2 months later when the new red grouper stock assessment came out, their motion was rejected by NMFS and we are still fishing today. Barely.
Eric Schmidt
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