Like most professional fishers, Watkins cherishes the independence and self-reliance the job affords, and has gone to great lengths to stay far from the madding crowd. When waters closer to shore got too crowded for his tastes, Watkins fished farther and farther out, eventually ending up in the Dry Tortugas, a 120-mile round-trip from Key West, where conflicts over territory and government hassles were fewer -- at least until recently.
Working the Tortugas sets Watkins and his mates apart from most crawfishermen. The typical lobsterman generally traps in shallower waters close to shore, so they can be out and back, baiting and servicing their traps, in a single day. The risks are greater working in the Tortugas, but so are the potential rewards. Seas and shoals can be tricky, as hundreds of shattered galleons attest. Traps, floats, and gear get beaten to hell, as do captain and crew, who often work for 10 or 12 days at a time while being battered by 5- to 10-foot waves. But the crawfish are generally larger than those caught near shore, and in a good season, the Tortugas traps produce consistently while shore-huggers are pulling up empties.
Scales of Justice
Fishing the Tortugas has another disadvantage that couldn't possibly have occurred to Watkins when he gravitated there years ago: Because relatively few fishermen have the skills, motivation, or inclination to work this far out, it became a tempting target for government regulators looking for somewhere to place a 150 square mile no-fishing zone called the Tortugas Ecological Reserve. Environmentalists and federal regulators hope the reserve will serve as a model for similar no-fishing zones they want to establish along 20 percent of the U.S. coastline.
To proponents in government agencies, environmental groups, and academia, such "marine protected areas" (or MPAs) are the wave of the future for fisheries management -- a maritime equivalent of federal wilderness areas that protect not just species but habitat. Greens have fixed like a barnacle on the idea of a "place-based" method for protecting marine life, much as they've pushed hard for the establishment of "critical habitats" for endangered species. Traditional, species-based fisheries management strategies are aimed at establishing a sustainable balance between the needs of fish and fishermen. The "place based" approach instead places marine wilderness areas off limits to all human meddling, which they believe will in time replenish the rest of the seas. For most MPA supporters, how fishermen fare as a result seems a matter of indifference.
For the fishermen being displaced by them, MPAs seem like a frivolous federal science fair project with potentially serious economic consequences -- and yet another blow to the traditional Key West fishing life.
The no-fishing zone being created in the Tortugas this summer "is just the tip of the iceberg," according to one government fisheries official who asks not to be identified. "This is an idea that's not only being embraced at the federal level, but has taken root at the local level, too. A number of the people in the research community think as much as 20 percent of the U.S. coastline should be off limits to fishing. Before long, you may see another marine reserve sitting at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay."
In addition to the 150 square mile Tortugas Reserve, which is administered by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, the Department of Interior plans to close nearly half the adjoining 100 square mile Dry Tortugas National Park to all "consumptive" activities.
This summer, the South Atlantic Fisheries Management Council, one of two federal panels that regulate fisheries in the Keys, began compiling a "shopping list" of potential new no-fishing zones from the Carolinas to Key West. The council is under mounting pressure from environmental organizations such as the Center for Marine Conservation and Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund. Already included on the list of proposed areas is "the Hump," a popular fishing spot off Islamorada in the upper Keys, and the Carysford Reef, where an existing no-take zone could be enlarged.
Even the city of Key West -- in response to lobbying by the Center for Marine Conservation -- recently considered a no-fishing zone extending 600 feet from the island's shoreline. In the end, the city shelved the notion, which would have effectively banned angling from the beach, from docks, and on flats close to shore.
In August, the South Atlantic Fisheries Management Council will be holding public hearings on the proposals for more fishing bans. The proposals may end up uniting commercial fishermen and sport fishing enthusiasts, who have often been at odds in the past. A number of media reports have suggested that there is support among commercial fishermen for the no-take zones, yet during a visit earlier this year, I failed to meet a single commercial fisherman in the Keys who supported the reserve concept or put much stock in the science behind it. According to most commercial fishermen, many of whom have completely lost faith in a public hearings process they see as a charade, the few fishermen who chose to participate in the government's public consultation process did so either in a vain effort to mitigate regulatory excesses or in the hope of avoiding being the next group targeted for cutbacks and closures.
Fishy Science
"It's clear that some environmental groups see MPAs as a panacea, but we think the science is still equivocal on the question of how these areas will effect overall health of the fishery," says Justin LeBlanc of the National Fisheries Institute, a trade association representing commercial fishing interests. "It doesn't take a scientist to understand that if you stop fishing in an area you're going to find more fish and larger fish in that area. But if you're making the argument that it's going to improve the fishery overall then I think the jury is still out and the science is more equivocal." LeBlanc calls the proposals to designate at least 20 percent of U.S. coastal areas as no-fishing zones "arbitrary" and "completely irrational."
Though temporary closures have been used as a fisheries management tool for decades -- during spawning seasons, for instance -- permanent closures over large areas are a relatively new idea on which hard scientific data either hasn't been collected or isn't conclusive, according to LeBlanc.
While there's little doubt that an unfished area will have more fish, the real issue is whether abundance of marine life in one closed-off area will translate into abundance elsewhere, improving the fishery overall. That question depends on a complicated and only partially understood set of variables, including the mating, spawning, and migratory patterns of myriad species; currents, weather, and tidal conditions; and the size, depth, and bottom composition of the zones.
Editor's Note: We invite comments and request that they be civil and on-topic. We do not moderate or assume any responsibility for comments, which are owned by the readers who post them. Comments do not represent the views of Reason.com or Reason Foundation. We reserve the right to delete any comment for any reason at any time.
nfl jerseys|11.14.10 @ 8:13PM|#
jcrhc