Jerald S. Ault, University of Miami

The 71,000 jobs and $6 billion annual revenue generated from south Florida’s coral-reef ecosystem are increasingly threatened by human impacts. Sustaining reef fisheries is a high priority. We addressed this issue by developing new ecosystem-based models to assess reef fisheries and habitat resources in the Florida Keys. These models were also used to design boundaries for new marine reserves in the Dry Tortugas with broad participation of NOAA Fisheries, the National Park Service, the state of Florida, fishing organizations, and interest groups. To evaluate the efficacy of the Tortugas initiative, in June 2004, a multidisciplinary, comprehensive research cruise found that the reserves designed by our models, in conjunction with traditional management, can help sustain fisheries and conserve marine biodiversity in the Florida Keys coral-reef ecosystem.

William A. Bennett, University of California, Davis

Fisheries scientists currently grapple with distinguishing climatic from harvesting impacts in developing sustainable management. In California, managers of nearshore rockfish (Sebastes spp.) currently lack an understanding of how these factors interact to affect the recreational fishery. To address this uncertainty we examined the interactive effects of ocean climate and fishing pressure on nearshore rockfishes using historical Commercial Passenger Fishing Vessel catch records. Multivariate analyses revealed that ocean climate explains 60% of the variation in catch per unit effort (CPUE) and that responses in northern and southern California are opposite. In warm El Niño years, CPUE was four times higher in the north and two times lower in the south and reacted similarly to a low-frequency climate shift after 1977. Four geographic regions responded as discrete units to climate and fishing intensity: north, central, south and Channel Islands. Over time, annual fish landings declined sharply in the south, and effort remained stationary and high relative to the other regions. In the north, landings and effort remained tightly coupled, and effort was an order of magnitude lower than that in the south. These findings support management strategies that incorporate regional responses to ocean climate and fishing intensity.

Steven A. Berkeley,¹ Mark A. Hixon,² Ralph J. Larson,³ and Milton S. Love.^{4 1}University of California, Santa Cruz; ²Oregon State University; ³San Francisco State University; ⁴University of California, Santa Barbara

West Coast rockfishes of the genus Sebastes are typically long-lived, moderately fecund, slow-growing, primitive livebearers. Of the 80+ West Coast species, 12 have been assessed, of which 7 have been declared officially overfished. Rockfishes are managed with traditional fishing-mortality and spawning-stock biomass-based control rules, the underlying assumption being that all larvae have an equal probability of survival regardless of their parent’s ages, sizes, physiological conditions, or spatial distributions. Recent research, however, suggests that this assumption is not true for at least some species, and which fish are removed may be as important as how many. In particular, there is evidence that (1) older female rockfishes give birth earlier in the season than younger fishes, produce larvae that withstand starvation longer, and grow faster than the offspring of younger fish; (2) that what have been considered to be uniform stocks may actually consist of multiple reproductively distinct units; and (3) that recruitment may come from only a small and different fraction of the spawning population each year. Because even moderate levels of fishing truncate the age and size distribution and often result in localized depletions, traditional management paradigms may be insufficient to ensure sustainable rockfish populations. Networks of marine reserves appear be the most effective means of addressing these issues.

J. Bloeser and Caroline Gibson, Pacific Marine Conservation Council, Arcata, California

The Pacific Marine Conservation Council is presently working with federal and state agencies, academic institutions, scientists, and fishermen to develop a U.S. West Coast collaborative research program. This program will provide a platform for ongoing and future collaborative research projects and for the coastwide exchange of information on lessons learned and new ideas. It will also generate information on fishery research priorities, funding, and contacts for interested scientists and fishermen, which can be viewed online at www.fishresearch.org. Collaborative research has the potential to improve communication and trust between historically divergent stakeholders, while elevating the level of scientific understanding and enhancing conservation efforts.

Louis W. Botsford and Michael R. O'Farrell, University of California, Davis

Limit Reference Points are perhaps the most essential element of the precautionary approach to fisheries management. Here we first provide a population-dynamic perspective on (1) how they function in a control-theory sense to maintain population persistence (the good), (2) shortcomings incurred when their definition strays from a representation of population persistence (the bad), and (3) reasons why managing fisheries to avoid population collapse, even with the best LRP, remains very risky (the ugly). The advent of LRPs provided a valuable means of avoiding the all too common collapse of fisheries, but they do so most effectively when they actually represent how persistent a population is. Lifetime Egg Production (LEP) or SSB/R is such a definition. Because of limited data gathering and modeling infrastructure in many parts of the world, there is strong pressure to adopt measures that reflect persistence only approximately. Such definitions reduce the effectiveness of LRPs and can lead to a false sense of security. Even with the use of LRPs, managing fisheries to avoid population collapse is extremely risky, and that fact needs to be acknowledged and clarified through additional research on issues such as uncertainty in slope of the egg-recruit relationship at the origin, changes in productivity on decadal scales, and the metapopulation structure of most marine populations.

Trevor A. Branch, University of Washington

Can we devise a set of regulations for multispecies fisheries so that productive species are not undercaught (resulting in economic loss) while preventing overfishing of unproductive species? The groundfish fisheries of British Columbia and the U.S. West Coast offer some insights. They were managed by individual trip limits (with all their associated problems) until 1996, but thereafter diverged. The B.C. fishery implemented a 100% on-board observer system, permitting individual accountability of catch and discard mortality, followed in 1997 by the introduction of Individual Transferable Quotas (ITQs). The West Coast fishery, forbidden to consider ITQs by the Sustainable Fisheries Act, continued on the path of increasingly restrictive retention limits, and ever-increasing regulatory-induced discarding, as additional species were declared overfished. By almost any measure, the B.C. fishery is now in a better state of health: ITQs have resulted in greater flexibility, increased profitability, reduced overcapitalization, compliance with TACs, and the reduction of marketable discards to near zero. The reduction in discards alone provides additional income sufficient to cover the costs of observer coverage. A model of fishermen's location choice highlights the benefits of accounting for catches and discards under 100% observer coverage and the benefits of increased flexibility under ITQs.

Larry B. Crowder,¹ Lisa A. Eby,² and J. Kevin Craig.^{1 1}Duke University and ²University of Montana.

Both the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy (2004) and the Pew Oceans Commission (2003) have recently drawn attention to the declining state of fisheries and marine ecosystems in the U.S. and worldwide. Both commissions also call for ecosystem-based management, although no one has a clear prescription for how that would be implemented. The Magnuson-Stevens Act (1996) required fisheries managers to develop essential fish habitat plans to undergird management, but to date our understanding of the role of healthy ecosystems in supporting fisheries is rudimentary. In this paper, we put fisheries management into its ecosystem context in terms of nutrient pollution and low oxygen which degrade the quality of nearshore marine ecosystems. These systems are also subject to environmental variation at a variety of time and space scales that can alter their productivity. Based on research in the Neuse River and Pamlico Sound, Chesapeake Bay, and the Gulf of Mexico, we examine how anthropogenic changes to estuarine habitat alter the distribution, bioenergetics, and growth rates of juvenile fishes, crabs, and shrimp. These levels of disturbance and degradation are sufficient to drive population level impacts on key fished species. Increasing evidence points to the fact that degraded ecosystems have significant effects on the productivity and sustainability of fisheries.

Katy K. Doctor, Teresa Ish, and Michelle D. Benoit, Sustainable Fishery Advocates, Santa Cruz, California

Creating market incentives through product labeling is not a novel concept; everything from sustainably harvested lumber to sweat-shop-free tennis shoes appeals to the consciences of consumers. The Marine Stewardship Council created a similar program for seafood, but the most prevalent method of designating sustainably harvested seafood is the seafood selector card produced by groups like the Blue Oceans Institute, the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch Program. The program created by Sustainable Fishery Advocates takes the novel approach of combining the seafood selector cards and point-of-sale labeling to create a dynamic label that includes fishing method, fish species, and locality and an overall sustainability ranking. This program creates a market incentive for conservative fishing practices because products can be featured as more sustainable those fished with different methods. A 2003 report by the Seafood Choices Alliance found that, when provided with this information, consumers favor the sustainable options and support the market providing the labels. We were able to confirm the results of the survey through our pilot program, where implementation of our labeling system resulted in a 9% increase in total seafood sales, compared to the average increase of 4%, and the share of unsustainable seafood carried by the store declined.

Rick Fletcher, Department of Fisheries, Western Australia

During the past four years, considerable progress has been made in implementing the principles of sustainable development across all Australian fisheries and aquaculture sectors. In Australia this concept is known as ecologically sustainable development (ESD), and it encompasses all the ecological, social, economic, and governance issues associated with an activity.

A national ESD subprogram was established to coordinate these activities with the overall goal of developing a set of integrated tools to help both management and auditing agencies apply these principles in a direct and practical manner. So far, the tools developed include a risk-based reporting framework for wild-capture fisheries that covers all four elements of ESD. The companion ESD Assessment Manual documents what is currently considered acceptable performance for the ecosystem-based management of different fish species and fishing methods (i.e., both target species and broader ecosystem impacts). A manual for undertaking appropriate social-impact assessments of management decisions will be completed by the end of 2004.

Within Western Australia, as part of a related integrated fisheries-management initiative, a framework has also been developed to assist in the determination of the appropriate allocation of access amongst competing sectors (e.g., commercial, recreational, indigenous, and no-take groups). Moreover, work is currently underway to extend the ESD frameworks to cover all cross-fishery issues (including allocation plus cumulative impacts), which should ultimately lead to a framework for regional marine planning that would deal with all activities and impacts in a region.

My presentation will briefly summarize how these tools fit together, provide examples of the management outcomes that have been achieved, and outline the future directions for the subprogram.

Lucy Flynn, University of Washington

The "tragedy of the commons" phenomenon has been understood for centuries, and discussions of modern economic theory with respect to fisheries have been commonplace in the scientific literature since the early 1950s. However, instead of addressing these issues, management agencies have traditionally been required to regulate solely to perpetuate, restore, or enhance a fishery resource, without regard to the economic impacts of their policies. I will argue that this tradition is perpetuated by what I call the "myth of the free market," a culturally important myth that an unregulated free market is the only path to continually increased efficiency and a higher standard of living for all. Although in fact the early function of government fisheries agencies was to aid industry with research and development, and current subsidies and enforcement costs are paid by the general public, the simultaneous popular acceptance of the "no-government-intervention-is-best" ethic prevents policy makers from controlling investment and capacity (and therefore economic efficiency) in fisheries. I will seek to explain the source of the myth of the free market, the constraints it imposes on fishery management agencies, and the implications for future directions in fisheries policy, including the recent trend toward privatization with individual quota systems.

Lucy Flynn, University of Washington

The Bristol Bay, Alaska, sockeye salmon (Oncorhynchus nerka) fishery experiences variability in harvests of an order of magnitude. Moreover, roughly 80% of the harvest occurs between 27 June and 12 July in remote southwest Alaska, isolated from sources of materials and labor. Therefore, if a run is much larger than expected, processors are not able quickly to increase processing capacity and may be forced to institute catch limits or to ship unprocessed fish to distant plants with concomitant increased costs and decreased quality. Conversely, if runs are smaller than expected and there is excess capacity, the associated fixed costs may remove profitability. Because the final ex-vessel price is adjusted after the season to reflect processor profitability, there are direct effects on fishing communities. In-season run size forecasts are therefore critical but currently lack an index of run timing with which to interpret early catches and escapements. I will discuss the development of the index and outline a method for predicting it using a priori hypotheses about conditions experienced by the migrating salmon. I will also demonstrate the use of the predicted timing index in in-season forecasting using Bayesian methods.

William A. Foster, Fos-Fish Inc., Hatteras, North Carolina

The Sustainable Fisheries Act mandated that every federal fishery management plan allocate harvest restrictions and recovery benefits fairly and equitably among the commercial, recreational, and charter sectors. There has been no public attempt by the New England Council, the Mid-Atlantic Council, the South Atlantic Council, or NOAA Fisheries to comply with these requirements. These agencies and the scientific community have come to accept and support—perhaps unwittingly—discrimination against the commercial sector. For example, the Call for Papers for this symposium lists six "problems that scientist and managers address . . . include, among others, overfishing, overcapitalization, discarding and high-grading of catch, by-catch of charismatic species, conflicts among stakeholders, and the impacts of gear." Routinely, when each of these problems is addressed, the restrictions go primarily to the commercial sector and/or the benefits go primarily to the recreational sector.

I will present patterns and specific examples of federal regulations that are applied differentially to the commercial and recreational fishermen of North Carolina. I will discuss the impacts of this differential treatment upon the resource, the users, the "best scientific information," and ultimately the integrity of the process. I will also offer solutions designed to address the problem and restore credibility to the process.

Sarah Gaichas¹ and Jane DiCosimo.^{2 1}NMFS Alaska Fisheries Science Center, Seattle; ²North Pacific Fishery Management Council, Anchorage, Alaska

In the U.S., the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act directs fisheries managers to optimize resource yields. As defined in the act, optimum yield "will provide the greatest overall benefit to the Nation, particularly with respect to food production and recreational opportunities, and taking into account the protection of marine ecosystems." In multispecies groundfish fisheries, balancing the objectives of target species yield optimization with ecosystem protection and nontarget-species conservation can be difficult even with the elaborate system of fishery observation, stock assessment, and quota management currently implemented in Alaska. The North Pacific Fishery Management Council and the Alaska Fisheries Science Center convened a committee to address problems associated with attempting to conserve nontarget species under the data-intensive quota system designed for target species. The committee proposed an alternative management framework to separate potentially conflicting objectives: target species yield would be optimized using the current system of stock assessment and quota management, but nontarget-species would be managed differently. The proposed nontarget-species system employs maximum retainable by-catch allowances to discourage premature target fishery development, monitors by-catch at lower taxonomic levels and for more taxa, and defines specific measures such as closed areas for species groups considered sensitive to fishing effects. Criteria defining resilience or sensitivity of nontarget species are being standardized to prioritize monitoring, data collection, and consideration for more intensive management as part of an adaptive process. The transition of Gulf of Alaska skates from nontarget to target management will illustrate the process in action.

Jorge González,¹ Wolgang Stotz,² Carlos Tapia,¹ Jorge Garrido,¹ Ana Parma,³ and José (Lobo) Orensanz.³* ¹Institut de Fomento Pesquero (FIOP), Chile; ²Universidad Católica del Norte, Chile; ³Centro Nacional Patagonico (CENPAT), Argentina.

The Chilean Fisheries and Aquaculture Act of 1991 formally incorporated territorial use rights (AMERBs) as an option for the management of benthic fisheries. Organizations of artisanal fishers are entitled to request parcels of seabed, where target resources are comanaged jointly with the Undersecretary of Fisheries. This is a huge system involving tens of thousands of artisanal fishers, hundreds of “caletas” (fishing communities) and fishers’organizations, ca. 50 target species (the most significant being loco snails, Concholepas concholepas), and fishing operations spread along a coastline that spans 36 degrees of latitude. Granting of long-term use rights requires a baseline study and annual surveys, which are conducted with the assistance of certified consultants. Formal implementation of the system started in 1998 and resulted in radical changes in the fishing process and marketing practices. The biological, social, and economical consequences of this large-scale management experiment are still not fully understood, as the system is relatively new and continues to evolve. We used all available pre- and post-AMERB data on the loco fishery of Region IV (the cradle of the system) to investigate how it is performing in terms of biological sustainability. AMERBs encompass ca. 36% of the suitable loco habitat; fishing locations presently contained within the boundaries of AMERBs contributed ca. 82% of the catch from pre-AMERB years. Abundance within the AMERBs and the legal catch are stabilized, although there is still controversy about the magnitude of illegal fishing inside and outside AMERBs. The fishery is remarkably orderly, in contrast with the chaotic situation that surrounded a three-year (1989–1992) nominal closure, the end of the open-access era. The TURF system is viewed positively by most leaders of fishers’organizations, managers, scientists, buyers and processors. Questions have been raised, however, on issues of (1) the spatial scale of assessment and management (AMERBs are managed independently yet interconnected by larval dispersal), (2) social equity (many fishers were left outside the system, and the productivity of TURFs is unevenly distributed among “caletas”), (3) the ecological integrity of benthic communities (raised mostly by ecologists), (4) economic efficiency, and (5) the cultural identity of fishing communities (life-styles and values have changed in the new system).

Susan S. Hanna, Oregon State University

U.S. fishery governance is increasingly challenged by problems that have biophysical and economic symptoms but are institutional in their cause. Their resolution requires greater economic and ecological integration into sustainable ecosystem-based management. Recent reports of the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy and the Pew Oceans Commission contain recommendations for achieving this integration through an array of institutional reforms. The reforms involve changes in the structure of the regional fishery management councils, which have been viewed by many as ugly examples of the inability to integrate human and ecological systems. They also involve changes in the boundaries of council governance.

Is structural weakness the ugly core of fishery management? Will new boundaries create effective economic and ecological integration? I discuss the concept of boundaries in U.S. fishery management and how it has evolved over time. I identify incentives as a key contributor to management failure, overlooked in past boundary shifts. I describe present boundary shifts recommended by the two commissions, which, although consistent in general terms, represent fundamental philosophical differences in their specifics. Finally, I discuss the extent to which recommended structural reforms address the fundamental problem of incentives in fishery management.

Kristen M. Hart,¹ Larry B. Crowder,¹ Mark Hooper,² and Robert E. Cahoon.^{3 1}Duke University Marine Laboratory; ²Hooper Family Seafood, Smyrna, North Carolina; ³C&S Seafood, Smyrna, North Carolina

Diamondback terrapins (Malaclemys terrapin) and blue crabs (Callinectes sapidus) occupy similar estuarine habitats, so gear designed to trap crabs also frequently captures and drowns air-breathing terrapins. Together we performed experimental fishing studies in Jarrett Bay, North Carolina, to assess the extent of terrapin by-catch and mortality in actively fished commercial crab pots and evaluate the effect of turtle by-catch-reduction devices (BRDs) on both turtle and crab catch rates. During hard-crab season (May-January), our overall catch rate of terrapins was low (0.16 turtles/crab pot day), and 58% of terrapins captured were dead. During peeler season (March-May), our catch of terrapins was much higher (4.73 turtles/crab pot day), and 42% of turtles captured were dead. Overall, 94% of terrapins were captured in control or normal pots that were not outfitted with BRDs, and all turtle captures occurred in shallow water close to shore from mid-April to early May, a period that coincides with the timing of the peeler fishery. This specific spatial and temporal overlap of fishery activity with turtle habitat use areas suggests that management measures could be implemented in the early spring to reduce terrapin by-catch. Analysis of crab-catch statistics revealed that seasonal (spring) use of 4.5-cm BRDs on all pots seems to be the best way to reduce terrapin by-catch and mortality and only slightly compromise the catch of valuable crabs. However, palatability of a management option that includes BRD use must be evaluated within the crab fishing community.

Kristen M. Hart,¹ Mark Hooper,² and Jon Grabowski.^{3 1}Duke University Marine Laboratory; ²Hooper Family Seafood, Smyrna, NC; ³University of Maine

The North Carolina Blue Crab Fishery Management Plan suggests that the harvest of white-belly crabs might suppress the economic potential of the fishery. The plan’s executive summary states that the crab industry should voluntarily reduce the harvest of white-belly crabs and, subsequently, the incentive for harvesting this low-quality product. Our project was designed to provide seasonal information revealing whether a voluntary reduction in white-belly harvest would increase the economic value of the fishery. White-belly crabs are male blue crabs (Callinectes sapidus) that have recently molted and therefore are lighter and yield less meat than fully hard crabs--harvesting white-bellies may actually decrease the value of the commercial blue crab fishery. We conducted field investigations in both the spring and fall of 2001 in North Carolina to determine the length of time necessary for individually tagged white-belly crabs to become fully hard crabs (~2 weeks) and to characterize their movement patterns over the course of each season. We also performed lab investigations to examine the increase in live weight and meat yield as crabs grow from white-belly to hard crabs in both spring and fall. We then used this information to explore the economic implication of the harvest of white-belly crabs in both the spring and the fall crab fisheries. Results indicate that a "best harvest strategy" would be to return white-bellies to the water to grow into hard crabs in the spring but to harvest them as white bellies in the fall.

Eric Hesse,¹ Tom Rudolph,*² and Melissa Sanderson.^{2 1}Captain, FV Tenacious; ²Cape Cod Commercial Hook Fishermen's Association

The Cape Cod Commercial Hook Fishermen’s Association is a 501c(3) nonprofit organization that promotes healthy marine ecosystems by protecting and promoting sustainable, day-boat hook-and-line fishing. Cooperative research is a key component of the Association’s efforts to ensure that New England’s 400-year-old hook-and line-fishery survives the current groundfishery crisis. Among the grim population forecasts in the northwest Atlantic, some good news is to be found, including a robustly rebuilding Georges Bank haddock stock. Fisheries management in New England has sought to ease the pain associated with the deep cuts in fishing effort required to end overfishing under the Sustainable Fisheries Act by providing the means to mitigate these losses through Special Access Programs, aimed at healthy stocks. Fishermen who want these programs bear the burden of proof: they must present data that shows that they can minimize the by-catch of Stocks of Concern in order to gain access to the healthy populations. CCCHFA fishermen designed and conducted an experimental fishery in the fall of 2003 that tested the use of seasonal, geographical, and bait variations to harvest GB haddock selectively in Closed Areas while minimizing by-catch of Atlantic cod. Working with independent data collectors, the fishermen collected data that proved that bottom longline gear, when carefully placed and baited with low-quality baits like herring, yields a catch composed of nearly 80% legal haddock. These results are currently expected to lead the NMFS to authorize a three-month hook-and-line fishery in fall 2004 in Georges Bank Closed Area I with a 1000-ton haddock total allowable catch (TAC) and cod set aside TACs based on by-catch amounts observed in the study. This work is also a promising example of collaboration between fishermen, scientists, managers and foundations, and it featured many exciting developments, from voluntary welcoming by fishermen of independent fisheries observers on board as partners to a sharing of the burden of expense by fishing businesses and the J. M. Kaplan Fund.

Ray Hilborn,University of Washington

Many of Alaska's salmon fisheries are models of biological success, with management structures that have maintained biomass, stock diversity and biological yield. At the same time the fisheries face severe challenges due to low price for the product, and the fisheries have been declared formal "economic" disasters by state and federal agencies in recent years. From many perspectives these fisheries are in crisis. I explore how the governance system for Alaskan salmon has led to biological success and economic failure. I review a range of alternative governance structures that are in place or being considered that might provide for social and economic sustainability. I also demonstrate that the basic biological principal that has guided management, Maximum Sustainable Yield, is a serious impediment to social and economic sustainability.

Ray Hilborn,¹ J. M. (Lobo) Orensanz,² and Ana M. Parma.^{2 1}University of Washington, Seattle; ²National Research Council of Argentina

Fisheries around the world are managed with a broad range of institutional structures. Some of these have been quite disastrous, while others have proven both biologically and economically successful. Unsuccessful systems have generally involved either open access, attempts at top down control with poor ability to monitor and implement regulations, or reliance on consensus. Successful systems range from local cooperatives to strong governmental control to various forms of property rights but usually involve institutional systems, which provide incentives to individual operators that lead to behavior consistent with conservation.

Dan Holland¹ and Kurt Schnier.*^{2 1}New Zealand Seafood Industry Council; ²University of Rhode Island

According to a provision added to the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act in 1996, fisheries managers in the United States are required to identify and mitigate the adverse impacts of fishing activity on essential fish habitat (EFH). Previous research has illustrated that an individual-habitat-quota (IHQ) management regime is the lowest-cost method of conserving EFH, but concerns remain that the viability of noncommercial species, animals that are habitat dependent and/or are themselves constituents of fishery habitat, may still be threatened. Therefore closing areas to fishing may be an advantageous, risk-averse policy when the existence, value, and distribution of the species is unknown. We consider a cap-and-trade system for habitat conservation, individual habitat quotas for fisheries, design to achieve habitat conservation and species protection goals cost effectively. Individual quotas of habitat impact units (HIUs) would be distributed to fishers and an aggregate quota set to maintain a target habitat "stock" of EFH conservation. Using a dynamic, spatially explicit fishery simulation model, we explored the efficiency and cost effectiveness of an IHQ policy, in comparison to alternative marine protected area (MPA) configurations, at reducing the risk of extinguishing a habitat-dependent species of unknown spatial distribution.

Kristen T. Honey¹ and William A. Bennett.^{2 1}University of California, Santa Cruz; ²University of California, Davis

Following a dramatic population decline in the early 1980s, delta smelt, Hypomesus transpacificus, were listed as threatened under the federal and California Endangered Species Acts. Delta smelt are currently a significant policy issue for California, because they exert a major influence on the allocation of fresh water to growing urban and agricultural demands. However, they are managed by an elaborator sytem that lacks a strong scientific basis. To determine the effects of various natural and human processes, especially water-export operations, on the population, we created stage-based matrix models that integrate historical sampling data, abundance estimates, and field and laboratory studies. Model results suggest that the environment drives the extreme population variability of this primarily annual species. Elasticities suggest that juvenile-to-adult survival is a key life stage and that the environment drives adult fecundity. The estuarine salinity gradient and the length of the spawning season offer predictive cues for understanding recruitment success. Integrating new scientific understanding into this quantitative modeling framework may help managers to assess the relative impacts of water-export operations and guide effective policy.

Teresa Ish,¹ Suzanne H. Alonzo,¹ Meisha Key,² Marc Mangel,¹ and Alec D. MacCall.^{3 1}University of California, Santa Cruz; ²California Department of Fish and Game; ³NMFS Southwest Fisheries Science Center, San Cruz, California

Uncertainty in stock assessments can come from a variety of sources, from poor data to lack of biological knowledge, including aspects of the life history. In our case, we were attempting to perform a stock assessment using stock synthesis for a protogynous hermaphrodite. Modeling female fecundity and population size only is often used as a simple way to represent the entire population, and the population size is simply increased by the sex ratio to yield an estimate of total population size. Such an approach is not appropriate for a sex-changing species. When considering a sex changing species, we must consider the fact that all individuals added to the population are female, and unlike traditional fecundity curves that increase with age or size, egg production within a population will actually decline with age. Using the equations for maturity from stock synthesis, we developed a single equation that captured both female maturity and sex change, allowing us to model the population as all female. As expected, the population dynamics in this equation were identical to the population dynamics for a separately sexed population.

Desmond M. Kahn¹ and Thomas E. Helser.^{2 1}Delaware Division of Fish and Wildlife; ²NMFS Northwest Fisheries Science Center, Seattle, Washington

Blue-crab fisheries from Delaware through Texas along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts are either first or second in value in every state. Management of the bi-state Delaware Bay blue crab fishery appears to have been relatively successful. In contrast, the Chesapeake Bay bi-state blue-crab fishery is in decline. On the basis of survey indices and catch data from Delaware Bay, we developed a highly significant Ricker stock-recruit model, a biomass-based low-recruitment threshold, and a catch-survey that produced estimates of absolute abundance, biomass, and mortality rates from 1979 through 2002. Abundance showed a positive trend over the period. We employed a version of Baranov’s catch equation to estimate F, on the basis of the exploitation rate and conditioned on the initial estimate of M. Estimation of the stock size for calculation of the exploitation rate was problematic because of high and density-dependent recruit mortality. The relatively low estimate of F vs M and the highly compensatory and resilient stock-recruitment relationship suggest that overfishing is not occurring on this stock. This result does, however, depend on downweighting process error. One management difference that may be important is the complete protection of egg-bearing females in Delaware Bay; they receive only limited protection in Chesapeake Bay.

Rebecca Lent and William T. Hogarth, National Marine Fisheries Service

Recently, there has been a groundswell of support for an ecosystem approach to marine resource management within the United States, as evidenced by the recommendations of the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy. NOAA Fisheries recognizes that there is no established path toward implementing an ecosystem approach, but that pragmatic, iterative strategies must be developed. NOAA Fisheries has already begun developing a foundation from which to build more holistic, integrative stewardship policies. For instance, NOAA recently adopted a common lexicon to promote a shared understanding and usage of ecosystem concepts across its various line offices. Additionally, the agency has begun developing technical guidelines for regional marine ecosystem approaches to management, anticipating future legislated mandates.

This presentation will chronicle and describe NOAA Fisheries efforts to date at developing ecosystem-based fisheries-management approaches. Future work will also be discussed. For instance, NOAA has committed to accelerating ecosystem approaches by realigning its multidisciplinary programs; developing place-based integration of activities designed to support multiple mandates; encouraging greater public participation in setting operational objectives; and developing decision support tools (i.e., operational models) that take into account societal values, legal mandates, and uncertainty in scientific information. Successful development of these approaches will be iterative and require both sound science and the enfranchisement of all marine ecosystem stakeholders.

Yasmin Lucero, University of California, Santa Cruz

In every stock assessment, a decision must be made about the appropriate level of model complexity. The problem is traditionally treated as a balance between realism in the model and the number of parameters that can be adequately fit, but the lack of an adequate theory to guide this decision is a common concern. I used a simulation approach to explore the dynamics of this decision problem. I simulated the population dynamics of a stock similar to some west coast rockfish stocks (e.g. widow rockfish). The simulation included many biological complexities expected to challenge the assumptions of most stock assessment models. I then fitted three common models to a sample of the simulation results. I observed the robustness of these models to biological complexity and characterized trade-offs between model complexity and model fit.

Luis Lucifora and Ransom A. Myers, Dalhousie University

Sharks represent one of the most vulnerable forms of marine life, and may species are critically endangered. We describe an ongoing attempt to synthesize the data on the world's shark fisheries so that it is possible to infer the distribution and abundance over time using a wide variety of data sources. We describe the methods that we are using and present preliminary results for several areas of the world's oceans.

Marc Mangel, University of California, Santa Cruz

The issues associated with the study of marine reserves reside along the boundary between environmental science and environmental action, and it is easy to confuse the two because we often feel strongly about the outcome of the work. If we, as a community, do not want to end up with egg on our faces, we must take extreme care when working on this subject—regardless of our personal opinions. I will illustrate these difficulties using two simple models. The first is a stochastic, single-species model and helps illustrate the questions that can be answered as scientific ones and the questions that are rightfully the domain of social discourse. The second is a deterministic two-species model that illustrates the importance of conceiving of the role of reserves in a wide, ecosystem context. These models help us see how to separate the scientific questions from the activist issues. By blurring the line, we ignore the need for important discussions.

Mark Maunder, Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission

We discuss the question "Are pelagic fisheries managed well?" As the reader might imagine, this is a difficult question to answer. First, pelagic fisheries is a very broad category including sharks, tunas, billfishes, sardines, and many other species, as well as many methods of capturing these species. There are both successes and failures within this category, and it is not possible for any single piece of writing to cover the whole range. Therefore, we restrict ourselves to the pelagic fisheries directed at tunas, which are probably what the general public is most aware of and which are our area of expertise. In particular, we use the tuna fisheries in the eastern Pacific Ocean as an example.
To make answering the question easier, we can break it into three component questions: (1) What are the management objectives? (2) Are the management objectives reasonable? (3) Can we determine whether the management objectives have been achieved? Only if all of these are answered can we answer the original question "Are pelagic fisheries managed well?" Unfortunately, recent articles criticizing management of tuna stocks answer none of these questions, except by jumping on the ecosystem management bandwagon, and therefore have little utility, apart from putting more focus on answering these questions.
We attempt to answer the question from a stock-assessment scientist's perspective, emphasizing quantitative analysis of management objectives and evaluation of the reliability of stock assessments. We also discuss methods of improving the assessment and management of tunas.

Stephan B. Munch, Athanasios Kottas, and Marc Mangel, University of California, Santa Cruz

The relationship between current abundance and future recruitment to the stock is fundamental to managing fish populations. Although there is general agreement about the basic attributes such a relationship should possess, many models may be derived from these, and the data are often insufficient to distinguish among them. Consequently, choosing between candidate models is a significant source of uncertainty in scientific advice. Model averaging, currently touted as the solution the structural uncertainty issue, can only produce correct results when the "true" model is included in the averaging. Thus, the analysis of stock-recruitment data would benefit greatly from a single unified approach capable of recovering the shape of any underlying stock-recruit relationship. Here we demonstrate a nonparametric Bayesian approach that provides such a framework and show how it can be used to estimate several fishery reference points. We applied the method to simulated data generated from a variety of parametric models: The nonparametric Bayesian method fit the data nearly as well as the true parametric model and always performed better than incorrect parametric alternatives. Estimated reference points agree closely with true values calculated for the underlying parametric model. This method should be of value wherever the "true" stock-recruitment relationship is unknown.

Ransom A. Myers, Dalhousie University

The golden rule of fisheries management is: "Thou shalt not drive any species or population extinct." By this criterion, the tuna and billfish fisheries of the world are terribly managed. The loss of bluefin tuna from the Black Sea, the North Sea, and the south Atlantic; the 300-fold reduction of oceanic white tip sharks in the Gulf of Mexico; and the near extinction of leatherback and loggerhead turtles in the Pacific are clear examples of a disastrous lack of good management. Much worse, most countries and agencies that manage such fisheries do not even collect data that allow the target and by-catch species to be adequately monitored. In no other large fishery in the world is the lack of will to monitor so clear. Furthermore, it is clear that a reduction in fishing would result in greater economic yield; thus there is no excuse for not improving the management of the world's tuna and billfish fisheries.

Sarah G. Newkirk, Water Law and Policy Consultant

The question of who owns the fish in U.S. waters has become more momentous in recent years as the fish themselves have become increasingly scarce. For many years, environmentalists have contended that the American people own the fish in the Exclusive Economic Zone. In stark contrast, however, some management regimes—particularly Individual Fishing Quotas—allegedly encourage stewardship by conveying individual ownership of some portion of the fish stock to the fisher. Furthermore, lawsuits by fishers challenging fishing regulations or claiming damages for lost fishing income after oil spills have raised important questions of the extent to which individuals may enforce, with respect to fish, the legal rights normally associated with exclusive ownership. Consequently, a divergence of views exists on the question of whether fish resources are susceptible of exclusive ownership. Furthermore, a confusing array of legal principles can be applied to the subject, with the venerable Public Trust Doctrine on one side, and the Supreme Court’s decision in Hughes v. Oklahoma on the other. Add to this the principle of sovereignty, as distinguished from ownership, and the already murky waters become rather muddied. This confusion can be alleviated by a bifurcated view of the ownership-like rights associated with fisheries under which the public retains most of the rights associated with ownership, but the government retains sovereignty. Importantly, this view would not permit the conveyance of exclusive ownership under an individual quota or other management regime.

Lisa Ockelmann-LoBello and Ronald G. Taylor, Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission

Common snook are highly prized among recreational anglers and contribute significant economic value to Florida. Snook research evolved from a small, concentrated coast-wide sampling activity into a multifaceted, regional program designed to gather information about the dynamics of local stocks necessary to manage the fishery. Data from this program have been used to develop nine stock assessments since 1992. Regional activities include collecting biological samples (e.g., otoliths for ageing, fin-clips for stock identification, and ovarian tissue for determining reproductive status) and collecting fishery-dependent information (e.g., indices of catch per unit effort; sizes and numbers of snook caught and then kept or released; and the proportion of short, legal, and lunker snook in each catch. Biologists collect the data by means of on-site intercepts of anglers returning from fishing trips and from logbooks and tournament reports of guides and anglers, which contain the lengths of each snook caught/trip. During 2002-2003, 11,927 anglers were interviewed in eight regions of the state, and catch data for 3036 and 153 angler trips were reported in the logbook and tournament initiatives, respectively. These data allow researchers to compare catch indices and harvest rates between regions. This program would not be successful without the sustained cooperative partnership with the recreational angling public.

Anand Patil and Marc Mangel, University of California, Santa Cruz

We have developed a decision tool for systematic identification of marine habitats of particular concern under uncertainty about future environmental states. Using estimates of life-history parameters and a simple stochastic stock-recruitment model, we estimate the probability that a local population will persist for some time interval and the long-time decay rate for this probability. We use data for Sebastes stocks to discuss application of the tool.

Joseph E. Powers, Southeast Fisheries Science Center

Management of marine fisheries in the United States is conducted through a joint arrangement between the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS, the federal agency charged with fisheries management) and regional fishery management councils. Recently these institutional mechanisms have undergone increased public scrutiny because “an increasingly large number of fishery-management actions are being challenged in federal courts. This trend is symptomatic of the system’s growing inability to reconcile its objectives and perform the functions for which it was created. Its dual goals of conserving fishing resources and sustaining optimum yields have come into increasing conflict. Litigation has grown 10-fold since the mid-1990s, reflecting an order-of-magnitude increase in fisher and conservationist dissatisfaction. According to the National Academy of Public Administration (2000), "NMFS’ early, almost unblemished record of success in defending the system’s management actions has deteriorated to less than 50/50 . . . . All parties recognize that the system has vulnerabilities that can be exploited.” I developed a two-stage game to examine the strategies of NMFS, constituents, and council members. The first stage modeled bargaining solutions between council members (harvesters, conservationists, and government) for management targets, and the second addressed litigation of those solutions. Results indicate that bargaining power favoring one constituent group could lead to council outcomes that deviate from management policy. The result is incentives for the aggrieved constituent group to litigate. Trade-offs between benefits and costs of litigation and prescriptive strategies to address these issues are explored.

Paul Rago,¹ Josef S. Idoine,¹ Douglas s. Pezzack,² and Richard B. Allen.^{3 1}National Marine Fisheries Service, ² Fisheries and Oceans Canada, ³Wakefield, Rhode Island

The fishery for American lobster (Homarus americanus) is one of the most valuable fisheries in the northeast United States and Atlantic Canada. Over the last two decades, nominal landings have increased steadily in most but not all areas. Lobsters are managed under a complex set of regional regulations that are designed to reduce mortality of size classes and mature females. This mix of management measures reduces the rate of decline in spawning-stock biomass (SSB) per unit increase in effort, and therefore, the magnitude of fishing mortality at low fractions of maximum potential SSB is poorly defined. An important consequence is that a wide range of fishing effort levels lead to nearly indistinguishable estimates of eggs per recruit and yield per recruit.

Simple models and trends in biological indicators are used to illustrate the risks of high fishing to both the fishery and the resource. Analyses of trawl survey indices suggest that increases in pre-recruit abundance have subsequently been accompanied by comparable increases in nominal landings. Abundance indices of mature lobsters have increased at a much lower rate, suggesting that improved recruitment to the fishable stock has fueled the increase in landings. Various measures of fishing effort have also markedly increased; in many stock areas, well over 90% of the landings is composed of lobsters within one molt increment of the legal size. Inelastic market demand supports higher costs associated with decreasing capture efficiency. High levels of effort are not only economically inefficient but pose important risks to the population. An asymptotic cap on the effects of increasing fishing effort is possible as long as handling and discard mortality remains low. Predictions of stock collapse may be overly pessimistic, but experiences from crustacean fisheries around the world suggest that reductions in capture efficiency alone are not sufficient to ensure sustainability.

Jake C. Rice, Department of Fisheries and Oceans, Canada

Two of the most dramatic fishery collapses in history have been those of cod in the northwest Atlantic and cod in the northeast Atlantic. Both areas have comparatively high capacity to apply science to management; enjoy stable, democratic governance systems; and invest substantially in management. With these preconditions, one would expect A Perfect World. Nonetheless, the flagship stocks in both areas have collapsed. The Sudden Impact of those declines still ripples through the economies of the affected regions. The science and management communities still pick over the entrails of the documents from the assessment meetings of the day, seeking the True Crimes that the participants of the day committed. In the days of crisis, there were many calls to Hang 'em High, and many of those participants are still among the Unforgiven. Current practices by both fisheries and scientists and managers must pass through The Gauntlet of heightened public and institutional criticism that demoralises all the participants and delays action in any direction.

I was part of CAFSAC during the years of the Canadian cod collapses, and of ACFM during the years when several northeast Atlantic stocks collapsed. Having sat In the Line of Fire in both cases, I will review those methods that were used across fisheries to see whether commonalities of erroneous practice are responsible for commonality of tragedies. The technical methods are documented and have been examined by many people trying to make their reputations. I will try to focus more on the institutional dynamics of the fisheries advisory systems and its links to the management processes. Acknowledging that it is particularly difficult to be objective about past actions of which one was a central part and not The Rookie, I will still try to walk the Tightrope of factual reporting of what really went on, relative to what went badly wrong. Several factors will be considered: (1) Sophisticated sequential population methods were used in both cases. Is it fundamentally wrong to track the Dead Pool of fish to know about those still alive, and will a more inclusive ecosystem approach make everything better? (2) Both areas have complex fisheries with many fleets and strong community dependence on the fisheries. Is the White Hunter (with a) Black Heart so determined to chase A Fistful of Dollars that science and management are largely irrelevant? (3) Both governance systems had significant consultation processes but ultimately Absolute Power was vested in some top-down government officer or agency. Is casting the government as The Enforcer fundamentally a path to Heartbreak Ridge?

Examining the commonalities of the events on both sides of the Atlantic, I will try to determine whether some of the pitfalls can be avoided in the future. Have tools and concepts improved enough that The Space Cowboys, The Beguiled, and The Witches who brewed the previous messes finally start doing things right, and become Coddy’s Heroes? Do the improvements provide a Bridge to Cod-ison County? Can the current Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil in a Mystic Ocean become a fine day in an ecosystem that is well understood? My answers will be pessimistic.

Juhani Salmi and Pekka Salmi, Finnish Game and Fisheries Research Institute

In the first half of the 20th century, the construction of hydroelectric power plants and damming of rivers have destroyed wild northern Baltic river salmon (Salmon salar L.) stocks in most rivers. In compensation for losses, the hydropower companies have been obligated to release reared salmon smolts. Northern Baltic salmon extend their feeding migration to the central and southern parts of the Baltic Sea, where they are exploited by offshore and coastal fisheries. Since the 1980s, both of these fisheries have been strictly regulated, primarily by closed seasons. The regulation of the salmon fishery is based on protecting the declining wild stocks, but it has also been motivated by securing catches for fishing tourism in the rivers. This duality has aroused conflicts between Baltic salmon fishermen and the northern tourism industry and has become a heated issue also in the regional policy of the state. Our presentation will address the problems in achieving sustainable solutions in the governance of Baltic salmon fishery from the perspectives of commercial and recreational fishermen groups, other local people, and fisheries authorities. The empirical material comprises personal thematic interviews. We introduce present management practices of the salmon fishery and motivations of interest groups in supporting different means of regulation.

Amy Schick, The Center for SeaChange, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

The U.S. fishery management system was created nearly 30 years ago in response to foreign vessels harvesting off our coast and a desired to increase significantly the capacity of the U.S. fishing industry. Today, the management challenges are nearly the opposite; overcapacity and overfishing plague the sustainability of our fishery resources.

During the past year, the Pew Oceans Commission and U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy released recommendations to improve marine resource conservation and management. Based on evidence that in some cases the fishery management councils have failed to act upon the best scientific advice, both reports included recommendations for separating conservation and allocation decisions in fishery management.

This presentation offers a solution for separating conservation and allocation decisions, building from the recommendations of the two oceans commissions’ recommendations. A modified governance system and decision making process will produce better conservation decisions and support more active fishery management. The new decision making system will also be better equipped to deal with estimates of uncertainty and risk.

Jennifer L. Shafer, University of Hawaii

Coral reefs have great ecological, economic, and cultural significance but unfortunately are in a state of decline due to myriad factors, including overfishing. A fundamental challenge in coral-reef fishery management is how to address the natural complexity of resource problems, which typically involve complex interactions along both ecological and social dimensions. Resource managers require insights into human-environment interactions, such as the factors that drive choices and behavior among resource users such as conflict, laws and regulations, and customary norms. Management policies that integrate ecosystem objectives and the social incentives and disincentives (and thus behaviors) of the fishery's human users are more likely to succeed. Agent-based models (ABMs) offer potential for studying complex system behavior and human-environment interactions and exploring trade-offs among multiple conflicting resource-use objectives. This research explores the challenging problems of coral-reef fishery management through an agent-based model simulating the complex human-environment interactions of a coral-reef recreational fishery. The dynamic ecosystem model simulates the effects and trade-offs of changing specific controlled and uncontrolled parameters (e.g., management decisions or natural processes) on performance of the fishery system (e.g., fish abundance, species diversity, fishing opportunity, fisher behavior).

William C. Sharp, John H. Hunt, and William Teehan. Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission

In Florida, the Caribbean spiny lobster, Panulirus argus, supports an intensive commercial fishery that has traditionally been dominated by the use of wooden-slat traps. From 1975 through 1991, the number of traps in the fishery increased dramatically from approximately 500,000 to 939,000. Responding to industry concerns about excessive effort in the fishery, the state of Florida implemented a management program that reduced the number of lobster traps to approximately 500,000 by 2003. As of 1999, lobster landings had been, on average, higher than those during the same number of years prior to the implementation of the program, and managers deemed the program a success. However, landings since 2000 have been below those of the 1990s, and there has been a dramatic increase in the proportion of landings made by commercial divers, who traditionally had landed only a small proportion of landings and consequently garnered little attention from fishery managers. From the 1993 through the 1997 season, the proportion of total commercial lobster landings made by divers ranged from 3% to 5%, but they increased progressively during subsequent seasons and reached a high of 14% in 2001. This shift in landings made by the dive fishery has been partially due to the widespread proliferation of illegal artificial habitat. The ability of the dive fishery to expand to the extent that it did using such methods was not initially recognized by fishery managers. Consequently, a comprehensive plan must be developed for managing both the trap and dive fisheries, as well as other fisheries using gear that presently capture only a small percentage of the total spiny lobster fishery’s landings.

Scott Sherrill-Mix and Ransom A. Meyers. Dalhousie University

Fishery catch per unit effort (CPUE) data can be a useful tool for stock assessment but, because of nonproportionality, may not reflect true abundance. To study this problem, we obtained over 150 time series of catch per unit effort (CPUE) and research surveys from various fishery stock assessments. By assuming that research surveys were an index of abundance, we used a structural regression and random- and fixed-effect meta-analysis to estimate β, the power curve shape parameter for the relationship between survey-determined abundance and fishery data. We found that headboat, recreational, drift gillnet, and commercial fish-trap fisheries have no apparent relationship with abundance (β ≈ 0). Halibut bottom longline, mackerel seine, and crab pot fisheries all showed signs of hyperstability (β ≈ 0.75): CPUE remains relatively high while abundance decreases. The methods and values from this paper can be used to assess the validity and usefulness of and, potentially, to standardize fishery-dependent data.

Kate I. Siegfried¹ and Enric Cortes.^{2 1}University of California, Santa Cruz; ²NMFS Southeast Fisheries Science Center, Panama City, Florida

Recent policies have brought elasmobranchs into the management spotlight; there is growing interest in performing stock assessments for certain species of sharks, skates, and rays. Unfortunately, the data are sparse for most species, and vital rates such as growth and mortality are rarely known. In the face of such uncertainty, we suggest that a Bayesian framework for assessment is more appropriate. We investigate the use of different Bayesian prior distributions for growth, natural mortality, age at maturity, and the steepness of the stock recruitment curve for stock assessment. Our results show the sensitivities of the various models to each rate variable.

Silvio Simonit and Charles Perrings, Center for Environment and Development Economics, University of York

Lake eutrophication is rapidly becoming the most serious problem affecting freshwater fisheries. In most cases it involves interactions between resource users in the lake catchment and the fishing industry.

We present an ecological-economic watershed model designed to estimate the external effect of nutrient loadings of human origin on fisheries in Lake Victoria, East Africa. Nutrient runoff is due to land use change and increasing population in the lake's catchment. The nutrient-buffering function of lake-fringe wetlands is also analyzed. The fishery component uses a classic Gordon-Schaefer model modified to include the impact of changes in water quality. The model parameters are econometrically estimated from water-quality variables, trophic state indices, and phytoplankton biomass measured in terms of chlorophyll-a concentration.

On the basis of the model results, we discuss the implications for the management of fisheries affected by nutrient enrichment. We extend the view of traditional fishery management to the whole watershed. In this case, the optimal fishery management is obtained not only through regulation of fishing effort but also through policies managing land use and wetland extent.

Joshua Sladek Nowlis, NMFS Southeast Fisheries Science Center, Miami, Florida

Implementing effective catch limits remains a major challenge for fishery managers in the United States and abroad, particularly on overfished stocks. Many blame this problem on the tragedy of the commons or other ineffective incentive structures, or on self-interest among decision makers. But the bigger question is why a fully empowered government management agency does not always address this problem. Cognitive analyses of risk taking can shed insight into this failure. It predicts the aforementioned problem as a result of human nature when confronted with uncertainty, regardless of potential self-interest. This field provides valuable lessons for fisheries managers, including (1) external assessments are more reliable than internal assessments, (2) rational efforts to control risk may be discounted as pessimistic, and (3) left to their own devices, people may dramatically underestimate risks unless the consequences of doing so could be truly dire. Effective solutions to the problem require recognition that it may take a strong outside force (i.e., government) to effectively manage risk in the face of large uncertainties, and that the outside force will need to identify phenomena, both social and ecological, over which it can exert control to sustain fisheries and marine ecosystems.

Robert S. Steneck, University of Maine

The American lobster has been intensely fished in Maine for over 150 years, but its stocks and landings are greater now than ever before. The most recent stock assessment for the Gulf of Maine found significant increases over the past two decades in abundance, landings, spawning potential, and catch per unit effort and a reduction in fishing mortality rate. Maine’s lobster densities are the world’s highest (> 1/m² for much of the coast) and trawl surveys show a five-fold increase in large, reproductive-phase population densities throughout the Gulf of Maine. Arguably, whatever drives lobster abundance overwhelms the expected negative demographic effects of fishing. Despite these positive indicators the official (“legal”) egg-per-recruit-based overfishing definition indicates this species is now and has been recruitment overfished. Because there must have been sufficient broodstock 20 years ago to fuel the current population explosion, and reproductive densities have increased sharply since then, confidence in the EPR biological reference point has waned among scientists and fishers. The unique biological efficiency of this species and the inefficiency of how they are harvested, together with violations of assumptions necessary for the EPR model, suggest that new and simpler ecologically based biological reference points are needed.

Andi Stephens¹ and Andrew B. Cooper.^{2 1}University of California, Santa Cruz; ²University of New Hampshire

Information about risks is often supplied to fisheries managers and stakeholders as the end result of complex mathematical or statistical analyses. The modeling process is far from transparent and may conceal implicit decisions about precautionary approaches. Such results may reasonably be received skeptically by a nontechnical audience. In contributing scientific advice to discussions on public policy, it is important to include stakeholders in the discussion, encouraging them to investigate and understand the issues and providing them with the tools to do so.

Toward this end, we have developed an interactive model intended to investigate the risk posed to endangered wild salmon by escaped aquaculture salmon. We are uncertain about which ecological interactions (i.e., competition or nest interference) may occur between the two species and the extent to which each may matter. The model explores a range of scenarios, allowing explicit selection of interactions, intensity, and management options for curbing escapes. We hope that in developing assessment tools such as this, we can offer the public a window into the risk-assessment process and an intuitive way to explore ecological uncertainty.

Kevin Stokes, Nici Gibbs, and Dan Holland, New Zealand Seafood Industry Council

This paper describes the background to New Zealand's system for the specification, purchase, and provision of fisheries research services. Three major drivers for the system were the state service-sector reforms started in the mid 1980's, fisheries management reforms starting with the introduction of the Quota Management System in 1986, and the introduction of a cost-recovery regime for fisheries services from 1994 onwards. Here, we analyze these drivers to derive the intended objectives and incentives on government, the fishing industry and research providers. We then describe the current system and analyze it by contrasting its actual operation with the intended objectives and incentives on the various players. Finally, we make suggestions for changes to the system in New Zealand better to align incentives and meet objectives, as well as discussing more general issues.

Satsuki Takahashi,¹ Bonnie J. McCay,¹ and Osamu Baba.^{2 1}Rutgers University, ²Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology

Japanese coastal fisheries management has been celebrated as a leading example of the success and potential of community-based self-regulation in fisheries. De-romanticizing Japanese coastal fisheries management may be necessary to get a more accurate and helpful understanding of the workings of community-based management and co-management in Japan. A brief history of Japan’s coastal fisheries management regime and a description of its structure and functioning today is followed by examination of five cases of coastal fisheries management in Japan: sandfish in Akita Prefecture; Japanese smelt in Hokkaido Prefecture; clams (Hamaguri) in Ibaraki Prefecture; Sakura shrimp in Shizuoka Prefecture; and abalone in Chiba Prefecture. These cases show why it is difficult to say that the coastal management system, in general, is either Good, Bad, or Ugly. Success may be defined in terms of resource sustainability or recovery, but it may also be defined in terms of livelihood, and thus, it is "in the eyes of the beholder."

Joseph Travis,¹ Nathaniel K. Jue,¹ Robert W. Chapman,² and David O. Conover.^{3 1}Florida State University, ²South Carolina Department of Natural Resources, ³Stony Brook University

Stock enhancement is often viewed narrowly as a numerical solution (adding lots of juvenile fish to a population) to a numerical problem (too few adult fish in the population), but regular stock enhancement carries the potential to create a long-term genetic problem: molding a population that cannot sustain itself without permanent supplementation. The problem emerges from two effects. First, the artificial selection gradients associated with juvenile production are not aligned with gradients of natural selection that usually act through the juvenile stage, which produces so-called domestication effects. Second, the natural selection gradients created by the addition of large numbers of juveniles to the natural population are likely to be misaligned to the gradients that normally characterize the stages from juveniles to adults.

We argue that, in the face of what enhancement could do to help restore stocks, there are sufficient data on the misalignment of selection gradients in the enhancement process and sufficient awareness of the long-term consequences to justify acknowledging the potential genetic problems in stock enhancement and searching for solutions. Experimental enhancement studies should be oriented to address these problems, exploiting promising approaches and encouraging results in this arena, and incorporating emerging disciplines to accelerate progress. In particular, developments in genomics are providing the first direct access to the molecular basis of the quantitative traits subject to selective forces and computational biology the means to reduce this enormous volume of information into predictive and comprehensible models. We find the results of stock enhancement, as a fisheries restoration technique, distributed widely along the gradient described by “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly,” although skewed toward the last when the costs are taken into account. We suggest, however, that new research on the genetic responses to the germane selection gradients can help us move that distribution of results in the positive direction.

Bruce Turris, Canadian Groundfish Research and Conservation Society

For over a decade the use of traditional management measures (i.e. gear restrictions, area and time closures, TACs, trip limits, limited entry, and vessel size limits) failed to curb the British Columbia groundfish trawl fleet’s catching capacity or improve the sustainability of the fishery. Indeed the opposite was occurring as the TAC overages and unreported discards increased, supply gluts increased, landed prices fell, and the overall biological health of the resource and economic viability of the fishery grew increasingly uncertain. In 1995, the fishery was virtually out of control and as a result was closed for the first time since it was started in the 1940s. Following extensive stakeholder consultations, the federal government implemented a new management regime that improved the economics, management, and sustainability of the fishery. The proper combination of management tools (dockside monitoring, at-sea observers, individual transferable quotas) has dramatically changed the prospects for the fishery and the incentives of the fishermen.

Juan Valero,¹ José (Lobo) Orensanz,² Ana M. Parma,² Claudia Hand,³ and Ray Hilborn.^{1 1} University of Washington, ²National Research Council of Argentina, ³Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Nanaimo, British Columbia

Geoduck clams, one of the most conspicuous animals of the Pacific Northwest, are known because of their size (up to 5.4 kg), life-style, growth pattern, and longevity (up to 168 years). Washington (USA) and British Columbia (Canada) geoduck fisheries produce nearly all the world’s supply of this highly valued product. Both fisheries are managed on the basis of biological reference points. Other than that, their management systems differ radically: in Washington discrete patches (tracts) are auctioned yearly, so intensive harvest is conducted in small areas, whereas in British Columbia, limited entry, individual vessel quotas, and a rotational scheme result in moderate harvest over large areas. We analyze the good, the bad, and the ugly aspects of each approach as characterized by scientists, managers, and fishers from each system. We discuss the applicability of management approaches based on monitoring and feedback as alternatives to the approaches currently in use.

Julie Vecchio¹ and Andrea Berndt.^{2 1}College of Charleston, Charleston, South Carolina; ²South Carolina Department of Natural Resources, Charleston, South Carolina

Red drum (Sciaenops ocellatus) is a recreationally important finfish species in South Carolina. A two-fish per-angler-per-day bag limit and 15–24-inch total length size slot have been in effect since 2001. The catch-and-release rate for this species in South Carolina is currently approximately 80%, but short term hooking mortality has yet to be determined. We seek to establish a realistic catch-and-release mortality rate for South Carolina red drum, and to reduce that rate by the recommendation of specific fish hooks and hooking techniques. These goals will be accomplished in three steps. First, the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources surveyed South Carolina anglers to determine their habits when fishing for red drum, including hook types used and habitats fished. Second, the department is conducting a study of short term (48-h) catch-and-release mortality of two size classes of red drum (less than 550 mm TL, greater than 550 mm TL) with three hook types: (a) the most common type of hook used by South Carolina anglers, (b) a nonoffset circle hook, and (c) a severely offset circle hook. We expect to find that most South Carolina anglers fish for juvenile red drum in the marsh grass and oyster beds of the estuaries. We also expect to find that most anglers bottom fish with j-hooks. Finally, we expect that j-hooks and offset circle hooks will have significantly higher deep-hooking rates than nonoffset circle hooks. In consequence, nonoffset circle hooks will have the lowest overall mortality rates of the three hook types. The results of these two studies will be combined to produce an estimate of the catch-and-release mortality rate for red drum in South Carolina. The results of the mortality study will also be used to educate anglers about gear choices that will result in the lowest catch-and-release mortality within the South Carolina red drum population.

James Wilen, University of California, Davis

Much fisheries management is aimed at controlling fishing mortality directly and with top-down measures like time and area closures and gear restrictions. Decisions about the mix of regulatory instruments and the stringency of their application often take place in adversarial and politically charged arenas. Marine biologists and fisheries scientists have been critical of conventional regulatory methods but mostly to argue for more draconian applications of the same basic tools. Economists have also been critical of conventional methods, but because they believe that conventional “end of pipe” control methods focus on the symptom rather than the cause of fisheries management problems. From the perspective of the economics discipline, the race to fish, the drive to increase fishing power, and the perversion of the politics of the management process are all driven by the insecurity of access faced by fishermen under most modern systems. Economists believe that fishermen’s fundamental incentives are distorted by insecure harvest privileges, so that they are led to compete wastefully with each other, and with managers, for increased quantities of fish. Alternatives recommended by many economists include "rights-based" harvest privileges that bestow a guaranteed share of a biologically determined allowable catch either to a number of individuals or to a group such as a harvester’s cooperative. Although the potential shortcomings of these institutional innovations have been argued about for over two decades, there is enough evidence from existing rights-based management systems to begin to focus on real consequences (including shortcomings) rather than to continue to speculate about how they might work in practice. I review evidence from existing examples of right-based management systems and synthesize some conclusions about their strengths and shortcomings as alternatives to conventional measures.

Nicholas Wolf^1,2 and Marc Mangel.^{1 1}Marine Resources Assessment Group, Americas; ²University of California, Santa Cruz

The western Alaskan populations of Steller sea lions have declined considerably over the last three decades, despite legislation and millions of dollars spent to achieve the contrary. At this time, we still do not know why the decline has occurred, although various hypotheses (e.g. direct or indirect effects of fishing, changes in the community of prey, impacts of predators) have been proposed. Our approach is to rewrite the hypotheses as functions relating survival and fecundity rates of sea lions at individual rookeries in individual years to local ecosystem parameters and indices of human impact. We consider 10 hypotheses simultaneously and estimate posterior probability distributions for the relevant parameters from their likelihoods using Bayes' theorem. Using forward simulation, we then determine when and where (or whether) each hypothesized effect has had a significant effect, and we suggest adaptive management techniques to further clarify the problem and test possible solutions.