U.S. to Slash Limits on 83 Species of Pacific Fish

Fearful that the number of fish off the Pacific Coast is sharply declining, the National Marine Fisheries Service is set to slash allowable commercial catch limits of several of the most popular species by unprecedented amounts.

New regulations are expected to be published by the U.S. secretary of commerce by Wednesday--to make them effective Jan. 1--requiring commercial fishers to reduce by up to 65% their haul of 83 species known as ground fish, including black cod, ling cod, dover sole and various rockfish.

Ground fish, so named because they tend to be found near the ocean bottom, represent 50% to 60% of the total value of California’s annual commercial fish harvest. Their decline is part of a free fall in worldwide fish stocks that government experts had hoped to avert in Pacific Coast waters by imposing more modest catch limits in past years.

Representatives for the West Coast fishing industry dispute the government’s dire assessment of fish stocks and say the new limits will put many people out of business.

“It’s going to be a rough year,” said Rod Moore, the executive director of the Portland-based West Coast Seafood Processors Assn.

In Oregon alone, Moore said, the fishing and processing of ground fish is a $100-million-a-year business that supports thousands of people.

“We’re looking at an overall harvest reduction of about one-third. Not everyone’s going to survive that,” he said.

Ground fish are not the only species under heavy stress. Laws passed this year by the Legislature ordered the California Department of Fish and Game to increase protection of squid and enacted a 10-year ban on abalone fishing south of San Francisco Bay.

Experts attribute the declines, in part, to a warming trend in the Pacific that has meant less plankton for the fish to feed on. But they lay most of the blame on overfishing by conventional trawlers, hook and line boats, and by a flotilla of newcomers that are supplying a growing demand for “live fish,” the ones displayed in restaurant tanks.

Ground fish are particularly vulnerable, marine scientists say, because they are unusually slow to mature. Too many are being caught before they have had the chance to reproduce.

“We are seeing fish populations that are 20% of what they would be if there was no fishing going on,” said Richard Methot, director of the Seattle-based fish-monitoring division of the National Marine Fisheries Service.

“We don’t think ground fish can maintain sustainable populations under current fishing pressures.”

Even with the new restrictions, Methot said, it may take 30 to 40 years for some of the most hard-hit species to rebound to healthy levels.

But Moore, the fishing trade group representative, says the new limits are based on faulty research--ocean surveys that are too infrequent to be reliable, compounded by flawed computer modeling.

“The government’s stock assessment is based on lousy data,” he said.

Environmental groups, such as the Center for Marine Conservation, which have been pushing for years for stricter limits, contend that the government is just now waking up to a crisis that its own policies helped bring on.

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“What you’re seeing is an overcapitalized industry outfitted with technology capable of tracking down the last fish,” said Warner Chabot of the center’s San Francisco office.

“Government policy during the 1970s and 1980s offered tax credits and loan guarantees to expand the U.S. commercial fleet,” he said. “But it failed to invest in the science and survey techniques to evaluate the impact of an exploding fishing industry on the fish.”

While industry officials accuse government researchers of undercounting fish--in part because they don’t know how to locate them--environmentalists like Chabot accuse the industry of blocking attempts to place government observers aboard all but a few commercial fishing boats.

Government experts concede that official surveys of Pacific Coast fish populations have been inadequate.

“The results of the work have a level of uncertainty associated with them,” said Methot of the National Marine Fisheries Service. Because of that uncertainty, he said, not enough was done in the past to halt suspected declines.

The limits about to go into effect, which will be published in the Federal Register, “may be a case of erring on the side of safety, but they are being put in place to assure that we have fish for the future,” he said.

These limits in fact represent a compromise, Methot said, and are not as strict as agency scientists had recommended.

Nor do they guarantee that too many fish still won’t be caught.

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There are only a few federal enforcement agents scattered along the West Coast. Compliance is based largely on monitoring the records of transactions between fishers and processing plants.

In addition, fishers can’t control the kind of fish they net or hook, particularly from commercial vessels that typically deploy miles of nets or lines strung with thousands of hooks. It’s easy to exceed a quota.

When that happens, fishers throw back the surplus catch of the one species while attempting to fill their quotas on others.

According to Methot, the so-called “discard” can add an additional 15% to the overall mortality rate of declining species. Fishers say they don’t like to waste fish that way, but are forced to do so by the pressure to maximize their catch.

The new limits also will offer no protection to ground fish that are the targets of the burgeoning black market in live fish.

Small boats fish close to shore and avoid license fees and landing taxes by clandestinely moving their catch via 50-gallon drums to restaurants in the state’s coastal cities.

This practice has a potentially devastating impact, officials say, because of the preference for small fish suitable for restaurant tanks and dinner plates--requiring the harvesting of huge quantities of young fish before they have matured enough to reproduce.

Since 1980, experts estimate, the legal trade in live fish has grown from merely a $150,000-a-year business in California to a $3-million trade, with the black market growing even faster.

The fishers rely on cellular phones and quick exchanges between their boats and waiting vans, and are rarely caught.

“There aren’t enough cops in L.A., let alone game wardens, to keep up with what’s going on,” said Rick Klingbeil, a state Fish and Game official based in Long Beach.