Rec vs comm: the truth comes out

[HopHead]

Anyone surprised?

 

NOAA Says It Has Been Overestimating Recreational Saltwater Catch by 30 to 40 Percent

Sportfishing groups say its past time for the federal agency to overhaul its approach to data collection

BY BOB MCNALLY | PUBLISHED SEP 14, 2023 12:00 PM EDT

 

 

A recent pilot study conducted by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration revealed the agency’s own data has inflated much of the country’s recreational saltwater fishing catch by 30 to 40 percent. This is the third time in 13 years that serious issues have been uncovered in NOAA’s recreational fishery data program, according to a new report from the Center for Sportfishing Policy.

The Marine Recreational Information Program is a NOAA program that provides estimates of recreational fishing catches and trips. That federal data—collected using dockside interviews and mail surveys—is used to evaluate and manage state and federal fisheries in the Atlantic, Gulf of Mexico, and Hawaii. In many cases, NOAA’s data has led to restrictions on sport angler harvest of saltwater gamefish—most notably red snapper—along the Gulf and South Atlantic coasts, infuriating anglers and industry professionals who have long suspected the federal data is overcounting.

“For years, MRIP catch estimates have been a source of contention for anglers, state agencies, and other fishery managers that depend on accurate and precise data for decision-making,” reads the CSP report critiquing the NOAA study, which was released in May.

The Trouble with Recreational Fishing Data

Sportfishing groups throughout the coastal U.S. have expressed their alarm and displeasure at NOAA for years regarding shrinking limits and extremely short or canceled seasons for recreational anglers. Meanwhile many states, which have begun collecting their own catch and trip data, reported populations of fish like red snapper that are able to support harvest beyond what the feds are recommending. According to the Great Red Snapper Count, a 2021 report put out by the Harte Research Institute with help from Southern universities, there are 118 million red snapper in the Gulf of Mexico. NOAA had put that number at 36 million.

“Yet another major revision to the federal recreational data collection system is upon us, and it should bring a realization that NOAA is just not capable of doing this job,” said conservation director of the Coastal Conservation Association Ted Venker in a Tuesday press release about NOAA’s data errors. “At best we are looking at several more years of questionable revisions, recalculations, and recalibrations based on a suspect data system that has never proven it can produce accurate information. This is no way to manage a public resource. It would be irresponsible to continue down this road rather than exploring and supporting state-based options to better manage the recreational sector wherever feasible.”

Venker is upset about NOAA discounting the recreational snapper data that’s meticulously collected by Gulf States—particularly in Mississippi and Alabama, which prize red snapper and have implemented detailed mandatory catch reporting.

“Mississippi’s federal data is consistently inconsistent,” says Venker, citing examples of the discrepancies between state and federal numbers. “In September 2019, the state’s private boat recreational red snapper season was open for only five days and yet the federal system says somehow Mississippi produced 2,482 trips per day, harvesting 68,997 pounds of red snapper every day for a total of 344,984 pounds in just those five days … [And] in 2020, the Mississippi season was open for a single day in September and the feds say anglers made 980 trips that day and caught 32,892 pounds of red snapper.”

Venker notes that the most trips the Mississippi state data system has ever logged in a single day is 513, with an average of 95 trips per day over the last four years.

“Like a good federal government agency, NOAA Fisheries believes its data is the only right data,” Venker says. “Rather than continue to insist it is always the smartest entity in the room, NOAA Fisheries should work on being a better partner to the Gulf states as well as the angling public and commit to getting to the bottom of wild data discrepancies [of red snapper catches] before cramming down damaging, punitive measure.”

 

As NOAA Fisheries points out in its recent pilot study of these errors, the trouble with collecting recreational fishing data is that the Fed’s current system depends entirely on the memories of anglers. The agency gets the majority of its data by mailing out questionnaires to anglers asking how many days they fished over a specific period. When NOAA looked back and analyzed this data, it found that anglers were more likely to over-report their fishing activity than under-report.

“Based upon anecdotal information from cognitive interviews, as well as the effect of question sequence on reporting, we suspect that anglers are so eager to report fishing activity, that they do so at the earliest possible opportunity, even if it means providing inaccurate, out-of-scope information,” the agency writes in the pilot study. “Such a mechanism is similar to satisfying a need to be helpful, but also incorporates the sense of pride and identity that was expressed by anglers during cognitive interviews.”

In other words, fishermen are prone to overestimating how many fish they caught or how much they fish, and NOAA’s methods don’t correct for that.

Potential Solutions
In its discussion about potential solutions to these measurement errors, NOAA explained that changing the order of these survey questions as well as the time frame they’re administered could help lessen the amount of “out-of-scope” information that ends up guiding the decisions of federal fisheries managers.

Along the South Atlantic and Gulf Coast, the over-estimated catch data has often resulted in lower red snapper bag limits and shorter season lengths, which has led to intense backlash from coastal communities that rely heavily on the resource. And if the anecdotal evidence of charter captains and saltwater anglers in the area is to be believed, then it’s possible that many of these federally mandated cuts have been misguided.

“In recent years the snapper have increased so much that in 20 snapper trips I make in a summer it never took an hour to limit out,” says long-time Mississippi coastal angler Nick Strayham of Biloxi. “The average Mississippi red snapper size also has increased substantially in recent years.”

Capt. Josh Swinford, who runs a 36-foot Yellowfin charter out of St. Martin, Mississippi, has noticed some of the same positive changes to the Gulf Coast snapper fishery in recent years.

“NOAA ignores science, our state legislature, and the voice of Mississippi residents and anglers,” he tells Outdoor Life. “Rather than having a plate of delicious snapper, we have been served a heaping spoonful of injustice.”

Swinford notes that NOAA estimates Mississippi runs 1,500 recreational snapper boats per day, while the Mississippi Department of Marine Regulation shows the highest daily tally for state snapper anglers is only 268 boats. In 2021, NOAA Administrator Richard Spinrad reportedly met with U.S. Senator Roger Wicker (R-MS) and told Wicker he knew NOAA’s snapper survey data was broken.

“He made a commitment to me that day to fix it,” Wicker reported in a December 2022 statement from his office. NOAA has still not made clear what it intends to do to rectify the situation.

For now, the agency says it plans to tweak its mail-in questionnaires in order to improve its data collection methods. But the CSP and other organizations would rather see a complete overhaul that more closely aligns with some of the states’ own data collection programs.

 

Edited September 15 by TimS
links

[HopHead]

Is there anything the gov't does that is without corruption, malfeasance or outright ineptitude?

[Ditchbag]

No

[Bernie12]

ask pakalooo.. he's been ass raping the seas for years..using his democratic political buddies to pass laws that favor his crimes as he laughs at us from his private beach 

[dena]

3 mins ago, HopHead said:

Is there anything the gov't does that is without corruption, malfeasance or outright ineptitude?

 

Maryland has one ocean port, Ocean City.

An enterprising captain convinced the town to install a camera over looking the inlet, with which the number of boats leaving the inlet can be counted. It is pretty easy to tell the folks fishing from those going for a speed boat ride, a sailor, or just a spin up the beach.

Of course, government data was off by about a factor of 10. I will have to find his post about it. 

[HopHead]

Lying scumbags surround us.  

 

If elected king I promise 0% unemployment, prison work farms that are net zero cost to taxpayers, mass deportation, execution of public officials caught betraying the public trust, annexation of canada and mexico.......just to name a few.

[drc]

2 mins ago, Bernie12 said:

ask pakalooo.. he's been ass raping the seas for years..using his democratic political buddies to pass laws that favor his crimes as he laughs at us from his private beach 

Even overfishing brings out the gay in you!!

 

I'm sure all the commercial fishing in TX, LA, and MS is carefully governed. 

 

Hell, look at the damage the codfather did in New Bedford. They needed an undercover federal investigation to break it up.

[dena]

You got my vote.

Just do not say what party, and release all of your policy statements through the Tavern.

Tim will love you for it.

[HopHead]

*ly.......we could take canada and mexico in less than a week.

[dena]

Just now, HopHead said:

*ly.......we could take canada and mexico in less than a week.

 But why?

Now we have Mexico and Canada, and are responsible for them, with nothing for them.

[HopHead]

1 min ago, dena said:

 But why?

Now we have Mexico and Canada, and are responsible for them, with nothing for them.

Other than massive natural resources.

[IsmailG]

10 mins ago, HopHead said:

Lying scumbags surround us.  

 

If elected king I promise 0% unemployment, prison work farms that are net zero cost to taxpayers, mass deportation, execution of public officials caught betraying the public trust, annexation of canada and mexico.......just to name a few.

Can you appoint me Lord of NJ, I have this idea, level north Jersey, use all the criminals to build pyramids that surpass those of ancient Egypt on top of the rubble. 

[fishinambition]

1 min ago, IsmailG said:

Can you appoint me Lord of NJ, I have this idea, level north Jersey, use all the criminals to build pyramids that surpass those of ancient Egypt on top of the rubble. 

I live in North Jersey and I still support this

[HopHead]

8 mins ago, IsmailG said:

Can you appoint me Lord of NJ, I have this idea, level north Jersey, use all the criminals to build pyramids that surpass those of ancient Egypt on top of the rubble. 

100% you're in!

[fishinambition]

Fish should be like deer. You harvest it yourself or you get nothing.