May 16, 2013 — SMAST associate professor for fisheries oceanography Steve Cadrin warns that, as easy as it is to blame everything on shifting populations or overfishing, the complexity of the ocean is nearly chaotic, and drawing useful conclusions requires making simplifying assumptions. One of those assumptions has always been that the environment was "fairly constant."
A new study in the journal Nature shows that fish have been moving toward colder water for several decades as the oceans have warmed.
This might account for a great deal of the diminished number of traditional groundfish species found off New England, the fuel for all the ire generated among fishermen, regulators and environmental groups.
The bottom line on fisheries science is that we need better ways to measure the complexity of these species, and that of the oceans in general. Fisheries policy needs to be built on data and research that are dependable, believable and accountable.
Congress is preparing over the next couple years to reauthorize the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act. One huge problem with the current act, as noted by NOAA Fisheries Northeast Regional Administrator John Bullard at the Whaling Museum on Monday, is its inability to account for environmental factors such as climate change, warming oceans, changing salinity and rising acidity.
The joint meeting of the Mayor's Ocean and Fisheries Council and the Federal Fishing Advisory Board had convened at the museum to consider reauthorization.
Other complaints raised Monday must be on the table, complaints such as the arbitrariness of the 10-year window for rebuilding a stock, ways to incentivize collaborative research, the proper allocation of Kennedy-Saltonstall money or letting the writers of the act interpret it rather than NOAA's lawyers.
But above all, there must be a different way to count the fish in the sea.
Read the full opinion piece at the New Bedford Standard-Times