Christopher Seufert photo
By John Pappalardo
As 2024 recedes in our wake, here’s the word that best sums up my state of mind going into the new year:
Pensive.
Environmental changes we have been seeing for awhile now, even sometimes trying to ignore, seem to be manifesting faster than we expected, in ways no one could have anticipated.
For example, the appearance of a big pool of cold water that moved into the Gulf of Maine this year and hung around for a long time. We keep hearing about how the Gulf, which stretches down to our Cape, is the poster child for global warming, fastest in the world, and yet there it was, a counter intuitive cold water slug from the east.
This is proof that what we are experiencing is no linear, simple change. The more we understand the more we realize that moments like this can be expected, at some point even predicted. The real term is climate change, not simply global warming.
Pensive.
A guy catches a giant tarpin off the beach. Where are we, Florida? Black sea bass are more abundant around here than codfish. Really? It wasn’t so long ago that if someone caught a black sea bass, people would be amazed and gather around to see this exotic beautiful fish straying up from the south.
Speaking of iconic cod, the latest regulatory efforts to protect the stocks – efforts that haven’t worked for years no matter what you think of everyone’s good intentions – reveal yet again that our fisheries management process is not nimble enough, not recognizing and responding to what’s going on in anything close to real time.
Scientists have identified a genetically distinct subset of the codfish population, call it the Southern New England cod stock, located south and west of Nantucket and the Vineyard down to Long Island Sound. So there is a new set of management rules to create quotas for that distinct group.
The problem is that a major regulatory decision, that people should catch only 22 tons of SNE cod next year, is based on landings from the previous year, projected from a sample size of only 600 fish caught. That’s not because the fish don’t exist, it’s because there has been no commercial effort in those waters, only recreational guys, and only a few of those voluntarily report their landings.
To add to the frustration, it’s clear that the full recreational fishing fleet caught and discarded maybe three times the 22-ton quota, while looking for other fish they could legally land. Discarded. Uncounted.
There cannot be good scientific data to build on, because there cannot be enough representative landings to show what’s really out there. And so there never will be justification for a sustainable commercial effort. That’s what you call a Catch 22.
We want to make policy using best available science, but sometimes available science just isn’t good enough. I find that true more often as the ecosystem changes more quickly.
Pensive.
There are ways out and back, of course. More engagement between fishermen and scientists is key, as we often note. That’s one theme embedded in highlight stories my colleague Doreen Leggett has collected for this end-of-year emag, which is comprised of issues and advocacy that fishermen have been at the forefront of in the past and will continue to be. Other constants are community initiatives and economic development. These efforts serve as both our ballast and navigational points, an interesting combination you don’t see in real life. But it’s true.
Being pensive is not the same as being pessimistic. There’s plenty to feel good about, from what we call the eMolt program outfitting the fleet with cool scientific equipment to the Small Boats Big Taste program serving great chowder and stew to people who otherwise wouldn’t be able to eat healthy local fish.
We aren’t taking any steps back, we’re in it all the way and we’re looking forward to successes in the new year.
But yes, we’re ruminating.
John Pappalardo is CEO of the Cape Cod Commercial Fishermen’s Alliance.