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FWC: Saving our fish or saving themselves?

BY GB KNOWLES – They may not know it yet but Florida’s fishery managers and staff may be on the verge of an economic crisis. Part of it is government ineptitude and arrogance. The economy is a trouble spot. Now a devastating freeze has put fishery managers in a position they haven’t seen since the 1960s.

In those days there was a perception that Florida’s marine life was inexhaustible. Snook had recently become the only marine fish to merit all but token regulation.

Marine fishery management was not regulated by professionals but, rather, by the Florida legislature, a governing body that paid more attention to fish fries staged by the commercial fishing industry to raise campaign funds for politicians.

For many years the old Florida Game and Freshwater Fish Commission performed a stellar job as a constitutionally mandated agency charged with managing game and freshwater gamefish. For decades that agency thrived under the long stewardship of Director O.E. Frye, a legend in southern wildlife management.

For a similar amount of years marine gamefish populations began to plummet as legislators were more concerned with keeping the funding doors of the commercial fishing industry open.

Florida’s population was booming and, for the first time, anglers began to visit the Sunshine State to catch snook and tarpon, rather than bass or bluegill.

As both recreational and commercial fishing numbers swelled something had to give. The legislature did all it could to preserve the “good old boy” network that allowed fishery decisions to travel through that body and continue the perverse system of lobbying.

It became so shameful that the voters of the state had to take matters into their own hands and pass a constitutional amendment banning large commercial nets from Florida waters. In many ways that act, something that seemed so desperately needed, may have led to the further abuse of Florida’s marine life and it’s a crime that both recreational and commercial fishermen share equally in.

The commercial fishery industry drove the bus off the cliff by failing to regulate themselves and keep commercial numbers and catch rates low and off the radar of sportsmen and women. Meanwhile, the recreational fishery failed to see the ultimate villain in the rape of Florida’s marine fishery.

That demon was and remains the bureaucracy and politics that make up the state of Florida. As long as bureaucrats, alone, are allowed to run the show the resource will suffer. And we fell for this abuse hook, line and sinker.

O.E. Frye was an avid hunter and angler. He demanded results from his employees as did most managers of his generation. As director of the Game and Fish Commission turkeys were reestablished as gamebirds.

Deer numbers were brought back to numbers not seen since the tick fever epidemic of the early 1900s. Back then, cattle interests pushed for eradication of whitetails due to the perception that these wild animals spread the fever to domestic cattle.

Under Frye, and subsequent management, Florida’s Game and Fish Commission achieved stellar success. Meanwhile, her marine resources dwindled and there continued to be a commercial fishing mindset within the agency that is charged with protecting and enhancing saltwater fishing.

The gill net ban seemed so successful that Florida’s voters took to the polls again. The legislature, too frightened of any new tax, refused to pass a saltwater fishing license even though freshwater fishing and hunting permits had been required for years. The voters finally got that changed and huge amounts of new revenues were now available to marine fishery managers.

Meanwhile, the voters and recreational fishery advocates made a huge mistake. Since the old Game and Fish Commission had worked so well they voted to merge the Freshwater Agency with the flawed Florida Department of Natural Resources that supervised marine issues. Another constitutional amendment created a new super agency that oversaw all of Florida’s wildlife.

But the new Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission quickly stacked the management of the new agency with former DNR employees, shutting out the smaller and vastly more successful former Game and Fish employees.

It’s been a nightmare that is about to come home to roost. The economy has basically forced the FWC to fund their vast network of overstaffed employees with fishing license and permit monies. The freeze and the economy now threaten those monies along with overregulation on spotted sea trout that has seen saltwater anglers vanish in the last few years.

Now, with the recent freeze kill, snook have been taken off the catch list for most of 2010. That means no snook stamp revenues to help fund research.

It’s doubtful that the legislature, already reeling from a budget crunch, will replace fishing license and snook stamp monies with general revenue funds. They surely won’t want to raise taxes during an election year.

That will mean the FWC will have to cut money from its budget. The freshwater and hunting side of the agency has long instituted stamps and licenses (including permits for the largest amount of public hunting land in the nation) to fund its side. But there is ample deadwood on the marine side.

Meanwhile, there is more bad news for marine fishery managers. As license fees drop and snook stamp sales cease, so will federal Dingell-Johnson matching funds.

These fees are large federal excise taxes that are charged on items like firearms, fishing rods and outboard motors. The money collected from these sales are rebated to the states according to the number of fishing and hunting licenses and permits they sell. When anglers stop fishing, the state agencies that supervise the resource lose funding in many ways.

In many ways this could be a very good thing. You have to wonder if Dingell-Johnson monies or snook stamp funds are being used to fight the Boca Grande Fishing Guides action against the FWC. If so, this might not be legal.

These funds are specifically earmarked to be rebated directly to the fishery, not to prove or disprove a point in court. Best use of the stressed FWC budget would be to settle the guides legal action and outlaw or suspend use of the break-away jig until economic recovery allows some other resolution.

The guides are seeking to protect the tarpon. The FWC is seeking to protect the FWC.

There are plenty of employees on the snook payroll that will probably have to be cut. Mote Marine Lab has an ongoing snook project that is privately funded and there is no use in duplicating this effort through taxpayer monies.

Next the state needs to become more proactive in avoiding future financial meltdowns. Instead of closing trout or snook, the size, slot or bag limits could have been changed a long time ago. Such measures would have still protected the fishery without chasing anglers off the water completely.

These are the kinds of things O.E. Frye and his successors have done, the kind of things done in other states and nations. It’s been suggested that such better solutions be looked at in Florida but such pleas have fallen on deaf bureaucratic ears.

Perhaps if state jobs are in jeopardy they may finally understand the value of preserving the marine environment – along with enhancing it – so user groups will continue to pay to enjoy their Florida.

Outdoors writer G.B. Knowles is a regular contributor to the Boca Beacon.