Westport: Week Three
As I near the close of my third week in Westport at Ocean Gold Seafoods, I have absolutely no regrets. I’m swimming in a sea of information about fish, fishing, and in the process enjoying the very unique personalities of the boat captains that come walking through the office on a daily basis.
One of my favorite overheard quotes so far has been:
Boat Captain looking for a new deckhand: “We gotta hire that kid. He doesn’t do much drinking. He’s not into the drugs. And he’s just barely getting into the women.”
What can I say. These are practical people for whom hard work, dependability and honesty are the highest qualities needed for employment.
But their universe is ridiculously complicated.
I’m about to embark on my first business trip to Sacramento for a week-long Pacific Fishery Management Council meeting. It’s a conglomeration of regulatory, government, environmental, scientific, industry, native tribes, fishermen, processors and the general public representing California, Oregon, Washington and Idaho. Everyone from the Department of Natural Resources and the Coast Guard to the Environmental Defense Fund and the West Coast Processors Association. All sounding off about how they think the natural resource that is our ocean should best be managed. And that’s not even getting into the details of the debate on a species level. Monday, for example, the only topic is Salmon. For twelve hours.
Some of the biggest debates I’ve seen so far have to do with measurement. Everyone has a different idea of how to determine how many fish are in the sea. Currently, that debate is largely shaped by the scientific and environmental communities who have a certain bias about what kind of data results they would like to see.
Sometimes issues arise having to do with how old the numbers are that are used to make stock assessments. Some have to do with the equation itself which attempts to determine not only how many fish are in the sea, but how catchable they are and what kind of mortality rate they have should they be accidentally caught and returned to the sea.
The fishermen are largely not a part of this fish stock assessment process. Not to say they don’t obviously have a bias as well, but try to imagine the frustration from a fisherman’s perspective.
This is a guy (or gal) who spends more time at sea than on land, away from family and friends, risking life and limb in an effort to make a living. They know how to catch fish because they know where they are and how many of them there are.
Now some ivory tower scientist with a pHd and very often an environmentalist agenda comes out with a math equation that tells him that there are too few Petrale Sole (just for the sake of argument) in the ocean and that we have to stop fishing them. And if you accidentally catch one, you have to either throw it back or it gets measured against that season’s allotted bycatch. Once the bycatch limit is reached, the season is over.
Meanwhile, the fishermen are out there just trying to find a spot where they DON’T catch these Petrale because from their experience out at sea these damn fish are everywhere. You can’t find a spot NOT overrun with them.
So, is the data that the scientists entered wrong? Is the math equation flawed? Maybe yes. Maybe no. Perhaps it’s closer to the fact that the ocean is a big freaking place and deciding how many fish are in it can’t possibly be left to the devices of a single entity or process. I certainly don’t think the fishermen should be the only voice stating what fish are in the sea. And neither do the fishermen. But certainly they should be A voice.
Like I said. I’m just swimming in the sea of information out here. Trying to wrap my head around this world of fishing and asking questions from an outsider’s perspective. I know Communications and Marketing. That’s what I’ve been hired to do. But in the process, I get to learn all about this crazy subculture that is the world of resource management and commercial fishing.
And I think it’s important not just for people in fishing and resource management to understand, but it speaks to larger issues of government oversight and free enterprise. I’m just scratching the surface here, but can’t wait to dive into the deep end tomorrow when I land in Sacramento.
