MEXICO BEACH — Fishery management is a complex business, and when it comes to fishery management in the United States, the Magnuson-Stevens Act is the Bible.

In the Gulf of Mexico, regulations decisions are made by the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council (GFMC), composed of 17 voting members appointed by the Secretary of Commerce and made up of commercial fishermen, recreational fishermen, academics and a representative from the Fish and Wildlife Department of each gulf state.

The Magnuson-Stevens Act is the council’s ultimate governing document and dictates the decision-making process. In addition to following the mammoth Magnuson-Stevens Act, a 227-page document from NOAA provides an “unofficial compilation” of federal regulations for the fisheries of the gulf, Caribbean and South Atlantic. From that document, the GMFC prepares easier-to-swallow pamphlets that outline both recreational and commercial regulations for federal waters.

State regulations are prepared by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission and apply only to those fishermen who fish only in state waters and do not hold a federal fishing permit. Fishermen who hold a federal permit must always abide by the stricter federal regulations no matter their location.

“There is a finite amount of fish that can be harvested and you need to decide who gets it fishery scienceand how much,” said Emily Muelstein, fisheries outreach specialist for the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council. “For a lot of our species we have allocations. The council decides how much the recreational sector gets and the commercial sector gets.”

Allocations are made based mostly historical catch records and then divided among the fishermen that harvest that resource. With the GFMC’s commercial catch share programs, once the fishermen catch their individual allowances they are done for the year.

“(At GFMC) we are mandated by the Magnuson-Stevens Act,” Muelstein said. “It says we have to use the best available scientific information, and that’s really complicated. It’s really hard to study fish.”

It is, after all, impossible to count every fish in the ocean.

The GFMC uses what they call the “SEADAR Process” in which they gather data from every available scientific outlet, Muelstein said, and estimate and model the fishery populations to produce stock assessments for different species.

Muelstein said many deem the system “fatally flawed.”

“It’s a hard subject to study,” she said. “The fishery science isn’t always great, but we’re using the best science there is, and sometimes that’s not enough.”

This year’s short red snapper season, Muelstein said, can be attributed to a horrible depletion of the stock 15 years ago. She said while the fishery is rebuilding, the restrictions remain intact because they are not seeing the older snapper that are more likely to reproduce.

“A lot of our stocks are rebuilding to healthier than they’ve been in years, which is a really good sign,” Muelstein said. “Some of the decisions that are made are not necessarily about the health of the stock; it’s about managing the people.”

Muelstein said the council recently held a workshop in partnership with the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) to explore the idea of sector separation, which would remove charter fishermen and other boats for hire from the recreation sector and place them into a sector of their own.

“A lot of organizations spent a lot of money to send people to these workshops,” said Muelstein, who noted the GFMC receives no funding from the EDF. “We got sort of pegged as working with (the EDF because of these workshops.”

Sector separation is an idea supported by NOAA and the EDF, but Zales sees it as another effort by the EDF to pare the charter fleets down into smaller numbers.

“(Charter fishermen) provide the platform for the recreational fishermen to fish,” Zales said. “When you try to separate us out, we lose our political power. We’re far better off as one sector; we get more days to fish and we get to keep more.”

However, Roy Crabtree, Southeast Regional Administrator for NOAA Fisheries Service, believes sector separation would work to charter fishermen’s advantage by allowing for more flexibility. The council is developing a document that analyzes the idea of sector separation and will begin exploring it in April.

Crabtree said another option NOAA is looking into is the implication of a “days at sea” program specifically for charter operators which would allot charter fishermen a set amount of days per year to fish, rather than restrict them based on fishery seasons.

“The for-hire sector is looking at very short seasons,” Crabtree said. “Even with increased catch limits they’re still going to catch them up very rapidly.”

The implication of short seasons, as in the recreational sector, in the commercial sector would create a “race for fish,” Crabtree said, a race that sends a flood of fish on the market and decreases the market price.

“For whatever reason, catch shares have become very controversial,” Crabtree said. “There are some benefits in catch share programs. They allow fishermen more flexibility for when they fish.”

Crabtree said data also indicates that under catch share programs the price per pound of fish improves and profitability goes up.

Crabtree said the commercial vessels utilizing catch shares that have remained in the fishery have benefitted from the programs. However, an advantage for one creates a disadvantage for the next as catch share programs in the gulf force smaller businesses out.

“We have seen consolidation in the gulf catch share programs,” Crabtree said. “Catch shares have their pluses and minuses. There was more of an economic free-for-all under the old system.”

Those interested in entering a fishery will have to invest more money, Crabtree said, but he may in turn be more profitable.

Crabtree sees the backlash against fishing regulations as mostly philosophical disagreement.

“There is a lot of misunderstanding and misinformation out there,” Crabtree said. “I would encourage people to just be open-minded about it. There are advantages and there are disadvantages.”

In a climate where tons of advocacy groups are fighting from different viewpoints, Muelstein said the council’s job is to listen to and try and balance the competing interests.

“The council at the end of the day, they regulate a public resource. They are unpopular, but you can’t make everybody happy with one decision,” she said.

“Everybody wants the resource and everybody is fighting for the right to the resource. The thought of more regulations, nobody likes it, but when you dial back to the 1960s when there were no regulations, that didn’t work either.”

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