What is the role of science in managing fisheries?

Kristen Lycett, Maureen Brooks, Alex Fisher ·
8 April 2013
Applying Science |     5 comments

If we let it, science can inform many of our decisions in terms of resource management. According to Dr. Ed Houde of Chesapeake Biological Laboratory, science should inform policy, determining whether or not we should fish a population and under what guidelines. That policy then creates management, the rules and regulations set in place, and their subsequent enforcement. The issue though, is that many people still question the science behind management, and with good reason.

Ed Houde
Dr Ed Houde at CBL

Scientists have the difficult task of walking the fine line between traditional, 'science-worthy' science, or making the news. Making the news often means bold and dramatic statements, like Worm et al. 2006, which claimed their population models showed the complete collapse of all fisheries by 2048. Such statements may lead to the kind of decision making that would protect exploited species, but the later rebuttal of such predictions may end up doing more harm to the credibility of fisheries science. Traditional science also takes time, as the peer review process is typically a slow one, even though it helps minimize errors. Often, it moves too slowly for policy, which has now begun to turn to “post-normal” science, which pools the collective advice of experts. According to Tom O'Connell, the director of the Department of Natural Resources Fisheries Service, this is used within the DNR in the form of 'decision memos'. These are scientific memos designed to give background on a particular subject to better inform decision makers in a more timely manner.

Students
Tom O'Connell and students and HPL.

Often, when it comes to decision making, people want to be told what the outcome of the various choices will be. Science-based decision making just isn't that straight forward. We can use models and mathematical equations to predict various outcomes, but we can't guarantee those results. Thus, when real life doesn't follow model predictions, people lose faith in the science. Think of your local weather man; if he says tomorrow is going to be sunny and 75 and it turns out to be rainy and 45, you won't take his weather predictions as seriously in the future. This is especially pertinent where fisheries are concerned because there are often factors that we don't know about or can't include in our models.

Fisheries management is centered on the idea of a maximum sustainable yield (MSY). This means a catch based on population growth, which removes only as many individuals as were added, leaving behind the spawning stock so that more can be generated. This can be a difficult number to determine and, in theory, should change from year to year as population levels fluctuate. The problem here is that it often doesn't take in to consideration various species interactions; take the striped bass in the Chesapeake Bay for example. After a 5 year moratorium set in place to protect a dwindling population, the species recovered. Most hailed this as a success story, but the underweight and often lesion covered fish that are now being caught tell a different story. Striped bass rely on smaller fish, in particular Menhaden, as a food source. With Menhaden populations in decline, many of the now abundant Striped Bass are struggling to find food. This illustrates the need for multi-species management and an understanding of food web interactions.

Menhaden Population Factors
Factors Affecting Menhaden Population Levels: This diagram illustrates the complexity of a population model for a single species in the Chesapeake Bay.

It is also important to note that a moratorium on a species won't solve everything; the American Shad was in a decline similar to that of the Striped Bass. Fishing pressure was relaxed through a moratorium and the population did not recover, which goes to show that factors other than fishing mortality can play a huge role in population dynamics.

Another important case study to consider is that of the Blue Crab. In the Chesapeake Bay, stocks had been steadily dwindling for many years, but changes in management and a good year for larval recruitment gave an immediate boost to population estimates. Recruitment rates are one variable of many that are closely tied to population levels, but are affected by many other factors, making them hard to model.

It can be frustrating for the public when scientists warn of over-fishing stocks, yet those stocks persist for years, suggests Dr. Houde. The issue is not that over-fishing will lead to the collapse of the fishery, it's that those stocks could be better managed to provide even more, he says. As the population declines, more effort is expended to catch the same amount of fish, until the effort far outweighs the catch. In this way, fisheries can be protected from complete extinction, at least due to human overfishing. Impacts of natural fluctuations in population size from weather patterns, predation and larval recruitment may finish the job though.

While frustrating, it is necessary for the public to realize that management is done with them in mind. According to Mr. O'Connell, the DNR Fisheries Service is founded on four management principles; sustainability, accountability, enforceability and cost recovery. The DNR evolved under the public trust doctrine, the idea that certain resources are for public use and that use must be managed by a governing body. This idea goes back to the tragedy of the commons, the idea that a resource available for public use will quickly be used up as everyone tries to get their 'fair' share, knowing that whatever they don't take will be taken by someone else. Thus, the resource must be managed so all can share in it without destroying it. In this way, management is in the best interest of those who would partake of said resource, i.e. the stakeholders.

It is up to the scientists to provide the stakeholders with valid reasons for the policy behind the management. In this way, scientists can generate support and understanding of the management plans, which will encourage stakeholders to follow the regulations. It is up to the managers to make sure their process is transparent, allowing the public to understand why the regulations were selected, as well as to make their operations cost effective and enforceable. Thus, we all have a part to play in the management of our fisheries, so that they will be available to us and future generations.

Authors

Kristen Lycett, Maureen Brooks, and Alex Fisher


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Comments

  • Bill Nuttle 11 years ago

    Here is a different perspective on the use of science in decision-making that casts the sensation-seeking Worm et al paper, as characterized in this post, in a different light. The popular movie “Lincoln,” which I just saw last week, tells the story of the passage of the anti-slavery amendment to the US Constitution. I really enjoyed being transported back in time and seeing the familiar machinery of a political drama exercised in the unfamiliar setting of Washington DC in the closing months of the American Civil War. One detail of this film was called to mind by the title of this post “What is the role of science…?” Lincoln is interrupted in his study by a couple who have traveled a long distance to Washington seeking redress for a wrongful decision. Lincoln hears their case, and as the door opens when they go to leave we see that the hallway outside of Lincoln’s study is filled with a crowd of petitioners each clamoring to present a new case for Lincoln to act on. This is government in action at its most basic level, at least as imagined by this film.

    A person in authority hearing cases placed before them and reacting in the immediacy of the moment – this is a universal template for decision-making. It has been carried forward to us from forgotten history and it spans all forms of government, public and private. What, or where, is the role of science in this template?

    The advice of Machiavelli, a political consultant to Italian nobility during the 1500s, was that the decision-maker cannot be seen to dither. “Seek the counsel of experts (scientists), but do it on your own terms,” he wrote. In the context of national government in the late 20th and early 21st centuries often the terms that decision-makers impose is that certain petitions are subjected to various forms of review and analysis by experts before being brought forward for action. Ed Houde’s lecture and the discussion with Tom O’Connell described the way in which fisheries science is used, for example in stock assessments, to support decisions affecting fisheries.

    The accusation against Worm et al. is that they used “bold and dramatic statements,” designed to be picked up and echoed by the press, to catch the ear of the decision-maker directly. Maybe they wished to raise legitimate doubts about the accuracy of the accepted/mandated fisheries planning process, or maybe they wished to bring new information to the table. In any case, the complaint is that by subverting the established planning process Worm et al. have confounded the useful application of science to decision-making.

    I have a different interpretation that is based on the view that the planning process set in motion by the princes of modern government is multifaceted and provides multiple paths for incorporating science into decision-making. “The Politics of Expertise,” written in 1972 by Guy Benveniste, identifies four varieties of planning processes that a prince can initiate. Two can be described as classically Machiavellian, in that they are conducted only for show, and these require no further comment. The two varieties of planning that can be described as supporting real decision making Benveniste calls “imperative planning” and “intentional planning,” and these differ markedly in their objectives, methods, and use of science.

    Benveniste characterizes the difference between imperative and intentional planning in terms of the objective of the planning process compared to the mandate of the prince/decision-maker that it is intended to serve. Imperative planning operates entirely within the decision-maker’s mandate, such as established by a law or regulation, with the objective to bring to the table information required to make the decisions required by that mandate. I suggest that the planning process of fisheries stock assessment, etc. is an example of this variety of planning, which serves a generally recognized set of goals using fairly well established sources of data and methods of analysis – normative science. Intentional planning is used when the planning objectives fall outside of established authorities and mandates, requiring decision-makers with different mandates to work together cooperatively. Scientists who contribute to this variety of planning are asked to assemble disparate types of information and formulate new approaches to analysis and interpretation. Various planning processes engaged in promoting/establishing ecosystem-based management of coastal and ocean resources are examples of intentional planning. At the largest scale, these involve coordination and cooperation between countries. Within the US, ecosystem-based management of coastal resources is a project of the Council on Environmental Quality and, in particular, it’s Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force.

    While Worm et al. can be criticized as confounding the application of normative fisheries science in the context of the imperative planning process that supports fisheries management; they also can be defended as contributing constructively to the intentional planning process that supports the implementation/reinterpretation of fisheries management within an ecosystem-based approach. It is clear from the paper’s title and abstract that this is the intent of Worm et al. 2006. I suggest that the controversy sparked by the results of Worm et al, which played out in letters and comments to the journal and in follow-up studies, has been important in motivating a rethinking of traditional fisheries science and manage needed to bring the existing mandates its serves into the broader context of ecosystem management. In this sense, Worm et al. is an example of science being used as an irritating grain of sand intentionally planted in the complacent oyster so that it might be stimulated to grow a pearl.

  • Melissa 11 years ago

    Interestingly, this just popped up in my news feed, "Governor O’Malley Announces Improving Oyster Population and Reproduction."
    Read more here: http://news.maryland.gov/dnr/2013/04/10/governor-omalley-announces-improving-oyster-population-and-reproduction/

  • Carlos 11 years ago

    I agree that some level of transparency in both the management and science processes is important for generating trust. While too much transparency might reveal more of the uncertainty in the science, loss of trust (by stakeholders and the general public) can be avoided by timely disclosure of simplified versions of the reasoning, methods and results behind science and management. Not enough transparency could result in total loss of support when predictions fall apart. When predictions do fall apart it is a challenge, and also a necessity, not only to understand why they fell apart but also to find ways on how to communicate an explanation of the disagreement between predictions and observations to interested parties. Despite the complexity and uncertainty, science plays an important role in management, whether through direct influence or through "post-normal" informed advisory.

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