# [SALTWATER SPORTFISHING Partners Meeting]{.underline}

#### St. Petersburg, Florida April 13-14, 2005

**Ocean Parks**

## Bob Osborn and Tom Raftican, United Anglers of Southern California

**What Are Ocean Parks?**

Ocean Parks are the ocean's equivalent of national parks, national
forests, and wildlife refuges. At the turn of the last century President
Teddy Roosevelt established the world's first wildlife refuge and added
54 more during his presidency. Roosevelt also established 150 national
forests, 5 national parks, 18 national monuments, and 24 reclamation
projects. What made these places unique was they were designed to
provide a place for the public to come and enjoy nature, and yes fish
and hunt too, while keeping important areas of wilderness and wildlife
protected for the enjoyment of future generations. These efforts were so
wildly successful that the concept was widely embraced as the premier
model for conservation on the continent.

In the ocean, the parks and refuge model proven a century ago on the
land provides an economically healthy alternative to the far more
expensive, ineffective, and loutish approach of banning all fishing.

Outdoors people especially cherish hunting and fishing in the
wilderness. The natural unspoiled beauty of the wild combined with an
activity intrinsic to millions of years of human heritage creates
something that can only be described as feeling alive far more than one
can typically expect in modern society. Whatever it is or means to
people; it is readily apparent that fishing and hunting has had both a
major environmental influence on the evolution of our genes and
continues to exert a strong influence towards conservation.

*\"There are no words that can tell of the hidden spirit of the
wilderness, that can reveal its mystery, its melancholy, and its charm.
There is delight in the hardy life of the open, in long rides rifle in
hand . . . the silent places . . . the wide waste places of the earth,
unworn of man, and changed only by the slow change of the ages through
time everlasting.\"\
---Theodore Roosevelt*

Fishing and hunting provides an important attraction to unworn places.
As the individual sportsman evolves in his sport, he becomes aware of
the need to protect these places. Mature sportsmen learn to step
lightly, take little, and contribute a lot to ensure those places stay
pristine. Recreational fishermen aren't just part of the problem; quite
to the contrary, their interest in those beautiful places makes them the
best hope for a solution. Responsible recreational fishermen are willing
to make sacrifices, and historically has been the sole group, along with
hunters, willing to voluntarily reach for their pocketbook to ensure
resources are sustainable.

**Rush to No take Reserves**

No-take marine reserves prohibit all extractive activities in defined
areas. Many recreational anglers saw the sudden rush to implement
no-take reserves being driven by a hidden agenda of animal rights
advocates bent on ending all fishing. This reaction has unfortunately
been a set back to the conservation ethic. While marine reserves have
demonstrated some successes worldwide, in places where they have failed
to gain the wide support needed among stakeholders their record of
success has been greatly diminished. Conservation works when it is
strongly supported but often fails when stakeholders have not bought in.
No-take reserves may not be the best tool to pursue the protection of
unworn places. This paper will explore that topic and talk about how
Ocean Parks can provide both a more popular and more effective
alternative.

**Traditional Fishery Management**

Traditional fishery management in the ocean has taken a very different
path from the land conservation model of President Roosevelt. Maximum
sustainable yield (MSY) is a term coined to mean taking the maximum
number of fish that a particular species could produce on a continuing
basis. This entails a harvest strategy designed to only allow enough
surviving individuals sufficient to spawn the next year's crop of fish.
Leaving additional fish in the water strains resources that otherwise
could be used to grow new fish. This management style when combined with
increasingly more effective harvesting tools results in lots of young
fish not yet old enough to spawn with few individual specimens living
long enough to become large fish.

Basically what MSY management does is manage the wilderness like it was
a chicken farm. It places a premium on young highly productive breeders
and fast growing juvenile year classes. It also reduces the total
biomass of the target species (total weight of all the individuals
combined) which reduces competition for prey and reduces cannibalism
making for a higher percentage of young fish surviving to be caught by
the fishery. MSY management science derived from land-based agriculture.
Little consideration is given to how the much smaller biomass of the
target species and changes to its age structure affects the ecosystems
they are taken from. On the farm, environmental problems affecting
production are solved by clean up labor, fertilizers, feed, seed,
antibiotics, treating the soils, killing pests and predators, etc. In
the ocean those roles are typically filled only by the creatures that
live there.

It is also very interesting and instructive that MSY management has not
emerged as a popular management style for recreational fisheries in
inland waters. Instead recreational management has focused on put and
take, strict bag limits, seasons, gear restrictions, habitat
enhancement, voluntary and mandatory catch and release, and other
conservation efforts to improve the quality of fishing. For recreational
fishing these approaches are superior to MSY management because what
puts the pizzazz in recreational fisheries are fish that are abundant
and easy to catch and big fish so that an angler can more than rarely
experience the thrill of catching a lunker. Recreational anglers are
witness to how these approaches work in the ocean for coastal species
that have been converted to a recreational fishery management style. Age
classes have filled out and fish have become abundant again.

Ocean management evolved much differently than on the land. Part of the
reason is the ocean has been traditionally treated as part of the public
trust. Political policies that mandated freedom of navigation combined
with the difficult challenges of development on the water led to the
oceans not experiencing a land ownership rush with free market pressures
to convert pieces of the ocean into its highest and best use.
Additionally, the ocean is an extremely dynamic place. Many fish stocks
freely wander the entire length and breadth of the oceans, unrestricted
by fences, moving from one nation's Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) to
another nation's EEZ and out into the high seas that have been claimed
by no nation.

The public trust nature of the ocean combined with its dynamic nature
leads to a management approach that pretty much declares "one size fits
all". Today, commercial fishers in the United States take 93% of the
fish. Traditional ocean management reflects that with a primary focus on
MSY production with a few boutique recreational fisheries and piecemeal
protected specie regulations mixed in.

In recent years, people began to notice that modern ocean management was
not doing a particularly good job of ecosystem management. We had a
hodgepodge of conditions in the ocean. In some places, protected mammals
like sea lions and otters rampaged through prey populations without
being checked by healthy populations of land and sea based predators. In
some places, industrial gear designed for high extraction rates leveled
the habitat necessary for the growth and productivity of fishes or
depleted populations of untargeted species more vulnerable to the
industrial gear than the target specie. In some fisheries intense
extraction policies stripped the fishery of a variety of age classes
while achieving MSY yields; or worse depressed populations well below
the stock sizes needed to support MSY.

**Marine Protected Areas**

Marine protected areas have been advanced as a solution to some of the
ecosystem problems noted above. Recreational fishermen did not invent
Marine Protected Areas (MPAs); however, recreational fishermen have
traditionally been leaders in enhancing fish habitat, restricting
industrial gears with poor records of excessive bycatch or habitat
damage, and in bringing down catch rates in many fisheries. Marine
protected areas offer a new tool for improving ecosystem management.

However, it is important to not allow marine protected areas to
effectively turn into a "land rush" whereby each interest group,
environmentalists, scientists, and recreational users jump in and just
arbitrarily start excluding other stakeholders. The dynamic differences
between the land and the ocean models noted above needs to be respected
and solutions that carefully look for opportunities where the overall
group of stakeholders can benefit will be much more successful. The land
conservation model fostered by Teddy Roosevelt in areas set aside from
the land rush, gained its huge public support from reasoned protections
rather than wholesale exclusions.

**Biodiversity and Habitat Protection**

This is where it gets interesting. Science indicates that altering the
biological balance of an ecosystem leads to a changing of habitat and a
resultant loss of biodiversity. Science hasn't yet gotten to the point
where specific interactions between the biological species and habitat
within an ecosystem are well understood. In fact, almost nothing is
known of these phenomena. However, major change in the composition of
specie assemblages in an ecosystem is known to drive more change. It is
an emerging science and little work has been done in temperate ocean
regions of concern to most American fishermen. In California, at least
one scientist has suggested that changes to kelp habitat along the
California shore might be attributed to the loss of large sheephead,
large lobsters, and horned sharks. These individuals all feed on animals
like sea urchins which in turn feed on kelp. Meanwhile other scientists
maintain that kelp losses were natural fluctuations with large decadal
shifts in water temperatures.

Food web interactions affecting the larger ecosystem are just
suppositions, not well studied, and have yet to be proven. Some are
likely to prove important, others not so important. However, to study
these types of affects you need very similar places where the variables
being tested have different states. Thus you have a strong interest of
the local science community in marine protected areas because having
areas nearby with appropriate controllable variations can lead to grants
for research and open doors for their institution's programs.

Very clearly there is an element of concern where piecemeal traditional
fishery management has taken us. Unbalanced protections such as gear
that impacts habitat, gear and practices that produce unacceptably high
mortality on non-targeted or pest species, and overly intense
utilization of target species resulting in a loss of abundance and size
classes are concerns recreational fishermen have held forever. Fixing
these problems is of particular interest to recreational fishermen. The
idea of having more abundant numbers of fish and more large fish in the
water is very clearly not incompatible with the interests of
recreational fishing. In fact, when recreational fishermen are able to
position themselves well in the management processes that's exactly what
they pursue.

Recreational fishing management is full of successful examples of the
use of slot limits, catch and release, release gear, strict individual
bag limits, and enhancement programs to create large populations of fish
with generous populations of lunkers. Recreational fishermen also
develop diverse and unique methods of returning fish to the water to
live and hopefully to be caught again when they grow even larger. I will
repeat myself on that. The most common goals of marine protected areas
are to have "Lots of Fish" and "Big Fish"! Heaven on Earth!

**A Dose of Reality**

The ocean is an extremely dynamic place. For example, it is widely
believed by the best scientists in fishery management that highly mobile
midlevel predator species like tuna have to be managed over very large
portions of an entire ocean to be effective.

No take closed areas of sizes acceptable to stakeholders will be greatly
limited in their ability to naturally achieve balance in ecosystems. A
marine protected area of even a thousand square miles, for example, will
do nothing to restore tuna. Bluefin tuna, striped marlin, yellowfin
tuna, bigeye tuna, pacific bonito, pelagic sharks and yellowtail are
considered to be important California predator fishes that aren't likely
to benefit from protected areas in California. In fact, it is recognized
that effective international management will be necessary to get these
fish to a point of even being a healthy population of young fish under
MSY management.

In a no-take marine reserve, some species may thrive well beyond their
natural populations because of the lack of predators. A 1970 California
Department of Fish and Game study of the contents of bluefin tuna
stomachs identified sebastes (rockfish) as the second most common type
of finfish found. Meanwhile, another mobile predator like the sea otter
with a penchant for abalone might find extraordinary opportunity from
the lack of their natural predators (like sharks and wolves), abundant
food sources (like rockfish), lack of competition (predators like tuna),
and zero human compensation or competition.

Like all of man's endeavors assuming overly simplistic universal answers
to complex issues can often create different, sometimes worse problems.
The key concept is balance. Also it's a balance that needs to both
recognize the existence of dynamic ocean-wide impacts that are
uncontrollable and the ever changing role of humans that has gone on for
many millennia that in a significant number of cases is undoubtedly
irreversible. Scientists may revel in the opportunity to study the
impact of all extractive activities in the ocean, but if they ignore
both irreversible historical changes to the food web and uncontrollable
outside conditions it is little more than a Frankenstein-like experiment
of creating an unnatural aquarium with its own excesses that has little
or no similarity with the ecological balance that originally provided
the conditions for the ocean's natural biodiversity. No question such
areas have some research value for detecting new impacts but we
shouldn't tease ourselves with the notion that such areas represent
naturally balanced assemblages of fishes.

**Common Sense**

The basic objectives of MPA's of biodiversity and healthy habitat aren't
something recreational fishermen should fight against. In fact, we
should be fighting like demons to achieve those objectives. Plentiful
and big fish is precisely what makes for great fisheries. If we don't
fight for plentiful and big fish fisheries, recreational fishermen
should pack it in and take up golf and pay green fees to somebody else
to keep the grass green for us.

No take reserves have been an option put forth by those who don't fish
as a way to achieve lots of fish of many age classes in the ecosystem.
But it is not the only way and in fact it probably is not the best way.

Global regulations have proven to be effective at dramatically reducing
the effects of MSY-style management. This fact is readily seen in many
sport-only fisheries as species once heavily affected by combined
commercial and recreational harvest have rebounded tremendously into
mature populations with large numbers of older fish. Through a
combination of lowered mortality, enhancement, and slot limits fisheries
can still be both heavily exploited and plentiful.

The science of population dynamics gives an answer as to why small
reductions in mortality can lead to large increases in populations of
fish. When traditional management is on target and fish are being fished
at MSY, it only takes a very small reduction in fishing effort to gain
large increases in the stock size. As effort is reduced further the
benefits diminish for each unit of reduction in effort. The rewards
diminish to a point that it requires huge reductions in effort to gain
miniscule increases in the fish population as effort is reduced to near
zero.

Population scientists have suggested that in the right situations it can
take as little as a 25% reduction in effort to achieve 75% of the
potential increase in a population. It then follows that it would take
another 75% reduction in effort to achieve the last 25% of benefits. The
average cost of the last 25% can be nine times the average cost of the
first 75%. Additionally, that last 25% increase in the population may be
artificial and include the take that mankind took from other predators
that's either irreversible by any management or will not benefit from
limited area management. People truly interested in achieving ideal
balance in the ocean should consider areas with some human take.

The diminishing return benefit of population dynamics leads one to the
conclusion that for the objective of achieving lots of fish and big fish
is that larger areas of small effort reduction can be both less costly
and far more effective than smaller areas of zero take.

Policy decisions also need to be made about what are reasonable goals to
pursue. No-take reserves have various appeals that have nothing to do
with biodiversity and habitat protection. They appeal emotionally as a
simplistic solution, they appeal morally to animal rights proponents,
and they appeal practically to researchers as places likely to achieve
the most obvious and least work intensive results. However, when
considered in the context of the reasonably expected benefits and the
costs to obtain benefits of biodiversity and habitat protection they
should be the least used of the various kinds of marine protected areas.

California recreational anglers strongly rallied against massive no-take
marine reserves in 2001 and 2002. Recreational anglers loudly complained
that with reasonable traditional fishery management there would be no
need for no-take reserves at all.

However, no take reserves are only one form of an MPA. MPAs that do
allow some take are in effect a localized application of more stringent
traditional management tools. Therefore, when we called for traditional
management, what we were really saying was no MPA could be big enough.
Recreational anglers should continue to seek global changes in fishery
management, but its time to recognize that MPAs may also be helpful. In
fact, in California management has been leading the nation in protection
of our waters. Effectively, the entire state is an MPA when compared to
adjacent federal waters.

The fact that big fish and lots of fish are the physical manifestation
of the objective of MPA's presents an opportunity for better fisheries
on a limited area basis. There is something very capitalistic about this
notion. MSY-style management deployed on a global scale is akin to a
communist 5-year plan for the ocean. One size fits all.

Area management provides a unique opportunity for a variety of products
coming from the ocean. If carefully designed in relationship to the
interest of the stakeholders in the ocean and with reasonable
expectations of what can be achieved through area management, it
provides a unique opportunity to increase the value of ocean resources
and perhaps to some degree offset some of the impacts of industrial
activities occurring in adjacent areas.

.

MPAs also bring a bit of history from land protections to the oceans. On
the land side, management of lands evolved not on a global scale of
uniform land use regulations where every project was required to enact
the same ecosystem protections, but instead areas were set aside as
wilderness, parks, wildlife refuges and such to achieve that protection.

**The Take Home Message**

Concerns have been expressed in the recreational fishing community that
if we allow MPAs then it will be easier in the future to decrease
fishing opportunities.

Wow! There is so much philosophy and psychology packed in that sentence
its difficult to know where to start. Indeed, if we allow others to
dictate MPAs to us, or we approach the mandated MPA processes without
clear objectives for a network of MPAs that realistically hopes to grow
more and bigger fish we will only have ourselves to blame.

The bottom line is to keep recreational fishing healthy. We have to be
selling a positive image. Nothing can be better for both the economic
health of recreational fishing and the public image of recreational
fishing than marketing fishing for big fish in a pristine wilderness
loaded with fish of all sizes.

Fear is a big motivator, and we all have good reason to be fearful.
However, pumping up a million anglers with fear then leading them in a
charge in the wrong direction is worse than not firing them up in the
first place. People don't fish or stay fishing because of fear. People
don't buy fishing tackle and boats because they think there will be no
fishing tomorrow. People have choices of how to spend their spare time
and most won't choose aggravating pastimes. Who wants to join Custer's
regiment? The truth is we have to be realistic and then put as positive
of a spin on it as possible. Healthy and pristine resources make for
great marketing to attract fishermen. Tackle manufacturers,
distributors, party and charter boat businesses, bait haulers are wholly
dependent upon having customers for their businesses to prosper and the
prospering of these businesses run full circle to help make fishing
experiences more satisfying.

United Anglers of Southern California commissioned an economic study of
Northern Los Angeles, Ventura, and Santa Barbara Counties and found that
the economic impact on fishing businesses in those areas from no-take
reserves was 4 times greater than the science panel estimated. . . .and
the impact had already occurred before the reserves were implemented. It
wasn't reserves that caused the initial impact; it was the inappropriate
marketing of reserves that caused it.

The passionate angler will continue to fish until actually forced from
the water. However, marketing is every bit as important to him because
his future in fishing is going to be closely tied to the popularity of
the sport. The bottom line is well designed MPAs can be an excellent
vehicle to support participation. One only needs to look as far as
Everglades National Park in Florida to see how Ocean Parks can help
build and maintain healthy recreational fisheries and ecosystems. Even
with poor water conditions in the park from a huge sugar industry
upstream, the park supports a huge number of birds and fish.

**Ocean Parks versus Marine Parks**

Marine parks in the ocean serve as an available tool to meet objectives
of California state law regarding recreational priorities but they have
the unfortunate byproduct of excluding commercial activities even if
that activity isn't harmful. Using Yosemite and Yellowstone as the
standards for MPAs has tremendous political clout with the general
non-fishing public. However, it is worth noting that both Yosemite and
Yellowstone allow compatible commercial activities. The name Ocean Parks
was created to reform that powerful word "parks" and reinforce the
notion that areas that meet the standard of parks should not arbitrarily
exclude all commercial fishing. I have heard criticism from some that
they don't support Ocean Parks because they find that the word can be
confused with Marine Parks and the arbitrary exclusion of their
commercial friends. However, the bottom line is the word "parks" is far
too valuable of a historical symbol to allow to be used to describe a
new concept of arbitrarily exclusion without consideration as to whether
certain activities are damaging or not. In fact, in most of the
protected areas on land, commercial take is allowed in most areas if
only to remove dangerous or invasive animals or provide support for
public use.

Ocean Parks do not have to be parks at all. Only slightly more than 2%
of the special areas created by Teddy Roosevelt were national parks. The
National Parks were the crowning jewels but were only a small part of
Roosevelt's package of protections for the wilderness. Likewise the
Ocean Parks initiative is a broader concept of achieving balance at a
reasonable cost while serving a variety compatible commercial and
recreational use objectives. It's a real opportunity instead of a pipe
dream that conservation can really be good for business. Clearly
recreational fishing can prosper under conditions of lower take and
larger fish. Even commercial fisheries can benefit from more carefully
handled fat and healthy fish. Ocean Parks gives flexibility to ocean
managers to satisfy demands of their constituents while still protecting
unworn places. Ocean Parks can stand as a symbol of sustainability and a
place to meet higher conservation standards based on the best available
science. The foundation of Freedom to Fish is based upon sound science
and neither the Parks symbol nor the concept of Freedom to Fish should
be disregarded for any sector.

**Science**

Big fish, lots of fish and an opportunity to fish is a powerful
combination. The history of fishery management has many examples of
achieving these aims. One has to only look to the many successes that
recreational fishermen have fought for and sacrificed for to see that
good regulations can lead to more big fish and more fish overall. The
slot limit and catch and release fisheries in Florida have been
outstandingly successful. Today huge schools of redfish and tarpon
wander along the Florida shorelines providing tremendous opportunity for
recreational fishermen. Other fisheries that include both commercial and
recreational participation have exhibited great success also, albeit
less stunning because of the increased participation but still very
notable. What hasn't been widely tried is whether these approaches can
be successful on a small scale. However, improvement in small areas is
also the same challenge that no-take reserves have to overcome.

True devotees for timely and scientific management allows for the
discretion of management to easily and effectively manage the areas
under their jurisdiction. Declaring large numbers of areas arbitrarily
closed to certain activities subject to ponderous review cycles and
public processes to achieve an illusion of protection is almost as wrong
as not having any management of those areas in the first place.

The key to the wise use of MPAs is identifying measurable outcomes. For
example, the public can devote much larger areas to Ocean Parks and
increase populations of fish and grow larger fish much more cost
effectively than no-take reserves. A state can also declare higher
conservation objectives for its relatively small slice of combined state
and federal waters and also continue to work on areas within that
defined area to fine tune results. Such an approach is used within large
parks on land. Another positive for well-designed Ocean Parks is they
don't have to simply result in a compression of effort in the remaining
open areas. This can result in a benefit to all stakeholders.

**Politics**

Under current law we won't have the luxury of sitting back and saying:
"No not that one, uh, and not that other one either." We have to create
proactive programs that satisfy the concerns of the general public and
forcefully move them.

Especially in California, delay is not a viable option. First and
foremost, we currently have a California administration in power that
believes both in conservation and that conservation is good for
business. California also has a law that mandates the use of a protected
area strategy to provide a higher level of protection for California's
marine resources. Mike Chrisman, Secretary of the California Resources
Agency, the California agency charged with the implementation of
California's network of MPAs and the agency over the Department of Fish
Game has outlined to anglers the path they need to follow. Chrisman's
nomination for secretary was strongly supported by recreational anglers
because we knew him to be a reasonable voice for conservation. In a
recent speech to a large recreational fishing audience he reminded
anglers that it is essential we speak clearly with a common voice and
that we come forward with proposals that meet the objectives of state
law. Uh what was that again? Big fish and lots of fish! I believe we can
do that.

Fear, uncertainty, and doubt are always there, particularly when it
involves government regulation. However, at no time in history has it
been more important for sportsmen to get involved. That means getting
involved in the State's mandate to lead the nation and even the world in
establishing ocean conservation benchmarks. Anglers need to set aside
fears, and work proactively with an administration that very clearly
wants conservation to work for business. Anglers have very positive
Freedom to Fish laws working in their favor, but these protections are
contingent upon being consistent with long term conservation. Anglers
need to seek and build coalitions with moderate groups seeking the same
kinds of conservation that mature anglers seek and avoid polarizing
processes that can only serve to push important decisions forward to
days of more uncertainty when perhaps a less business and sportsman
friendly administration takes power.

The fact is there are only two ways to get bigger fish and more fish and
that's is to kill fewer fish or; through reefing and hatchery programs,
grow more fish. Both work well individually but together they work the
best.

**Conclusion**

Change does not come without controversy. Looking back in history, Teddy
Roosevelt a century ago bravely embarked on what was at the time an
extremely controversial program of conservation and wildlife protection.
Teddy was at first assailed from both sides as his recommendations fell
short of the draconian demands of the most extreme non-users while at
the same time he angered the proponents of status quo. The heated
battles over extremely valuable land resources faded under Roosevelt's
wise leadership and eventually led to the establishment of National
Parks and Refuges that today stand as monuments to foresight and set the
standard for the conservation of natural resources. More importantly
despite forebodings of instant disaster, fishing and hunting rights held
up well.

The lessons of that era should be heeded now for the oceans. The more
anglers actively engage in the process of proactive conservation and the
pursuit of scientific knowledge about the oceans, the better we can
offer, promote, and enact solutions that work. Most important for our
long term future is to find and promote consistently a message of
conservation that wisely balances the use of resources while continuing
to recognize the dynamic nature of the ocean.

*\"Defenders of the short-sighted men who in their greed and selfishness
will, if permitted, rob our country of half its charm by their reckless
extermination of all useful and beautiful wild things sometimes seek to
champion them by saying the \'the game belongs to the people.\' So it
does; and not merely to the people now alive, but to the unborn people.
The \'greatest good for the greatest number\' applies to the number
within the womb of time, compared to which those now alive form but an
insignificant fraction. Our duty to the whole, including the unborn
generations, bids us restrain an unprincipled present-day minority from
wasting the heritage of these unborn generations. The movement for the
conservation of wild life and the larger movement for the conservation
of all our natural resources are essentially democratic in spirit,
purpose, and method." -- Theodore Roosevelt*