Fish & Game Commission approves South Coast MPAs

[spoolin01]

A favorite tactic when someone is trying to confuse an issue is to claim it's something it is not, and then oppose that thing which it isn't.

Nowhere in the MLPA legislation is wholesale closure of all fishing ever advocated. It has never been advocated by anyone on the RSG, SAT, SIG, or the BRTF.

You're raising/creating a phony issue.

Every MPA and SMCA is a wholesale closure to all fishing (crab and pelagics in some SMCAs notwithstanding), with only a couple of exceptions (rec fishing at Salt Point is one of those rare exceptions - out of 360 miles of coastline).

A favorite tactic in rigged public process is to put on a dog and pony show to provide cover for the corruption behind the scenes. You claim to have been on the inside, maybe you can explain the fixing that went on in the Central and North Central regions, where the work product of the process was over-ruled at the top - in favor of more no-fishing zones, surprise! I also read of the controversy following a vote on Option C (?) in the South that was supposed to narrow the menu of choices - but was promptly ignored when the outcome, adverse to the no-fishing objective, was ignored. Surprise!

Which is exactly what you've got. I think around 20% of the coastline (maybe a little less) was the final figure. So what exactly is your beef?

That's a bit like LA taking all the water from the Owen's Valley, then quoting what % of land the former riverbed represented. Since the MLPA implementation has turned into simply taking as much rockfish habitat (sand and mud bottoms were mostly ignored) as the process could be forced to (see the record on respect for the Working Group process and interference with decision-making by the BRTF and F&GC), the focus has been on closing rockfish habitat, starting with the most prime rockfish area. That take approaches 50% in the Central and North Central regions. ...On top of the 100% closure to rec fishing that has existed for years in the habitat that starts at 120/180/240 ft. What does that total to under your method of % calculation, 90% closed now? Even 20% of the coastline is too much when the existing management methods have proven capable of providing sustainable yield. See the NOAA data.

At best, your statement is a mangling of facts. At worst, an deliberate distortion of truth.

Yes, there are SOME Marine Protected Areas (like the Avalon Underwater Park) that are designated as no-take zones. There are, plenty more, like Farnsworth, where restricted take is permitted of specified species

Are you serious? Talk about 'deliberate distortion'. So permitting marlin fishing within 3 miles of the coast within that SMCA is your example of the moderation in this grab? Fishing for ALL resident fin-fish is 100% prohibited in ALL MPAs and SMCAs, with almost no exception, in the Central and North Central zones. Perhaps you can supplement that with an honest review of the South area.

And there were even more areas that were proposed/contemplated that were never touched and remain totally open to fishing under current bag/catch limits.

"Proposed and contemplated" but not taken away... I guess that, and using 'totally open' as a description of fishing under current bag/catch limits says all that's needed about the mindset.

As I said previously, having a different opinion is one thing. Having different "facts" (especially when they're untrue) isn't right nor does it help a reasoned debate.

- Ken (Member of the SIG)

Lead by example then. I hadn't responded to your prior couple of posts to JustinW because there was so much mis-direction.

 

[H2Ocean]

Thanks for the scientific evaluation, and i stand corrected. ok in tropical "warm" waters nutrients are not as rich as in cooler subtropical and temperate waters. Ok, whatever it was that created a mass influx of fish of all kinds in our statewide inshore and offshore waters during the el nino must have been something nurishing to maintain the mega numbers of fish species that came and stayed. my point was only, it had nothing to do with mankind's mpa's. and yet it doesn't even come up in discussion. i'd like to bring up something that will further enhance my claim of observation. i too bill like you have been doing valuable research for our precious resource that we all share. example, reefcheck, reef.org are incorporated agencies that are finding out the value of barely trained recreational diver help to document reef life conditions..why? well the state does not have the ability to monitor the expanse of our resource, or just one large inshore state water that lines the entire state and being territorial boundaries of 3, 9, or 12 nautical miles out from the low tide mark. so to get a more accurate representative sample they have included plain ol recreational divers to lend a helping hand.. your in favor of this aren't you bill? ok as another group to include in any count research of a fishery would be fishermen themselves. i would think. why? because they have same as the reefcheck.org divers-actual hands on views of what they're seeing. its a valuable report that shouldn't be left out of the study. and my point is that massive nutrient rich water-which consisted of the entire food chain was supercharged as a result of a natural cycle, that has happened regularly in our lifetimes. its not what mpa's have done at all. the white sea bass breeding compound in so cal mistakenly celebrated and laid claim to its effectiveness, when the white sea bass made its cyclic showing in huge numbers and sizes following the el nino's effects, which will be similar to the mpa's when the next el nino pushes once again massive fish this way. they'll be like oh look what our closures have resulted in. its similar to our political system. oh wait, our state recreational waters is a political system that is governed by prejudiced politicians. sweet. so who am i to tell my grand daughter that "no honey you can't fish here, i did, but i looked in the water one day and seen less fish, so i made a zone that you can't fish in. I've seen Dr. Bill, the reef's occupants change in number more in one given day than in the entire year. and when that one special time comes that i have no control over, i'll be watching the plentiful fish populations from in and out of the water. only not able to harvest a natural resource within the marine protected areas. and you know, once they are locked up, the keys are thrown away, they never will open again.

 

[spoolin01]

Yes, of course species come and go... change is inherent in natural systems. So much that has changed in SoCal ecosystems has been the result of overharvesting of key species, and we can start with the sea otter back in the 1700s and 1800s. As a keystone species, its removal changed a lot.

This is a key piece of the odds that the two sides find themselves at. For myself, I can rue those changes for their impact on what would otherwise have been, as you clearly do, but I don't have a problem with them up to a point. And that point is pretty tolerant of man's impact and the justification deriving from man's needs and interests. Few would want to see the coastline turned into a wasteland but it would be laughable to claim we are even close to that. I can hear how Yosemite was once an open oak land, or how the magnificent stands of gum trees are 'invasive' (are there non-invasive species, or is this a term of flora/fauna property rights?), or even how those terrorist mitten crabs pose a threat to some anthropomorphic status quo, somewhere. But that doesn't bother me because to the eye of the fresh observer, those areas are nevertheless perfectly natural. There's nothing going on there that doesn't happen everywhere by the same processes that have always occured. Nature doesn't care about otters, man does. Even using a construction like that chafes me, but you have introduced it. That's my quibble with your baseline approach and bandying about of terms like damage and health when you seem to be talking about minor issues of species mix - that's the eye of the beholder, not science. Killing the golden goose is a timeless metaphor, and poisoning the environment or destroying the base of the web would be unhealthy to all, but the MLPA process is only targeting fishing, largely at the top of the food chain - to me that's an issue of picking winners then, and that's public policy, not science.

I consider my 40 years of experience diving and fishing (yes, fishing... I had my own fishing boat and was a partner in a salmon troller up in Fort Bragg back in the 80s) to be a trump card. I have that perspective, and most of the time viewed the ocean as an ecologist. You may not accept that qualification, but it is a real one... and my scientific peers have acknowledged that some of my research in our waters down here has been ground breaking.

That clearly establishes a personal history and connection to the issue, as many others have. So far I don't follow how it makes your input more insightful than many of the other participants in the process, whose preferences - always backed by the best reason they can muster - run the gamut between the extremes. You've indicated, if I've read correctly, that fisheries management is not your precise specialty.

The anti-science bias I see in many fishermen and in the general public saddens me.
... especially the ones who spit on one of the most recognized kelp forest ecologists in the world.

I understand what you mean, but I think in large part it's more about antipathy to scientists than antipathy to science. Fishermen (and many others in our modern world of very sophisticated power) have had to learn the hard way that there is precious little science that's dispositive in many important areas, and what little there is is often used unscientifically by the parties involved. Some scientists will claim one compelling 'scientific opinion' (there's an oxymoron), their equally vehement colleagues will claim just the opposite. If there were much science here, it couldn't be so polarized.

This process has been about power and taking of fishing rights, overtly in the legislation, and behind the scenes in the process as well, it appears.

I usually only claim a level of expertise for the areas I know intimately, over time. I rarely comment on the MPAs designated in mainland waters since I seldom dive there.

As for Hilbron, I will acknowledge not having read his work (yet). I wonder what he knows specifically about my area and will be interested in learning that.

Strange argument.. no one is talking about a fish's "sense of loss" or "quality of life." Don't even see why you'd raise such a silly issue. This isn't about a fish's perception, it is about the health of ecosystems as a whole.

It was meant to be tongue in cheek, since - given the fact we're talking about the California coastal fisheries - I could only attribute use of those terms as arising anthropomorphically.

Does talking a population down 80% cause damage. You bet it does for many species. It can have rather serious impacts on reproductive potential and the ability to bounce back. I'm surprised you'd even ask that question. Look at the mortality studies done by Love and Schroeder on giant sea bass under various regimes of fishing pressure. Even small changes in harvest rates can lead to extinction.

The specific % was simply for argumentation, getting at the idea of taken down but not destroyed. Pick your worst case exemplar - if all Cali fishing stopped tomorrow, which specie would go extinct? Even if only fishing for that one species were stopped, would it go extinct? If it doesn't go extinct, what are the damages in your estimation? It's a perturbation to be sure, but in what sense damage? Fishing is a good for humanity in several respects - I'd say clearly more important that a minority segment's wish to see more fish when they go diving - those damaged fish had better be a pretty sympathetic case.

Reef associated fish may (or may not) be even more affected by this since if you reduce the population size by 80%, they may not have much mating success. I'm sure a similar thing would be observed in pelagics, but I generally
focus my studies on demersal and reef associated species nearshore.
Another factor is that when you reduce a species' population 80%, you also impact the species it competes with or feeds on. These effects ripple through the ecosystem.

Yes, but perturbation is not disaster, damage, or lack of health. Nature doesn't care what happens one way or another, I think the archeologic record is clear on that score. Man does, but most people expect more that just perturbation to get worked up over.

Fishers often complain here about the impact of squid fishers on food sources for white sea bass. I agree with them. The commercial squid boats are applying greater pressure in our waters due to the closures off Anacapa and the fact that the MPAs approved for Catalina did NOT include the areas of intense squid harvest as both local anglers and myself requested.

A good example of a real issue - refereeing conflicts between uses. I seem to recall an analysis that said the bio-mass saved inside MPAs was pretty much offset by that lost incrementally just outside their boundaries. Don't know if that's always the case, but what do you make of the situation you described? Is it better to concentrate take or spread it out - doesn't efficiency of niche exploitation come into play when considering bio-mass dynamics? For some reason I have a feeling you would prefer to see the majority of the coast totally off limits, then argue that take in the remaining areas should be further restricted because of the damage that concentration has done on the strictly local scale. Am I close?

One of the reasons we don't have abalone (we need to look at species other than just fish) in our waters is that the populations have been drastically reduced in size and density. Abalone need to be within about 18" of one another for successful spawning. I know of only one site on Catalina's leeward side where there is a reasonably sized population of abalone close enough together to spawn.

Down there, abalone may be a prime example of lack of timely management (and the destructive impact of cute little otters). Up here, abalone are a prime example of what take method, seasons, and bag limits can do. You can dive in the most heavily hit areas, year after year, and still find easy limits (only 24 per person-year are allowed, most take far fewer) of large abalone. From what I understand, abalone are a rather ironic example, considering the reported role of otter harvest in our current perspective of abalone 'baseline'.[/quote]

I will have to read Hilbron.

Disagree on recreational take being more measured... for a number of species it exceeds commercial take and for some species the only real take is recreational rather than commercial.

From what I've seen of the records, commercial and rec take of rockfish were similar for a period of time, and that stands out for it's rarity among more heavily fished species. For which species does rec fishing take any appreciable portion of the bio-mass?

Many of us worked for decades to get cattle, feral goats ad feral pigs removed from Catalina Island so the native ecosystems could recover. I understand your point about less fish meaning more beef consumption. We all need to eat lower on the food chain if we are to have reasonably sustainable food sources whether they come from land or sea.

There are many sad examples around the world of the possible future, but I don't at all see that a case has been made that Cali is anywhere close, or that the situation is necessarily unstable without massive closures along the coast.

 

[spoolin01]

... and you know, once they are locked up, the keys are thrown away, they never will open again.

This is the fishermen's fear, and despite the MLPA act apparently specifying that the closures are only permitted as part of a larger program of review and adaptation, it appears the MLPA process, as run by the private anti-fishing money (it's not a state-funded activity, it's an unprecedented pay-for-result opportunity that Schwarzentool handed to the private money - wonder what they gave him in return?) and other non-fishing interests, will produce little or nothing besides no-fishing zones. The Central region MLPAs have been in place for 3 years, yet apparently even the required baseline 'science' for assessment of their utility is not being done, which will be another in the list of bases for lawsuits against these fishing closures.

 

[drbill]

Thanks for the scientific evaluation, and i stand corrected. ok in tropical "warm" waters nutrients are not as rich as in cooler subtropical and temperate waters. Ok, whatever it was that created a mass influx of fish of all kinds in our statewide inshore and offshore waters during the el nino must have been something nurishing to maintain the mega numbers of fish species that came and stayed. my point was only, it had nothing to do with mankind's mpa's. and yet it doesn't even come up in discussion. i'd like to bring up something that will further enhance my claim of observation. i too bill like you have been doing valuable research for our precious resource that we all share. example, reefcheck, reef.org are incorporated agencies that are finding out the value of barely trained recreational diver help to document reef life conditions..why? well the state does not have the ability to monitor the expanse of our resource, or just one large inshore state water that lines the entire state and being territorial boundaries of 3, 9, or 12 nautical miles out from the low tide mark. so to get a more accurate representative sample they have included plain ol recreational divers to lend a helping hand.. your in favor of this aren't you bill? ok as another group to include in any count research of a fishery would be fishermen themselves. i would think. why? because they have same as the reefcheck.org divers-actual hands on views of what they're seeing. its a valuable report that shouldn't be left out of the study. and my point is that massive nutrient rich water-which consisted of the entire food chain was supercharged as a result of a natural cycle, that has happened regularly in our lifetimes. its not what mpa's have done at all. the white sea bass breeding compound in so cal mistakenly celebrated and laid claim to its effectiveness, when the white sea bass made its cyclic showing in huge numbers and sizes following the el nino's effects, which will be similar to the mpa's when the next el nino pushes once again massive fish this way. they'll be like oh look what our closures have resulted in. its similar to our political system. oh wait, our state recreational waters is a political system that is governed by prejudiced politicians. sweet. so who am i to tell my grand daughter that "no honey you can't fish here, i did, but i looked in the water one day and seen less fish, so i made a zone that you can't fish in. I've seen Dr. Bill, the reef's occupants change in number more in one given day than in the entire year. and when that one special time comes that i have no control over, i'll be watching the plentiful fish populations from in and out of the water. only not able to harvest a natural resource within the marine protected areas. and you know, once they are locked up, the keys are thrown away, they never will open again.

The influx of species from El Ninos rarely involves long-term residence in the area once the waters cool back down. Two exceptions are the scythe butterflyfish and the finescale triggerfish. However, the former is actually a cold water "tropical" (one that lives in colder depths of up to 500 ft down off Baja) and therefore was pre-adapted to living in our shallower, cooler waters.

What subtropical species are you thinking of that came up during El Ninos and stayed?

The MPAs are designed to protect NATIVE species and ecosystems, not the occasional introductions due to warm-water events like an El Nino

As for including fishers in the mix of volunteers who monitor our nearshore waters, I would certainly not be adverse to that. However, how many of them actually dive and see conditions underwater, see the health of the entire ecosystem vs viewing it from topside and based largely on target species status as caught?

 

[drbill]

Spoolin01... not much time this morning so I can't discuss all your points. I'll try to address some.

1. Nature "cares" more than you seem to understand since nature consists of all the species in an ecosystem. Relationships (such as feeding, commensalism, etc.) which may have evolved over thousands of years "care" if ecosystems are perturbed by the loss of species involved in those webs of relationships. In a different case, "Nature" cares about the influx of the terribly invasive Asian seaweed that has come to dominate our waters over the last 5-7 years. In most years the darned stuff is so dense that the entire native component is affected by it including our giant kelp.

2. My 40 years were spent underwater as a scientist observing the changes. How does that compare to an angler fishing from a boat for 40 years? I see the entire ecosystem, not just the fish I catch. Major difference. I know a number of anglers who have seen the changes topside and have stopped fishing. One, owner of three charter fishing boats, sold his boats because he didn't "want to be the one who caught the last fish."

3. One of the aspects of science is the process of peer review. Scientists who dispute the methods or findings of other scientists can address these differences in peer reviewed journals. It helps keep the science "honest." Is there a similar process to evaluate the opinions of fishers? If so, I'm not aware of it.

4. We will have to disagree on one issue. I do not view the world from a strictly human perspective. I look at it in view of the health of the ecosystems that support not only us, but all living things. What is good for humans is not always good for them.

5. You ask what species would go extinct if fishing stopped? Valid question. Perhaps none IF it stopped, although that would greatly depend on the natural history and reproductive behavior of each species. I ask another question. What species WOULD go extinct if fishing continued?

6. Not even close. I have long stated that I am NOT in favor of closing the coast to fishing. I fished, my son fishes. I would not support a total van on fishing (except on a case by case basis and then only until the species rebounds to sustainable levels).

7. Lingcod is a good example of a targeted fish where the recreational catch exceeded the commercial in recent years. And of course there are a number of sport fish that are taken ONLY by recreational anglers such as the kelp bass.

 

[JustinW]

The following press release was issued today by David Gurney - the guy that was arrested for filming an MLPAI stakeholder meeting.

Jugglestone Productions
www.jugglestone.com
Contacts: David Gurney
(707) 961-1339
jugglestone@comcast.net

Peter Martin, Attorney
(707) 268-0445
peterericmartin@hotmail.com

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

REPORTER SUES STATE AGENCIES

A journalist forcibly arrested for recording and speaking at a public meeting
is suing the privately funded MLPAI, and state agencies.

On April 20, 2010 David Gurney went to a Marine Life Protection Act Initiative meeting in
Fort Bragg, California, to record the "public/private" agency that was closing off large
areas of state waters to fishermen and seaweed gatherers. Soon after the meeting
began, it was announced that the public would not be allowed to record or speak at the
meeting.

"I was surprised," Gurney says, "The managers had decided to split up the thirty-four
local stakeholders into separate sub-groups, against their will. They apparently didn't
want it on tape."

But he had been working on a documentary of the MLPAI process for the past nine
months, and the camera was rolling.

Executive Director Ken Wiseman immediately stopped the meeting.
"He and professional facilitator Eric Poncelet came up to me with an armed fish and
game warden, and ordered me to quit filming," Gurney says. "I was threatened with
ejection and arrest if I didn't."

He complied, but three other times during the two-day meetings, he continued to record.
"I wanted to get some quick B-roll footage, to show how the stakeholders had been split
up against their own vote," he says. Each time seen, he was ordered to stop.

Gurney also spoke up at the beginning of the proceedings when it was announced there
would be no opportunity for public comment. "I knew that was also a violation of the law,
to hold a public meeting and not allow any comment," he says. "I simply told the MLPAI
that I had not given up my rights by attending their meeting."

Finally, near the end of the second day, Gurney asked a question that the staff did not
want to hear.

"During the question and answer period, I asked whether the MLPAI would make any
provisions to protect the ocean from other activities besides fishing. Things like oil
drilling, wind and wave energy development, fish farms, etc. As the facilitator was telling
me that no questions would be taken from the public, someone sent a Fish and Game
Warden over to arrest me," Gurney says.

He was quickly escorted out of the meeting hall, handcuffed, and taken away in a Fish
and Game pick-up truck.

In 2004, the MLPA “Initiative” resurrected a ten-year old law with undisclosed private
funding, to create itʼs own, nebulous state-like agency. Director Wiseman at first said that
California laws, including the Bagley-Keene Open Meetings Act, did not apply because
the process was “advisory” to state government. And yet the state supplied scientists,
advisors and armed Fish and Game Wardens to act as security guards for public MLPAI
meetings. Many feel that the blurring of lines between private and public interests
opened the floodgates for corruption, and that illegal private influence of the democratic
process runs rampant in the MLPAI.

Californiaʼs open meeting laws guarantee that citizens and members of the press have a
right to keep track of what goes on in a public process, and assures they will not be
harassed at public meetings. Yet the Marine Life Protection Act Initiative, funded by the
secretive Resources Legacy Fund Foundation, often had secret, unrecorded meetings,
changed the rules of their process at whim, and abided only by the laws of their own
choosing.

Mr. Gurney had earlier volunteered to serve on his community's citizen watch-dog
committee to keep an eye on the "Initiative." Many in his town felt that the privately
funded commission had repeatedly crossed the line of illegality. In addition to violating
state open meeting laws, a 72-foot blue whale had been killed off Fort Bragg by an
unlicensed mapping vessel, contracted by the MLPAI. Native American interests were
negligently ignored. Shady stipends, favors and promises were handed out from the
unregulated contributions of the Resources Legacy Foundation. Secret, unrecorded
meetings continued to be held. Local folks complained loudly of ineptitude, conflict of
interest and corruption.

"I just wanted to get what I could on tape, for the historical record," he said.
He is seeking a permanent injunction that will prevent further violations of Bagley-Keene
and Constitutional and other laws by the MLPAI, as well as damages suffered in the
arrest.

Interestingly, the California Attorney General's Office has illegally declined routine service
of papers in the complaint, forcing attorneys to initiate default proceedings against the
state.




And an interesting read about overfishing and the United States and a report by Chief Scientist for NOAA.
Yahoo News

 

[drbill]

Can't speak directly to the meeting in Fort Bragg, but the stakeholders were also divided into separate groups down here in SoCal. Not sure I see anything nefarious in that. Can't speak to the legalities of filming the meeting... at least some of ours were streamed over the Internet.

 

[Divebum Don]

But intuitively I think we knew this...


Marine Protected Areas Can Replenish Distant Waters

A new study has helped show how the establishment of marine protected areas off Hawaii have helped yellow tang, a staple of the aquarium industry, recover from overfishing. The study underlines that fish larvae from such area can "re-seed" fish populations more than 100 miles away.
Luc Viatour/www.lucnix.be

Tiny fish larvae can drift on ocean currents and “re-seed” fish populations more than 100 miles (161 kilometers) away, according to researchers. The scientists say the finding supports the contention that establishing no-fishing zones in the ocean will be of benefit to waters far beyond those zones’ boundaries.

Writing in the open-access, online journal PLoS One, Mark Christie of Oregon State University and colleagues describe conducting DNA fingerprinting of more than 1,000 yellow tang, a popular aquarium fish, off the Kona Coast of Hawaii. This allowed them to match juvenile fish with their parents, which revealed that many healthy juveniles had spawned from long distances away, up to 114 miles (183 kilometers), including some from marine protected areas.

The yellow tang is an ideal fish to help answer the question of larval dispersal because once its larvae settle onto a reef and begin to grow, they are not migratory and live in a home range about half a mile in diameter. If the fish are going to move any significant distance from where they are born, it would have to be as a larva, which drift with the currents for up to two months before settling back to adult habitats.

The researchers conclude that, “our observations of larval connectivity provide the first direct evidence of marine protected areas (MPAs) successfully seeding unprotected areas with larval fish.”

The observations also help explain the effectiveness of a network of nine marine protected areas that were established along the west coast of the Big Island of Hawaii in 1999. Demand for yellow tang for aquariums had pushed the species’ fishery to the brink of collapse; 10 years later, say researchers, it is once more flourishing.

Source: Christie, M.R., et al. 2010. Larval connectivity in an effective network of marine protected areas. PLoS One 5 (12): e15715. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0015715

Contact: Mark Christie, Oregon State University. E-mail: christiem@science.oregonstate.edu

 

[JustinW]

By JAY LINDSAY, Associated Press Jay Lindsay, Associated Press – Sat Jan 8, 11:11 pm ET
BOSTON – For the first time in at least a century, U.S. fishermen won't take too much of any species from the sea, one of the nation's top fishery scientists says.
The projected end of overfishing comes during a turbulent fishing year that's seen New England fishermen switch to a radically new management system. But scientist Steve Murawski said that for the first time in written fishing history, which goes back to 1900, "As far as we know, we've hit the right levels, which is a milestone."
"And this isn't just a decadal milestone, this is a century phenomenon," said Murawski, who retired last week as chief scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Fisheries Service.
Murawski said it's more than a dramatic benchmark — it also signals the coming of increasingly healthy stocks and better days for fishermen who've suffered financially. In New England, the fleet has deteriorated since the mid-1990s from 1,200 boats to only about 580, but Murawski believes fishermen may have already endured their worst times.
"I honestly think that's true, and that's why I think it's a newsworthy event," said Murawski, now a professor at the University of South Florida.
But fishermen and their advocates say ending overfishing came at an unnecessarily high cost. Dave Marciano fished out of Gloucester, an hour's drive northeast of Boston, for three decades until he was forced to sell his fishing permit in June. He said the new system made it too costly to catch enough fish to stay in business.
"It ruined me," said Marciano, 45. "We could have ended overfishing and had a lot more consideration for the human side of the fishery."
An end to overfishing doesn't mean all stocks are healthy, but scientists believe it's a crucial step to getting there.
When fishermen are overfishing a species, they're catching it at a rate scientists believe is too fast to ensure that the species can rebuild and then stay healthy. It's different from when a species is overfished, which is when scientists believe its population is too low.
Murawski said it's a nearly ironclad rule of fishery management that species become far more abundant when they're being fished at the appropriate level, which is determined after considering factors such as a species' life span and death rates.
A mandate to end overfishing by the 2010 fishing year — which concludes at different times in 2011, depending on the region — came in the 2007 reauthorization of the nation's fisheries law, the Magnuson-Stevens Act.
Murawski said the U.S. is the only country that has a law that defines overfishing and requires its fishermen not to engage in it.
"When you compare the United States with the European Union, with Asian countries, et cetera, we are the only industrialized fishing nation who actually has succeeded in ending overfishing," he said.
Regulators say 37 stocks nationwide last year were being overfished (counting only those that live exclusively in U.S. waters); New England had the most with 10. But Murawski said management systems that emphasize strict catch limits have made a big difference, and New England just made the switch.
Fishermen there now work in groups called sectors to divide an annual quota of groundfish, which include cod, haddock and flounder. If they exceed their limits on one species, they're forced to stop fishing on all species.
About two-thirds into the current fishing year, which ends April 30, federal data indicated New England fishermen were on pace to catch fewer than their allotted fish in all but one stock, Georges Bank winter flounder. But Murawski said he didn't expect fishermen would exceed their quota on any stock.
In other regions with overfishing — the South Atlantic, the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean — regulators project catch limits and other measures will end overfishing this fishing year. Already, South Atlantic black grouper and Gulf of Mexico red snapper are no longer being overfished.
The final verification that overfishing has ended nationwide, at least for one fishing year, will come after detailed stock assessments.
It will be a "Pyrrhic victory" in hard-hit New England, said Brian Rothschild, a fisheries scientist at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth. He said regulators could legally loosen the rules and allow fishermen to safely catch more fish, but regulators have refused to do it, and fishermen have needlessly been shut out from even healthy stocks.
The science is far from perfect, Marciano said. Regulators believed fishermen were overfishing pollock until new data last year indicated scientists had badly underestimated its population, he said. And some stocks, such as Gulf of Maine cod, have recovered even when fishermen were technically overfishing them.
"To say you can't rebuild stocks while overfishing is occurring is an outright lie. We did it," Marciano said.
Tom Nies, a fisheries analyst for regional New England regulators, said stocks can sometimes be boosted by variables such as strong births in a given year, but they'll inevitably decline if overfishing continues on them.
Peter Shelley, senior counsel of the Conservation Law Foundation, an environmental group, said the industry's problems are rooted in years of overfishing, especially during the 1980s, not regulation.
"It was a bubble," he said. "Fishermen were living in a bit of a fantasy world at that point, and it wasn't something you could sustain."
That's why Murawski's projection about the end of overfishing is "a very big deal," he said.
"I think we're just starting to see signs of a new future," Shelley said.
What fisherman Steve Arnold, 46, sees in his home port of Point Judith, R.I., are fewer boats, older fishermen and "a lot of frowns on people's faces."
Overfishing might end this year, but the fleet has suffered and has an uncertain future, he said.
"I believe we can get to a better place, but the work isn't done," Arnold said. "We're living through something that we're learning as we go. It's not a comfortable feeling."