Coastal Conservation Association (CCA)

Close Brush With an MPA
By Ted Venker
Communications Director

On a map, they are merely patches of blue with a box sketched around them. They are utterly unremarkable on the surface. The water and waves in the area represented by those lines give no hint that this was the scene of a significant victory for recreational anglers. But back on land, those patches of water in the Gulf of Mexico represent a precedent-setting decision in the ongoing debate over Marine Protected Areas (MPAs).

The situation that developed over the areas known as Steamboat Lumps and Madison-Swanson in the Gulf of Mexico has a long history. Back in 1999, it was determined that those two areas are home to significant spawning aggregations of gag grouper. In order to conserve declining numbers of this species, CCA supported an initial proposal to close the areas to all bottom fishing.

However, when proposal expanded to include banning all fishing in the two areas, CCA filed suit in federal district court. Consistent with CCA’s position on arbitrary no-fishing zones, we argued that preventing fishing for unrelated and healthy fish stocks in the mid- to upper-levels of the water column was unnecessary to conserve gag grouper residing on the bottom, 200 to 400 feet below the surface.

In a settlement agreement between CCA and the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), reached in 2001, it was agreed that trolling for species such as billfish, dolphin, mackerel and wahoo, would not be banned in the those areas until research could be conducted to determine if it was even possible for recreational fishermen engaged in trolling to catch gag grouper.

Anyone familiar with traditional methods of trolling would have felt pretty good about our case at this point. Properly done, there is realistically no chance of catching a grouper while trolling for coastal pelagics. The research performed by NMFS using traditional trolling methods did not catch a single gag grouper and effectively demonstrated that it is virtually impossible to do so.

In July 2003, CCA reached a mutually satisfactory agreement with the Gulf Council. The Council voted to maintain a total ban on bottom fishing in the two areas, allow surface trolling from May to November and close the areas to all fishing during the winter months when gag grouper gather there to spawn. The Council also adopted CCA’s recommendation to provide an additional conservation measure by prohibiting the possession of any reef fish while in the Madison-Swanson and Steamboat Lumps areas at any time.

“We are very pleased that the Council based its decision on the science,” said Fred Miller, chairman of CCA’s National Government Relations Committee. “This is the conservation measure we had in mind when CCA first offered its support of closed areas for gag grouper stocks in 1999. The process was much more difficult than it needed to be, but the Council did the right thing. The end result is sound management of the resource based on science, without an arbitrary closure to trolling.”

The debate over the Steamboat Lumps and Madison Swanson areas is a prime example of how quickly arbitrary no-fishing zones can leap into existence. On a map, these two areas represent a tiny slice of ocean. In reality, they represent a principle all out of proportion to their physical size. CCA remains committed to protecting that principle for recreational anglers.