FROM THE CROWE’S NEST

No More Science Rabbits

The day few thought would arrive has been spotted on the horizon. At least scientists at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute think they spotted it. At the New England Fisheries Management Council meeting in Portland, on June 4, scientists declared a whopping 70% decline in some ground fish stocks based on a recent stock assessment.

That pretty much blew the doors off the meeting room, pouring attendees into the hall gasping for breath. Knowing that that reduction could be reflected in allowable catch limits, no fisherman needed a calculator to figure what 70% less than what was already practically nothing meant for their fishing businesses.

This led to talk of closing down ground fishing for five years. Talk of putting together a federal financing package to support fishing businesses until the fish rebound in five years.

But a few in the room thought it is time for at least 70% less of this kind of screwy science. This isn’t the first assessment built on a trawl survey that brought forward information that caused a stir. A Woods Hole trawl survey just a few years ago, was defended as solidly reliable following criticism from fishermen. After a considerable struggle, the scientists finally admitted the survey was flawed. Flawed, as in the net was not even open as the scientists merrily trawled along.

That doesn’t make this assessment flawed. However, the material as presented was looked upon skeptically by some at the meeting who have decades of meetings, science presentations, amendment makeovers and managemania under their belts. The over used phrase “best available science” is used to defend positions even when there is virtually no real science there to rely on.

A particular scientific pronouncement can be the stepping stone to another grant for a scientist. That same pronouncement can be the stone on which a whole industry slips into oblivion.

Science references seem to range from “the best available science”, which is often no real science at all, to pulling a radical science rabbit out of a hat at a meeting, as happened on June 4.

When fishermen declare the need for better science, they are not calling for science that tells them what they want to hear, but science that tells them what they need to know. Funded, timely consistent, long range, de-politicized, and responsible: these are few of the words that would describe the science they want. There is too much riding on stock assessments to have them be anything less.