talking at one another instead of with 

 each other, especially with regard to 

 federal regulations. 



Fishermen feel that their opinions 

 can barely be heard over the ruckus 

 of managers putting forth yet another 

 restriction. Watermen have learned to 

 expect a knee-jerk reaction from 

 Washington. And once the federal 

 government has ordained a solution, 

 commercial fishermen feel like it's 

 written in stone. 



"We have become so that there's 

 no contact between National Marine 

 Fisheries Service and fishermen," 

 says Melvin Shepard, president of the 

 Southeastern North Carolina Water- 

 man's Association. "In order to have 

 any influence at all, we have to go to 

 our representatives (in Congress)." 



But the relationship between 

 those who make their livings at sea 

 and the people charged with manag- 



ing their livelihoods has not always 

 been so polar. 



The marriage between commercial 

 fishermen and the federal government 

 required no shotgun wedding — 

 fishermen were willing partners at the 

 onset. In fact, when foreign fishing 

 fleets began collecting the United 

 States' offshore bounty of seafood, 

 commercial fishermen courted 

 intervention from Uncle Sam. 



In the middle of this century, the 

 world's landings of fish were sky- 

 rocketing, while U.S. landings crept 

 slowly by comparison. To make 

 matters worse, America's voracious 

 appetite for seafood was being fed by 

 hauls of imported fish caught just off 

 U.S. shores. 



This monolithic foreign fishery 

 was also extremely agile — well- 

 equipped to exploit our resource and 

 then move on to more fertile fishing 



fields. In the 1970s, U.S. fishermen 

 asked for help and a Congressional 

 debate was set in motion. At this time, 

 scientists deemed at least 16 offshore 

 species overfished. In 1976, the Fishery 

 Conservation and Management Act 

 was enacted. 



The Magnuson Act, as it is also 

 called, extended U.S. fishery manage- 

 ment jurisdiction to 200 nautical miles 

 offshore and established eight regional 

 management councils charged with 

 managing fisheries within this zone. 

 Prior to its passage, the states had the 

 only real comprehensive management 

 authority. 



The National Marine Fisheries 

 Service (NMFS), under the U.S. 

 Department of Commerce and the 

 National Oceanic and Atmospheric 

 Administration (NOAA), was charged 

 with administering the act and its 

 provisions. 



As more and more Americans have 

 turned to the ocean and estuaries to 

 make their living — aided by highly 

 efficient gear and technology — the 

 impact of federal management has 

 trickled down. Its mission is still to 

 protect and conserve the resource, but 

 now the restrictions are starting to hit 

 home. 



"You have fishermen now who 

 consider National Marine Fisheries 

 (Service), the Secretary of Commerce 

 and NOAA to be (their) bloody 

 enemies," says Shepard. 



It doesn't help matters that fisher- 

 men often fail to distinguish the 

 government agencies that manage 

 fisheries and the various sources of 

 regulations. The furor over sea turtles, 

 the Endangered Species Act and turtle 

 excluder devices (TEDs) illuminates 

 this confusion. 



"Fishermen do not understand the 

 character of the Endangered Species 

 Act or the Marine Mammal Protection 

 Act," says Orbach. "Both say you can't 

 even take them (protected species) at 

 all. You can't even make them ner- 



4 JANUARY! FEBRUARY 1993 



