Why It Matters: Advocacy regarding policies that impact anglers often focus on today’s threats and opportunities rather than looking down the road at what the future may hold. The American Sportfishing Association (ASA) recently surveyed many of their members to gather perspectives on our community’s strength and weaknesses, as well as to identify future opportunities and threats to sportfishing’s future. At last week’s ASA Sportfishing Summit, the Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation’s (CSF) Senior Director, Fisheries Policy Chris Horton participated in an expert panel discussion and provided his thoughts on what the future may hold.
Highlights:
- ASA’s annual Sportfishing Summit is a large gathering of representatives from the fishing industry, angling organizations and state and federal agencies to talk about the state of the industry, as well as policy issues affecting anglers.
- At this year’s Sportfishing Summit, CSF had an opportunity to serve on an expert panel to provide attendees with a perspective of future challenges and opportunities for anglers and the sportfishing industry.
During last week’s American Sportfishing Association (ASA) Sportfishing Summit, ASA Vice-President Mike Leonard moderated a panel discussion with CSF’s Chris Horton, Kellie Ralston of the Bonefish and Tarpon Trust, and Kurt Thiede of the Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies to explore their perspectives on the effectiveness of the sportfishing community to influence policies, as well as their thoughts on future opportunities and threats.
“Unlike on the freshwater side where fisheries are very successfully managed by the states, our challenge with saltwater fisheries lies with a federal system of management that was designed exclusively around commercial fishing, and the inefficiencies of federal management are more apparent each year,” said CSF’s Senior Director of Fisheries Policy, Chris Horton. “However, the growing frustrations around marine fisheries management provides the perfect opportunity for thinking outside this essentially 100-year-old management box. I think we will see a paradigm shift, which could be as simple as shifting recreational fisheries management to some states, who are much nimbler when it comes to data needs. We are already headed that way in the Gulf with species beyond just red snapper. Or, with emerging technologies like close-kin mark recapture, it very well may be possible to manage fisheries in real time based on what is in the water today, not some theoretical annual catch limit projection based on old numbers that we have very little confidence in to begin with.”
When asked about future threats, Horton responded, “The erosion of science-based natural resource management is a real threat. Just as I think social media has helped to encourage more anglers to engage on important policy issues, social media is a double-edged sword. ‘Likes’ seem to correlate with the truth, and the ability for perception to become reality has accelerated. We’ve successfully managed fish and wildlife with the help of anglers and hunters and on the backs of anglers and hunters for more than 100 years. Management based on science is at the core of that success, but we’re seeing efforts to erode science-based natural resource management and replace it with public perception rather than reality. Just look at the efforts to ban lead fishing tackle that we have to try and beat back every year, though there has yet to be any population-level science to support any of those attempts.”
This year’s ASA Sportfishing Summit brought together more than 200 fishing tackle manufacturing executives, sportfishing conservation organizations, state and federal agency staff, retailers and fishing tackle distributors. CSF appreciates our long-term partnership with ASA and the opportunity to serve on the Summit panel.
