RedSnapper_CascadingEffects_Stunz_Greg_CorpusChristiTX_30August2022_Reel4126.mp3

Greg Stunz [00:00:00] Fishery is rife with unintended consequences.

Greg Stunz [00:00:03] We have this concept in fisheries called, "fishing down the food web", or "fishing down the food chain".

Greg Stunz [00:00:08] If you regulate one fishery, the fishery is really dynamic and good, and they'll just switch to something else. You regulate that fishery and they switch to something else.

Greg Stunz [00:00:17] And you tend to go from these very highly, highly desirable fisheries like bluefin tuna, all the way down to very small, less desirable, is, is sort of the trend.

Greg Stunz [00:00:27] And so we see that in the Gulf of Mexico. You regulate snapper, well, then you start fishing vermilion snapper. You regulate grouper, you go to snapper. You regulate snapper and you go to vermillion snapper. Now we're going to triggerfish, and now we're moving out to dolphin fish, might have some regulations, or cobia or what we call, "ling".

Greg Stunz [00:00:45] So yeah, there's what we call, "cascading effects", throughout an ecosystem.

Greg Stunz [00:00:51] And we have really began to preach a little more of something called, "ecosystem-based fisheries management", where these fisheries don't exist in a vacuum. Pull out a little part of one: it's kind of like a balloon. You squeeze one side, that air has got to go somewhere else, you know.

Greg Stunz [00:01:06] And so, we, as ecologists, and this is where my ecological training comes in, realize that you can't really pick out one piece of the ecosystem and not expect to have impacts in other areas.

Greg Stunz [00:01:17] A perfect example of that is forage base. There's big menhaden fleets now off of Louisiana. There always has been. They're fishing very close to shore, and getting some redfish and trout, and having conflicts with recreational fishermen.

Greg Stunz [00:01:31] But we have big concerns that you can have the best management practices in place, but if you don't have the forage base for them to thrive, and grow, and be sustainable, you've got big problems.

Greg Stunz [00:01:42] So we've got to start looking at managing the harvest pressure more globalistic, in terms of the ecosystem level.

Greg Stunz [00:01:51] Now that sounds great. From my academic ivory tower over here, it's perfect, you know. But then when I go to the Gulf Council meeting and I have to make decisions on ecosystem-based management, we just don't have the scientific tools or information we really need.

Greg Stunz [00:02:05] We're going through the motions and we're working hard to define what that means, but it really comes back to single-species management. And at the end of the day, the commercial and recreational people want to know, "How long is my season"?", "How many fish I can catch?" And that's clearly single-species.

Greg Stunz [00:02:22] But the tide is moving. And it's just the science is trying to catch up with the management needs, and that, that's a pervasive problem in general. We're required to manage on the best science available. In many times that's very limited or no science.

Greg Stunz [00:02:36] So, it's the future.

Greg Stunz [00:02:39] But we have, for example, the way it works, in the opposite direction. The snapper fishery clearly recovered in the Gulf of Mexico, especially in the western Gulf. And then the triggerfish plummeted because they happen to be nest-builders and there were so many red snapper that they interfered with their ability to repopulate.

Greg Stunz [00:02:57] And so, you know, it's, it's kind of like you got to be pretty careful when you start messing with Mother Nature.