PD Editorial: West Coast fishery on the mend

Fourteen years ago, with West Coast fisheries collapsing, federal authorities declared an economic disaster.

After averaging 74,000 tons for two decades, landings of groundfish, a mainstay of the fishing industry in California and the Northwest, fell by more than half in 1999 to 36,000 tons, according to the National Marine Fisheries Service. Affected species included ling cod, rock cod, red snapper and flounder.

There was no great mystery about the cause: years of overfishing, coupled with scientific mismanagement. What wasn’t clear was when - or whether - the fishery would recover.

Fleets dwindled and, by some estimates, fishing-dependent West Coast communities suffered economic losses of $60 million a year. State and federal officials responded with tight catch restrictions, temporary closures of some areas and the creation of vast marine protected areas where commercial fishing is prohibited,

Over time, the health of the fisheries improved.

Now, some of those who keep a close watch on ocean resources and harvest practices, are giving their imprimatur to the recovery efforts.

In June, the International Marine Stewardship Council certified that 13 species of groundfish, including ling cod, Dover sole and red snapper, are now being harvested in an environmentally sustainable way. The council said federal regulations are protecting habitat and holding fishermen accountable and that catch limits are now based on scientific data.

This month, the Monterey Bay Aquarium reinforced those findings, upgrading 21 species of fish, including most species of Pacific Ocean groundfish, to sustainable status.

The aquarium’s Seafood Watch booklet is a widely trusted source of information for retail customers, restaurant patrons and others who want to make wise choices about the fish they eat. The guide first appeared in 1999, just as the collapse of West Coast rockfish and groundfish became apparent. For years, many of those species were listed as “avoid.”

No more. In announcing the upgrade, aquarium officials said “the most exciting news is that all groundfish caught in California, Oregon and Washington are now either a Seafood Watch ‘good alternative’ or ‘best choice’” - the two highest rankings. “This reflects a continuing pattern of improvement for U.S.-managed fisheries.”

Margaret Spring, the aquarium’s chief conservation officer, called it “one of the great success stories about ecological and economic recovery of a commercially important fishery.”

Seafood Watch and others attribute the improvement to better resource management and better fishing practices, many of them created cooperatively by fishermen and scientists. They include catch limits, specifically a 4-year-old policy of allotting fishermen a fixed share of the fishery, which adds both certainty and accountability.

Other factors include a reduction in inadvertent killing of some species while fishing for others, better monitoring and creation of Marine Protected Areas to protect vulnerable habitat.

Seafood Watch, which has distributed more than 45 million of its guides, still warns that “the bounty of our seas is not endless.” But the combination of consumer attention, scientific scrutiny and industry cooperation, it is becoming more sustainable.