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New Study: How Gulf Sportfish Are Affected by Purse Seining for Menhaden
Research could inform efforts to better monitor bycatch in commercial nets and manage menhaden with their importance to sportfish in mind
Researchers from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association, University of Miami, and University of Florida recently completed a study that modeled the ecosystem of the Gulf of Mexico with a focus on Gulf menhaden. The model was developed to assess the ecosystem effects of different menhaden fishing policies, focusing on how menhaden predators would respond to changes in forage availability and bycatch risks.
The researchers also quantified tradeoffs between menhaden harvest and predator biomass to develop ecological reference points—metrics that would help manage the menhaden fishery in the context of the fish’s relevance to the entire ecosystem. ERPs are currently used to manage the Atlantic menhaden fishery, after years of advocacy by anglers.
The TRCP reported on the preliminary results of this study back in 2021. The final published results confirm the findings we shared at that time: Gulf menhaden support about 40 percent of the diets of both king and Spanish mackerel and about 20 percent of the diets of red drum, sea trout, seabirds, and blacktip sharks.
The newly published results also indicate which predators are most sensitive to menhaden harvest and why. King mackerel, Spanish mackerel, blacktip sharks, and red drum are most impacted by the resulting shortage of forage in the water. Tarpon, sea trout, and croakers are most at risk of getting scooped up and killed in the massive purse seine nets deployed by the menhaden reduction fishery.
In the Atlantic, striped bass are the predators that are most sensitive to Atlantic menhaden harvest. This is why stripers were the key species considered in the 2020 development of ERP targets and thresholds, which aim to leave sufficient menhaden in the water as forage for bass and other species, like bluefish, weakfish, and spiny dogfish.
In this Gulf model, the most sensitive predator species to Gulf menhaden harvest was king mackerel, but intermediate relationships were found between menhaden and nine other predator groups. An ERP target could therefore be developed based on the ten most affected predator groups.
The authors suggested that a 20-percent reduction in commercial menhaden landings, compared to 2018-2020 levels, would leave enough menhaden in the water to support these ten predator species at their biomass targets.
Interestingly, the results showed that biomass for many predators was more affected by the commercial harvest of menhaden than by fishing pressure on the predator species itself. This was most notable for red drum and croaker, because of the effects of bycatch. Red drum are a favorite target of anglers in the Gulf, yet the menhaden reduction fishery might catch more redfish as bycatch than the whole recreational sector does.
Unfortunately, the Gulf menhaden fishery has little to no recent bycatch data and no observer coverage during the season. The TRCP has been advocating for updated bycatch analyses in the menhaden fisheries on both the Gulf and Atlantic coasts, and it is our hope that this model will drive that process forward.
This model can be used to inform stakeholders and policymakers of the tradeoffs between different management actions, while considering predator-prey interactions, fishing pressure, and bycatch. It could fuel the development of ERPs for the Gulf menhaden fishery, which mirror that of the Atlantic menhaden fishery.
This updated science is an exciting step forward for the improved management of Gulf menhaden and the predators that rely on them. The TRCP and its partners will be working diligently to gain more information on the role of menhaden in the Gulf of Mexico ecosystem and how mackerel, red drum, and sea trout are affected by the industrial menhaden fishery that currently has no catch limit and very little state and federal oversight.
Learn more about our efforts to conserve menhaden in the Gulf and Atlantic.
Five Ways Lawmakers Can Write a Better Farm Bill for Conservation
PLUS: Nine direct benefits for hunters and anglers
One of the most impressive things about TRCP’s work with 63 organizational partners is that it allows us to bring together the best minds in conservation to influence specific hunting and fishing legislation—and the Farm Bill is one of the most impactful examples.
Farm Bill conservation programs, administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, conserve and restore fish and wildlife habitat, expand hunting access, and build resilient farms and ranches. The Farm Bill is also the single-largest source of private lands conservation funding, providing roughly $6 billion annually through voluntary, incentive-based programs that benefit landowners, wildlife, and outdoor recreation.
The 2018 Farm Bill is set to expire on September 30, 2023, and Congress is currently developing its next five-year bill. To make sure your voice is heard during the 2023 Farm Bill debate, the 27 member organizations of TRCP’s Agriculture and Wildlife Working Group created a roadmap to improving the Farm Bill’s most important programs, and we’re sharing it with decision-makers right now.
Here’s what you need to know about this list of top priorities, how it was made, and what benefits hunters and anglers can expect if our recommendations are included in a final bill.
Aligned and On Time
Going into a Farm Bill debate, it is critical to have our community pulling in the same direction. This platform was carefully built to reflect the priorities of a huge swath of the hunting, fishing, and conservation community. Because the House and Senate Agriculture Committees are now soliciting input on the next Farm Bill, the TRCP was able to raise these priorities during a recent listening session hosted by the House committee chair, Rep. Glenn “GT” Thompson (R-Pa.)
We look forward to the Senate Committee’s first hearing on the conservation title on March 1, when we can do the same thing for decision-makers in that chamber. Having the hunt-fish community clearly aligned on our priorities ahead of this hearing strengthens our voice.
Bringing Together the Best
Each of the Agriculture and Wildlife Working Group’s member organizations brings expertise on some subset of the Farm Bill, whether it’s the particulars of forest management for wild turkeys, wetland easements to protect waterfowl habitat, or agricultural practices that improve water quality for trout. In this platform, every recommendation has been proposed and justified by an AWWG member and vetted by the group. For example, if an AWWG member proposes a change to CRP to benefit pheasants, the rest of the group reviews that change to make sure that it doesn’t have unexpected downsides to species like deer or ducks. Every recommendation on the list has made it through this process—which takes multiple meetings over many months—meaning it has been vetted by some of the best conservation minds in the country.
Key Recommendations and Outcomes
Every item in this platform would benefit hunters and anglers. If adopted, these provisions would help:
- Stabilize streamflow in trout waters
- Reduce algal blooms and winter kill in walleye lakes
- Increase pheasant and quail populations
- Create and enhance waterfowl nesting habitat
- Protect forests and farmland from urban encroachment
- Reduce wildfire risk while building habitat for deer, turkeys, and grouse
- Expand hunting and fishing access
- Restore native grasslands
- Benefit non-game species, drinking water, air quality, climate mitigation, and more
There’s plenty to like in there. Here are just some of the overarching recommendations that would help to get these things done.
Maintain Conservation Funding
Title II, or the Conservation Title, of the Farm Bill is where a huge chunk of wildlife-related work gets done. Even though these programs have great ecological outcomes, massive landowner demand, and are strictly voluntary, they can be targeted for cuts when lawmakers want to tighten budgets. If we’re not careful, debates can also break out over the allocation of funding between the various conservation programs. This is particularly important in this farm bill because recently passed legislation has given many of our favorite programs more funding than they have ever seen. Fortunately, the hunting and fishing community remains broadly united in support of maintaining Farm Bill conservation program funding. Sportsmen and sportswomen pushed for these conservation wins for years, and we must stay the course.
Boost CRP
In recent Farm Bills, incentives to enroll land in the Conservation Reserve Program have been reduced or eliminated altogether. These cuts, coupled with high crop prices, have led to reduced landowner interest and low CRP enrollment, resulting in a loss of wildlife habitat. Our community is aligned on restoring incentives and building commonsense management flexibility into CRP, which would put it on a trajectory back toward historical acreage levels – which means more pheasant, quail, and waterfowl habitat . One bill that would do this, supported by the TRCP, is the CRP Improvement Act from Senators Thune and Klobuchar.
Invest in Access
There is no other Farm Bill program that affects hunters and anglers more directly than the Voluntary Public Access and Habitat Incentive Program, which assists states who provide incentives to landowners for walk-in access to hunting, fishing, and other outdoor recreation on their lands. Current funding levels are far from meeting demand , and economic analyses of the programs show a huge return on investment while expanding hunting opportunities. To meet state demand for this program, we’re recommending the VPA-HIP be funded at no less than $150 million, tripling the current level of support for this program.
Ensure Conservation Incentives Lead to Measurable Fish and Wildlife Benefits
We’ve also proposed that lawmakers maintain an important requirement of the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) that carves out at least 10 percent of program funding for wildlife habitat practices. EQIP provides planning assistance and cost share to landowners who want to be better stewards of their farms, ranches, and forests. The Natural Resources Conservation Service reserves a certain percentage of the funds it receives for livestock producers, new farmers and ranchers, and wildlife. We need to make sure that wildlife continues to receive its fair share and that these dollars produce measurable benefits.
Provide Adequate Landowner Support
None of these programs can get habitat on the ground without staff to meet with landowners, evaluate conservation opportunities, create a conservation plan, and enroll them in programs to fit that plan. The USDA is doing more work with fewer staff than at any other time in history. The 2023 Farm Bill needs to help the USDA staff up internally and simplify processes for partnerships with local governments and nonprofit organizations with shared conservation goals.
How You Can Help
The Farm Bill is the largest conservation legislation that will come before the 118th Congress, and it’s critical that hunters and anglers are at the table to ensure that habitat and wildlife remain central to sensible farm policy in the United States. If you support and want to share this platform with your elected officials, take action now.
Learn more about Farm Bill conservation programs and how they affect you at trcp.org/farmbill.
Hunters Helped Pass a CWD Bill, But What’s Next?
After a significant legislative win last Congress, deer hunting organizations are adjusting their sights in 2023
In late December 2022, in recognition of the growing threat posed by the continued spread of chronic wasting disease among America’s deer herds, Congress took its biggest action yet in passing the CWD Research and Management Act.
The bill authorizes up to $70 million annually for state-level surveillance work and creates a first-of-its-kind funding stream for research into environmental spread, live-animal testing, improved testing sensitivity, and enhanced best practices. Now sportsmen and sportswomen are entering the next chapter in the effort to control CWD.
Here are the priorities.
Getting Authorized Funds Out the Door
Passage of the CWD Research and Management Act was a significant bipartisan victory cheered on by deer hunting groups and cervid industry associations alike. Now, this unlikely coalition needs to work together to ensure that Congress provides the authorized funding in the Fiscal Year 2024 federal budget.
Through the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Congress currently provides roughly $10 million annually to state and tribal agencies for CWD management. The funding is used for a range of services, including hunter outreach, partnership programs with meat processors and taxidermists, creation of disposal sites, and more.
Unfortunately, the funding falls far short of the growing need, and each deer season state agencies are forced to divert resources from other species and programs to carry out CWD suppression. A recent examination of 32 state fish & game agencies found that on average, states spend over half a million dollars each year, with some like Texas spending over $2 million.
Sportsmen and sportswomen will need to encourage House and Senate appropriators, as well as the White House, to fund the enacted legislation at the highest amount practicable in the coming year, grow the surveillance network on the landscape, and relieve some of the downward pressure felt by those tasked with managing the disease.
Influencing State Policies
As state legislative sessionscontinue around the country, hunters should remain aware of and willing to support or challenge proposed changes to CWD management in the state.
In recent years, for example, the Minnesota State Legislature has voted on moratoriums on new captive cervid facilities and increased testing requirements on cervid operations. State lawmakers also proposed transferring the management of captive deer from the state Board of Animal Health to the Department of Natural Resources, who manage wildlife in the state. While these changes weren’t enacted, they will likely be debated more in the coming years.
On the other hand, as recently as November of last year, CWD management zones were coming under arbitrary challenge, even after deer seasons had begun. In one such example in Mississippi, the state commission voted to remove a county from a management zone not long after a CWD-positive deer had turned up no more than a mile from the county line. This and other efforts to limit tagging requirements and expedite the transfer of deer continue to arise in states with influential captive industries.
For the latest info on CWD news in your state, check out www.cwd-info.org.
Enactment of Important Federal Efforts
Federally, deer hunters eagerly await completion of efforts mandated by recent legislation.
First, 2020’s America’s Conservation Enhancement Act authorized joint research between the USDA, U.S. Geological Survey, and National Academies of Science into predominant transmission pathways for the disease—this study must be done to inform next steps. The bill also authorized an interagency task force to implement the study’s recommendations and develop an interstate plan for CWD suppression. Ensuring that this work moves forward at pace is critical to addressing the worsening status quo and will be a focus of deer hunters in the coming years.
The more recently enacted CWD Research and Management Act also includes a directive for the USDA to evaluate improvements to the federal standards that accredit cervid operators as “low-risk” for CWD. While this will be a heavy task, the TRCP and National Deer Association found strong public support for additional oversight of the captive cervid industry in polling last fall. Overall, more than 90 percent of hunters and nonhunters supported greater certification standards at the USDA and stricter limitations on the movement of live deer.
Planning for the Future
The hunting community’s work doesn’t end there. Later this year, the TRCP will bring together several wild cervid organizations, as well as corporate partners with a direct stake in the future of deer hunting in North America to unify our respective efforts around a long-term strategy for CWD suppression. Our deer hunting organizations need to better define where we hope to be in our fight to suppress CWD in the years ahead, in terms of detections, state and federal management policies, funding, and hunter and non-hunter education. Fortunately, recent funding and policy successes have created a formidable and energized coalition of organizations ready for the task.
USDA Reveals How Nearly $1B in New Conservation Funding Will Be Spent
The hunting and fishing community will work with Secretary Vilsack to ensure that fish and wildlife benefit from once-in-a-generation investments
This week, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced how his department would be rolling out $850 million in new conservation funding, the first round of investments made possible by last year’s Inflation Reduction Act. The TRCP applauds this move to help fund oversubscribed private land conservation programs at the Natural Resources Conservation Service that benefit fish, wildlife, habitat connectivity, and hunting and fishing opportunities in rural America.
The once-in-a-generation influx of conservation spending will support a diverse range of voluntary activities, such as planting filter strips and grassed waterways, improving grazing management, and restoring wetlands. These practices are being prioritized for their carbon sequestration and greenhouse gas reduction benefits, in addition to co-benefits of wildlife habitat and water quality improvements.
“Investing in working lands conservation has huge potential to benefit hunters and anglers,” says Aaron Field, director of private lands conservation for the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership. “The TRCP looks forward to working with the NRCS to ensure that fish and wildlife see dividends from climate-smart practices and that staff across the country have the tools and flexibility they need to get conservation on the ground.”
The U.S. Department of Agriculture also unveiled a Western Water and Working Lands Framework for Conservation Action—a comprehensive, multi-state strategy under the NRCS to address key water and land management needs. This includes supporting conservation practices that protect groundwater and surface availability and enhancing resilience to drought and other natural hazards. The USDA will also provide an additional $25 million in funding to support investments in more resilient water infrastructure in partnership with the Bureau of Reclamation.
“Today’s announcement of a Western water framework is a positive first step by the USDA to develop a strategic roadmap for assisting the region’s farmers and ranchers in responding to drought and other natural hazards,” says Alexander Funk, director of water resources and senior counsel for the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership. “We look forward to working with the department to direct necessary resources toward helping producers become more resilient to drought and other water resource challenges, maximizing co-benefits for fish and wildlife, and demonstrating the value of nature-based solutions to climate change, such as restoring wetland and riparian ecosystems.”
Many of these investments into the future of our watersheds will also help enhance fish and wildlife habitat. For example, modernizing irrigation infrastructure to improve water availability can help keep more water in streams and rivers during critical summer months, while minimizing other climate change impacts, such as warmer stream temperatures that have recently contributed to fishing closures on popular Western rivers. Farmers and ranchers also benefit from these infrastructure improvements through reduced labor and maintenance costs.
Photo shows micro-irrigation being installed on a drought-stressed pecan tree farm. Image by J.M. Villarreal/USDA. More details on flickr.
HOW YOU CAN HELP
CHEERS TO CONSERVATION
Theodore Roosevelt’s experiences hunting and fishing certainly fueled his passion for conservation, but it seems that a passion for coffee may have powered his mornings. In fact, Roosevelt’s son once said that his father’s coffee cup was “more in the nature of a bathtub.” TRCP has partnered with Afuera Coffee Co. to bring together his two loves: a strong morning brew and a dedication to conservation. With your purchase, you’ll not only enjoy waking up to the rich aroma of this bolder roast—you’ll be supporting the important work of preserving hunting and fishing opportunities for all.
$4 from each bag is donated to the TRCP, to help continue their efforts of safeguarding critical habitats, productive hunting grounds, and favorite fishing holes for future generations.
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