It may sound fishy to anglers, but whoppers swim the protected waters
If an area is set off-limits, the fishing on the perimeter can be extraordinary.
By KENNETH R. WEISS, Times Staff Writer
LA Times, 7/22/02
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. --
Since the dawn of the Space Age, fishermen here have grown to accept
the 15-square-mile security zone that keeps boats out of the waters
surrounding rocket launching pads.
Indeed, clever fishermen long ago learned how to parlay a forbidden
zone into a bonanza: If an area is set off-limits, the fishing on the
perimeter can be extraordinary.
Scientists more recently discovered the same thing, carefully
recording the remarkable abundance of fish in the protected waters
surrounding the Kennedy Space Center and the cluster of trophy fish
caught just outside the boundary.
This case study of the "spillover effect" has surfaced as a prime
argument for establishing similar no-fishing zones off the California
coast. State officials are planning a network of no-take zones around
the Channel Islands, in addition to last week's emergency closing of
most bottom fishing along the continental shelf.
Marine biologists have documented a resurgence of sea life in closed
areas in the Florida Keys and on New England's Georges Bank. Other
studies have found signs of similar recoveries in marine reserves off
New Zealand and South Africa, in the Philippines and the
Caribbean.
In a survey of 89 scientific papers, UC Santa Barbara researchers
found that 90% of marine reserves around the world had more fish, 84%
had much larger fish and shellfish and 59% had a far greater variety
of marine life than did adjacent waters. So far, the spillover effect
hasn't won many converts among anglers, who disdain it as "junk
science," and fear new limits on where they can fish.
Yet fishermen flock to the peripheries of the off-limits areas, their
actions belying their skepticism.
"The prime fishing areas have always been right up against the NASA
restricted area," said Frederick D. Mastin, who runs the Space Coast
Sportfishing Foundation. "Everybody knows that."
Government officials who regulate fishing say they have little choice
but to set up the ocean equivalent of wilderness areas to protect
disappearing wildlife. Fish stocks have fallen too low. Traditional
measures, such as limiting catches or limiting the size of fish taken,
have failed to halt the slide.
Without establishing safe havens for breeding stock, regulators say,
there will be little left for future generations to catch.
This is considered particularly true for California's largely
sedentary, bottom-dwelling rockfish, which are slow to reproduce.
Federal officials stepped in July 1 to close 8,500 square miles of
California's continental shelf to fishing for rockfish and ling
cod--an emergency action to keep these species from edging toward
extinction.
What's happening off California makes the abundance of big fish around
Cape Canaveral all the more remarkable. Near the space center, anglers
say, the fishing has never been better, although they don't always
agree on why.
James Bohnsack, a research biologist with the National Marine
Fisheries Service in Miami, said these fully protected areas function
like natural hatcheries, spilling out offspring and adults to restock
surrounding areas.
One study of which he was co-author shows that the marine reserve
around the Kennedy Space Center is teeming with two to 12 times as
many fish as the adjacent waters, depending on the species, and that
the fish are much older and larger.
A follow-up study shows that the best anglers have learned to turn
this protected bounty to their advantage by working the edges. The
number of world record catches of redfish, black drum, spotted sea
trout and common snook are higher in the waters adjacent to Cape
Canaveral than anywhere else.
"The data was collected by recreational fishermen themselves," said
Bohnsack, who is weary of debates over marine reserves. "If I
collected it, they would say I'm biased and I made it up. Their own
data shows the benefits."
Troy Perez has benefited more than most from the fertile waters around
Kennedy Space Center.
A man of few words, Perez has a reputation for reeling in some of the
biggest fish ever caught on light tackle and then quietly sending off
the records to the International Game Fish Assn.
Enormous fish, stuffed and mounted, line the walls of his den--all
caught in the waters near Cape Canaveral. Word of the records spread
and fishermen now flock to the Cape Canaveral area, lured by the
prospect of landing a big redfish, also known as red drum for their
booming grunt. Redfish were nearly wiped out elsewhere during the
"blackened redfish" dining craze of the 1980s.
Like other locals, Perez, 39, has long accepted the closing of the
cape area, which was first imposed in 1962, before he was born. But he
is irked that the restricted zone has been expanded in recent years to
protect manatees--slow-moving, half-ton marine mammals--from boat
propellers and, more recently, to enlarge the security buffer against
possible terrorist attacks.
He acknowledges that these waters, unlike most other places, have
remarkable fishing.
Are the biologists right? Can this be attributed to closed areas?
No way, he says. He attributes the return of the redfish to Florida's
1995 ban on commercial gill nets and to the strict limits that allow a
recreational angler to take home just one fish between 18 inches and
27 inches long. He doesn't buy the idea that the protected area has
helped replenish the surrounding waters.
So, if Perez were in charge, would he open the waters that have been
untouched for 40 years?
"No."
Why not?
"Better to leave it the way it is."
Tom Twyford understands such thinking, though he disagrees. As
executive director of the 1,400-member West Palm Beach Fishing Club,
he said recreational fishermen worry about being steam-rolled by
bureaucrats and environmentalists and losing what they love to do.
Twyford broke ranks two years ago, writing an article in the club's
"Tight Lines Bulletin" urging support of the 180-square-mile Tortugas
Ecological Reserve in the Florida Keys, which was established last
July.
He argued that there are simply too many fishermen chasing too few
fish. Many recreational fishermen argue that "I'm only one boat and I
don't have any impact," Twyford said. "We have millions of people and,
collectively, we have a significant impact." Government officials say
their experience in the Florida Keys and around Cape Canaveral offers
a model for what they are trying to do in the Channel Islands National
Marine Sanctuary off Southern California. State officials in December
are to decide whether to set aside 25% of the waters around the
islands as no-take zones.
"You cannot get people to rally around this, particularly those who
are going to benefit the most," said Billy Causey, superintendent of
the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. Peer pressure, he said,
stifles public support from fish trappers, commercial trawlers and
recreational anglers.
Still, he said, opposition wanes over time. It has been years since he
has been hanged in effigy. More encouraging is that once-hostile
fishermen now approach him in the supermarket to confide their
pleasure at the signs of fish renewal.
"People who were previously in my face are now coming back to me
saying, 'They are working,' " Causey said, about marine reserves.
Biologists know that some species rebound quickly, while others take
time. In New England, the collapse of the cod fishery prompted
sweeping closures in 1994 on the Georges Bank. Eight years later, cod
and other ground fish there continue to struggle. But the sea scallop
population showed a 14-fold increase in the first four years, and
individual animals were much larger.
Size matters for fish. Both fish and shellfish produce far more eggs
as they grow older and larger.
That's why scientists are so intrigued by creating safe harbors for
fish, so they have a chance to mature and repopulate.
More than 160 prominent marine scientists threw their support last
year behind reserves to reduce the possibility of extinction for
marine life and to rebuild depleted fisheries. Not only are reserves
good for fish, scientists concluded, but they are good for fishermen
too.
But the American Sportsfishing Assn., which has declared war on the
marine reserve movement, hired Robert Shipp, chairman of marine
sciences at the University of South Alabama, to do a different kind of
study.
He concluded that marine reserves would not help 98% of 350 different
types of fish he examined because they would simply swim out of
protected waters. .
Other scientists agree that reserves will not conserve highly
migratory fish, such as tuna or salmon.
That's one of the reasons that the waters inside Kennedy Space
Center's security zone have long intrigued scientists. Redfish, which
often swim long distances, have tended to stay put, apparently because
the surrounding barrier islands don't make it easy for them to migrate
into the open ocean.
It wasn't until the space shuttle Challenger blew up in 1986 that
marine scientists got NASA's permission to take a peek. With the space
program on hold, biologists were permitted to do a fish census.
They were astounded by what they found. "Nowhere else have I seen that
kind of density," Bohnsack said. "It's an incredible concentration of
fish."
Bohnsack dismisses fishermen's theories that the trophy catches result
from the 1995 ban on gill nets or regulations that limit anglers to
one fish in a specific size range.
"These fish don't grow overnight," he said, noting that redfish live
to be 35 years old and black drum to 70 years. "It takes them a while
to reach record size.
"If you look at the world records since the [Florida-wide]
gill-net ban in 1995, 18 out of 20 came out of the Cape Canaveral
area," he said. "Why just there? Why not elsewhere? The fishermen
ignore the best, simplest and most logical explanation."