A Sea Barren of Fish Carries a Message Awash in Warning

That's the sort of question nobody really wants to ask, which is why it was a pleasant surprise the other day to get a notice from the Coastal Conservation Association of Maryland, which apparently is prepared to grab this intractable bull by the horns.

On Oct. 3, CCA is holding a free symposium in Annapolis at which the big, scary questions of local marine resource management will be addressed, hopefully before it's too late. "The bay's productivity is in an advanced downtrend," CCA maintains. "It has become obvious to anglers that the management of our marine resources remains rooted in the past."

CCA-Md. maintains that Maryland, with 350,000 sport anglers and perhaps 5,000-6,000 mostly part-time commercial fishermen, still dangerously tilts its marine resource policies in favor of the commercial interests at the expense of a much larger recreational base.

Robert Glenn, executive director of CCA-Md., says the state's Department of Natural Resources has a longstanding institutional bias in favor of commercial fishermen that damages the quality of sport fishing and threatens the viability of marine recreational resources.

"Decades ago, commercial hunting and fishing were outlawed throughout Maryland with the exception of saltwater fishing, which helped shape the state's development," CCA points out. Today, it maintains, "with continual growth in population and development, people increasingly look toward the Bay for recreational fishing and boating opportunities," yet in CCA's view marine resources continue to be managed primarily for commercial exploitation.

That's the issue CCA will address next week. It has invited an economist from the National Marine Fisheries Service to compare economic benefits of recreational vs. commercial fishing; a state Natural Resources official to explain the agency's position, and experts from North Carolina and the Gulf of Mexico to discuss what's happened there. CCA also invited Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Martin O'Malley.

CCA is reluctant to paint itself as an environmental firebrand. "We're trying to begin a dialogue between recreational fishermen and the DNR in how to change the management philosophy," says the organization's fisheries chief, Sherman Baynard. "They've got an archaic system that doesn't deal with the modern problems and demographics of the Chesapeake Bay.

"It's our contention that the obligation of the state is to manage a healthy, sustainable fishery, and when you get an abundance that can be allocated, give it to the broad spectrum of citizens, not to a small group with commercial interests.

"We don't want to close down commercial fishing in Chesapeake Bay," Baynard said. "If the resource can be managed in a way that allows for some limited commercial exploitation, fine. But that shouldn't come first."

For a glimpse of the worst that can happen when commercial interests do come first, at the expense of all else, one need go no farther than Murphy's Cove, Nova Scotia, where the fishing was once the best in the world, and now there's none left at all.

* * *

CCA-Md's free symposium, "Saltwater Fisheries Management for the 21st Century," runs from 7-10 p.m. Oct. 3 at the Loews Annapolis Hotel, 126 West St. For a detailed agenda, check the Web site http://www.ccamd.org .