Fishing

June 18, 2009

Jimmy Ruhle is an advocate for the commercial fishing industry

By SUSAN WEST

Commercial fisherman and Wanchese resident Jimmy Ruhle navigated the seas of Washington politics during Capitol Hill Ocean Week.

“I could have used a pair of roller skates to get from one meeting to the next,” said Ruhle, president of Commercial Fishermen of America (CFA), in a rare moment of lightheartedness last week.

Ruhle talked with U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) chief Jane Lubchenco, met with legislative aides in 20 congressional offices, attended the Ocean Week Symposium, and served-up sea scallops at the annual NOAA fish fry at the Commerce Department.

“The message I delivered was that the survival of the commercial fishing industry is on the line. Whether our country will remain a seafood producing nation is uncertain,” said Ruhle, a third-generation fisherman.

He said the balance struck between conservation and the use of marine resources, as set forth in the federal Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, has been lost.

“The intent of Congress and how National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) has interpreted Magnuson-Stevens are not the same,” Ruhle said.

He pointed out that since 1976, when Magnuson-Stevens became the framework for managing United States fisheries, nearly two-thirds of the commercial fishing fleet and infrastructure has vanished, seafood imports have tripled, and the number of NMFS employees has quadrupled.

“We’ve lost fisheries and production even from very healthy (fish) stocks due to NMFS’ lack of management flexibility, neglect of its responsibility to fishing communities, and overriding fear of litigation by some advocacy groups,” Ruhle explained.

CFA is asking Congress to review and clarify the directives in Magnuson-Stevens that have resulted in the loss of domestic seafood production capacity.

That request marks a shift in focus for the organization that was created in 2006 to give commercial fishermen a national voice.

CFA’s most famous members are Sig Hansen, Jonathan Hillstrand, and Phil Harris, captains that appear on “Deadliest Catch,” the Discovery Channel’s reality show about the Bering Sea crab fishery.

Governed by a 10-member board of directors representing commercial fishermen from Maine to Alaska, CFA has offices in California and Maryland.

Ruhle said frustration over trying to work with NMFS led the CFA board in May to decide to take a more aggressive approach to correcting problems in the management of the nation’s fisheries.

“I’ve put in many years trying to work within the (federal fisheries management) council process, but the process is broken beyond repair,” said Ruhle, who was a Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council member for nine years and an advisory panel member for another 12 years.

When Commerce Secretary Locke stopped by to sample the scallops at CFA’s booth at the Washington fish fry last week, Ruhle described to Locke how cooperative research between fishermen and scientists led to Atlantic scallop beds being re-opened to harvest.

“Cooperative science should be the norm, not the exception,” he explained.

Since 2006, Ruhle has used his boat, the Darana R, in an Atlantic coast inshore fish survey conducted by scientists from the Virginia Institute of Marine Science. He said the data coming in from that project is starting to indicate that some of the information used by NMFS to set catch limits has been inaccurate.

Ruhle’s younger brother, Phil, a Rhode Island fisherman, also worked to improve the quality of science used in resource management. In an incident that became known as “Trawlgate,” Phil identified flawed fishing techniques in the federal trawl survey used to estimate fish populations.

The Ruhle brothers also worked with a team of scientists on a trawl design that reduces by-catch of unwanted species. Originally tagged “The Eliminator,” the trawl is now called “The Ruhle Trawl.”

Jimmy Ruhle said his brother became more engaged in the politics of fishery management in 2007 after he was not reappointed to the New England Fishery Management Council.

Then, last summer Phil Ruhle’s boat, the Sea Breeze, loaded with squid, went down off the New Jersey coast. The crew was rescued, and later said their captain was trying to save the boat when he disappeared.

Jimmy said it wasn’t until Phil’s memorial service that he fully understood the depth of the respect “Philly” had garnered as an advocate for fishermen and for fisheries.

“Phil opened the doors. I owe it to him to continue that legacy. But even more importantly, I owe it to our children and to our grandchildren. If we don’t do something, they don’t stand a chance,” said Ruhle.