Why is Bob Shipp still on the Gulf Council?
Why is Dr. Robert Shipp still a full voting member of the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council?
He is paid for his services by CCA, a group openly fighting to put all commercial grouper fishermen in the Gulf completely out of business. Isn’t that enough reason for him to be asked to resign?
If it isn’t, how about the fact that he is now fighting for two of the state of Alabama’s near shore commercial fishery’s most valuable resources to be declared “sport fish” so that the take figures for the local Alabama Deep Sea Fishing Rodeo will be higher? He wants to close down a viable commercial fishery because he claims that for a couple of years his favorite fishing tournament has had lower numbers? He discounts the commonly accepted stock assessment for the entire Gulf of Mexico (that shows stocks of Spanish mackerel are healthy throughout the Gulf) because those weighed and measured at his favorite fishing tournament are a bit off? He also seems to think that for some reason, the fish off the coast of Alabama are different than those off Florida and other Gulf coasts.**
What are those figures? Spanish Mackerel winners for his Rodeo:
- 2004 : 5.01lbs
- 2006 : 6.51lbs
- 2008 : 5.37lbs
Uh, what? Exactly what is this guy talking about? Where does he get his statistics?
“Spanish mackerel has shown a significant decline during the last five years,” Shipp said. “My statisticians at the sea lab say there’s a better than 98 percent probability that this is not a random variance in the numbers, that something is causing this.” *
Ah, okay. He’s got his own statisticians. That explains a lot. Unfortunately, he never explains his logic beyond this “my statisticians…say” claim. Not does he seem to believe that weather, pollution, power and desalination plants on the water, overpopulation of coastal areas, typical cyclical variations in fish populations, or any other possible contributing factors should be considered. His stat guy says it is bad, shut down the damn commercial fishermen!
My statisticians tell me that 97% of all statistics are made up on the spot to help make whatever argument is being advanced. The other 3% are simply manipulated. (OK, I made that up, I admit it. Unlike Dr. Shipp, I don’t have my own statisticians.)
Dr. Shipp is also “concerned” about Cobia. Cobia is not under any commercial pressure so unfortunately he can’t blame any fictitional precipitous drop in the size of the winning fish in his “Rodeo” on commercial fishing. Does he have another place to lay blame? Not really so he sort of kind of waffles around about not being “sure” that a recreational angler needs to keep 80 lbs of them on a fishing trip. No input from “his statisticians” here.
“In the past few years the weights of the winning cobia are starting to drop off,” Shipp said. “That might be a sign that the stocks are starting to drop off.” *
Is that right, Doc? No, it simply is not.
Cobia winners:
- 2004 : 45.81 lbs.
- 2006 : 51.56 lbs.
- 2008 : 46.08 lbs.
“They’re kind of a long-lived big fish,” Shipp said. “When you’re talking about a 30-40 pound fish, I’m not sure you need two of them.”
“Kind of”? “not sure”? This is the guy who is completely positive that the commercial fishery is the culprit in the precipitous (and fictitious) decline in the size of the prize winning mackerels? This is the guy who goes on in his inimitably scientifically sound manner to state that, regarding mahi mahi:
“Dolphin is in great shape,” he said. “No matter how hard they get hammered, they don’t seem to be in any trouble.”*
“No matter how hard they get hammered“? Holy smokes, now there’s a scientifically based position I haven’t heard before.
Dolphin winners:
- 2004 : 31.82 lbs
- 2006 : 31.62 lbs
- 2008 : 29.75 lbs
The truth is, if you use his own research tool, the winning fish in most categories of his favorite home-town fishing tournament have followed the same sort of up and down cycle with the exception of dolphin which has had a minimal but steady decline. But hammer away, folks. They “don’t seem to be in any trouble.”
Perhaps the worst of all is the fact that he seems to believe that it is perfectly acceptable to (over)regulate one fish to the very likely detriment of another.
In response to other fishermen’s more responsible concerns that the red snapper are becoming so prevalent they may be having a negative impact on other species, Dr. Shipp had this to say regarding those red snapper recently:
“They’re a predator and they may cause a depletion of vermilion snapper,” Shipp said. “I think more people would want to have more red snapper and less of something else.” *
Isn’t that just plain bad regulatory and management techniques? Isn’t that artificially structuring the fish populations to the possible detriment of the whole ecosystem? Seems like it to me, but he apparently thinks that’s just fine.
So to summarize:
- This is a guy who regularly takes money from the CCA, an avowed anti-commercial fishing organization.
- This is a guy who believes Alabama waters have different fish population dynamics than the rest of the Gulf of Mexico.**
- This is a guy who considers a change over four years of plus .36 pounds an alarming drop in the population of one fish and a drop of 2.07 lbs over the same four years evidence that you can “hammer” that fish with no problem.
- Finally, this is a guy who believes it is okay to allow red snapper to eat the vermillions out of house and home because people would rather have more red snapper than other kinds of fish.
This man has a vote on how the commercial fishery is regulated?
He has some control over our livelihoods?
Doesn’t seem right.
* All of the above quotes from Dr. Shipp were taken from a Tuscaloosa News article 5/18/09
** He really thinks this way. See page 3 paragraph 2 of this article.
