Here’s the second part of our interview with Dr. Aaron Adams: fly fisher, Operations Director of the Bonefish and Tarpon Trust and Senior Scientist at the Mote Marine Laboratories.
A more detailed introduction posted here yesterday along with the first part of Dr. Adam’s interview.
BTT has been a leader in helping influence some recent key regulatory changes in Florida (bonefish); what has been the key to success thus far and what else needs to be done?
Data, information, science. BTT is a science-based conservation organization. We take advocacy positions based on the available science in combination with our assessment of conservation threats. For bonefish, we helped to fund research on the effects of catch and release on bonefish, including handling. That research showed that the less handling the better. We were also receiving reports of people keeping bonefish in the South Florida area. And we also realized that elevating bonefish to catch and release only (which had already been done in Belize, Puerto Rico, US Virgin Islands), gave them a higher profile that should lead to more conservation attention. We used this information, and our good relationship with Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission to work toward the new regulations for bonefish.
The details are a bit different for permit. Here the big issue was a complete lack of data: nothing on catch, effort, harvest, population size. Nothing. And on top of that, reports from long-time anglers of declines in some regions. So we worked with FWC to implement new regulations that took a more cautious approach to management, and at the same time launched Costa’s Project Permit to start getting the data we need for
management.
In The Bahamas, we continue to work with local guides to identify bonefish spawning locations so these locations can be protected. And the economic study showing that the recreational fishery for bonefish is worth at least $141 million annually has spurred new efforts to curtail illegal netting and sale of bonefish.
The key in all of these examples is that we have been able to inject appropriate information into the discussion.
What still needs to be done? Now that’s a really long list, so will have to wait for another interview. But chief among the near-future items involves habitat – figure out the habitats critical to bonefish, tarpon, permit, and get them protected.
What current BTT project or initiative are you most excited about today?
Wow, that’s a tough one. All of the projects are exciting. But I think the one that is most exciting at the moment is our new Juvenile Tarpon Habitat Program. The goal of this program is to protect and/or restore juvenile tarpon habitats. Without juvenile habitats, the fishery has no future, and we’ve lost and continue to lose important juvenile habitats throughout the tarpon’s range. We’re just getting started, but already have some good buzz going. Now the challenge is raising the funds to get it done (and that’s no small task). The great thing about this program is that we can do this because we helped fund studies that determined the habitat requirements for juvenile tarpon, and now we’re applying that knowledge to conservation.
Another one is the new Florida Keys Initiative – a renewed focus on the Keys to figure out what is causing the decline in bonefish numbers in some parts of the Keys, and to reverse it. We’re funding a new study to look at some of the habitat issues in 2012, and hope to fund a study to determine the economic value of the flats fisheries in the Keys – yes, here we are in 2011 and the economic impact of flats fishing in the Keys is not known.
What can ‘the average Joe’ like us do to help BTT and other like-minded organizations best ‘get it done’?
Join BTT, of course. And join other like-minded organizations. Every bit helps – both the dollars and your name on the list. The dollars help us do the work that is needed. The name on the list helps in our conversations with the politicians and resource managers – the more names, the more they pay attention.
Be a thorn in the side of the politicians and resource managers who have control over what happens to our fisheries, and to the habitats that the fish need to survive. Most of them don’t fish, so they don’t see the connection between healthy habitats and healthy fisheries. So educate them. If anglers don’t become the biggest defenders of the fish and their habitats, no one else will.
We have your book Fly Fishing for Bonefish, co-authored with Chico Fernandez, sitting on the self. Is a day on the water with Chico as mind-boggling as we think it would be?
Fishing with Chico is a lot of fun. He’s obviously very knowledgeable, so every time I fish with him I learn something new. But he’s also very interested in learning from other anglers’ experiences. It’s a pretty funny contrast, though. Chico is very methodical in his fishing, and very much a traditionalist. I’m more from the school of ‘do what works’, and I am definitely sloppy about my leaders. It’s quite a contrast. But he’s so laid back that he just laughs.
If you can tell us without breaking a sacred promise or revealing too many secrets, where do you head to fish on a day off?
As you probably know, I am not a kiss-and-tell kind of angler. In fact, I am anti kiss-and-tell. I am all for sharing fishing spots with people who do the work to find them, but not so much those that don’t put in the work. I think that people who invest the effort to find and figure out fishing spots are much more likely to be good stewards.
That said, my home waters of Charlotte Harbor are obviously tops, since it’s such easy access. But I’ll head to Chokoloskee for a day, or the Keys for a overnight trip. And, of course, The Bahamas is just a short flight away for a long weekend. And then there’s….
If you could encourage fly fishers to do just one thing in terms of stewardship this next year, what would that be?
Get involved somehow. Whether it’s pestering your local or national politicians, helping with local restoration efforts, joining efforts to stop pollution, donating to fish conservation. There’s a whole host of ways to get involved, but the key is to get involved. If you need direction, join a fisheries conservation organization and take their lead. I would guess that considerably fewer than 10% of anglers are involved in conservation, even though all anglers benefit from conservation work. And the current outlook is not good if more anglers don’t get involved. The current assault on the laws that have allowed our fisheries to survive is unprecedented, and will have long-lasting impacts on our fisheries. No whining allowed, get involved.
Many thanks to Dr. Adams for taking the time to let us pester with questions. The beers are on us.
Tags: People of Fly Fishing
