Recently TRCP’s western outreach director, Neil Thagard presented the Wyoming Game & Fish Department $10,000 for the Private Lands Public Wildlife Access Program, which benefits all sportsmen who hunt and fish in the Cowboy State.
During the presentation, Neil expressed concerns surrounding the recent mandated budget cuts and what those cuts mean for fish and wildlife management, businesses and sportsmen. In the last budget session, the Wyoming Legislature demanded the Department cut $4.6 million from its FY14 budget. Such cuts will adversely impact fish and wildlife resources and hunting and angling opportunities.
Kirk Rhinehart, avid angler and biologist; wrote Louisiana’s coastal restoration master plan.
The crew and I had three goals. The first was to catch a lot of red snapper with a variety of baits on light tackle. The second was to get as much incredible footage as possible to make for a good episode of Louisiana Sportsman TV to air later in the summer. The third was to discuss TRCP’s work with its sportfishing partners to improve recreational fishing habitat and opportunities in the Gulf and beyond.We succeeded on all fronts.
Exchanging fishing stories along the way and eyeing a couple of stray thunderstorms lingering right off the mouth of the river, the 25-minute trek out of South Pass passed in a blink. Ten minutes after clearing the last channel marker, we had lines in the water and were reeling in beautiful eight to 15 pound red snapper.
The cameras rolled. The rods doubled. Smiles abounded and 10 red snapper quickly came over the gunwale.
Chris Macaluso and a snapper caught in 90 ft. of water less than two miles from the mouth of the Mississippi River.
We were fishing a ledge in about 90 feet. The water on the surface was dirtied by the spring rains from the Midwest pushing their way down the river but the massive school of snapper could be clearly seen on the sonar about 20 feet under the boat. More than 25 red snapper came to the boat after eating everything from cut bait to butterfly jigs and soft plastic grubs.
Capt. Peace then pointed the boat east in search of mangrove snapper and bigger red snapper at the South Pass 70 Block, a set of oil and gas platforms in 300 feet of water famous for holding a variety of reef fish as well as big blackfin tuna and wahoo at certain times of the year.
Free-lining chunks of cut menhaden, we quickly hooked into several sizeable mangrove snapper including an impressive 10.6 pounder as well as the rest of our 14 red snapper limit. Mixed in were a couple of 40-50 pound amberjack, two slightly-too-small cobia and a bruising 40-pound gag grouper. The AJ’s, cobia and gag all went back to swim another day. The snapper were destined for the grill.
Clearly, red snapper are abundant in the northern Gulf, something all researchers and fishermen alike agreed upon. Still, there is so much uncertainty in the data regarding stock sizes, catch-and-release mortality and actual angler effort that red snapper seasons have become ever shorter over the last several years.
This year, Gulf anglers get just 28 days to harvest red snapper. Without a judge’s ruling that forced a uniform season for all Gulf States, Louisiana fishermen would have had just nine days from NOAA to catch and keep the highly-prized, hard-fighting, crimson delicacies in federal waters.
Lack of data and improving survival rates:
The same lack of data restricting red snapper harvest forced the release of the two amberjack that wore me out that day. The one that hit the free-lined chunk on the surface swam away with little effort after a bruising 15 –minute light tackle fight. The one that came from 200 feet down had to be vented and revived to be able to return to depth.
Reducing the impact of reeling reef fish up from the depths, technically called barotrauma, was discussed at length at the workshops. Finding the best methods to improve survival rates of fish brought up from the deep and getting more anglers involved can hopefully increase the access recreational anglers have to harvesting more reef fish.
Habitat:
Catching abundant red snapper and other reef denizens on both natural and man-made structures illustrated well the role that both play for the fish and the fishermen. Anglers across the northern Gulf fish rigs and artificial reefs extensively but much is still unknown about what materials make the best reefs and where it’s best to locate the structures. Meanwhile, federal energy policies are forcing the rapid removal of oil and gas platforms with little regard for the fish or their habitat.
Did the Supreme Court Just Make it Harder for Sportsmen to Protect Wetlands…Again?
On June 25th the Supreme Court handed down a little-noticed but important opinion that may hurt sportsmen and prized wildlife habitat. Lost in the focus on decisions related to same-sex marriage and the Voting Rights Act, the Court’s 5-4 ruling in Koontz v. St. Johns River Water Management District will make it harder for land-use permitting agencies to develop strategies that mitigate the impacts of development on fish and wildlife habitat. This comes on the heels of Supreme Court decisions in 2001 and 2006 that obscured the criteria for determining which water bodies receive protection under the Clean Water Act. (Check out EPA’s waters of the United States website for a description of the definitional challenges in the Clean Water Act caused by these two Supreme Court decisions)
Photo Courtesy of the U.S. National Park Service.
I will leave it to others to argue whether the Court’s decision in Koontz is wise or unwise. Here’s the take home for sportsmen: the ruling increases the threat of litigation looming over land-use permitting agencies. Instead of negotiating appropriate mitigation in good faith, they now have an incentive to deny permits up front or approve permits without pursuing creative ways to protect hunting and fishing opportunities.
As this decision ripples through future permitting cases, sportsmen must engage with land use planners to protect the hunting and fishing lands they cherish, and to ensure the ruling doesn’t stand in the way of conservation efforts.
It’s important to note that the Supreme Court did not rule on the merits of Mr. Koontz’s suit; it only ruled on process. Therefore, we don’t know whether Mr. Koontz or similar plaintiffs will be successful in their lawsuits, but the expanded opportunities for litigation may have a chilling effect on permitting agencies nonetheless.
The case involved Coy Koontz, a man who owned property in Florida wetlands that he wanted to develop for commercial purposes. Florida law requires applicants to mitigate the environmental impact of any development, and Mr. Koontz offered to do so by giving the local district a “conservation easement” (essentially an agreement to limit future development) on nearly three quarters of his property.
The local district determined his offer did not comply with Florida law since it would result in a net loss of wetlands. The district countered and suggested Mr. Koontz do one of two things: (1) reduce the size of this development and increase the size of the conservation easement or (2) pay for improvements to wetlands owned by the district several miles away. When Mr. Koontz refused to take either action or offer an alternative, the district denied his permit and Mr. Koontz sued the district. Mr. Koontz argued that forcing him to take either of these actions in order to secure a development permit violated his Constitutional right to “just compensation” for property taken by the government.
Lower courts found in favor of Mr. Koontz, ruling that the District did not comply with two tests laid out in Nollan v. California Coastal Commission (1987) and Dolan v. City of Tigard (1994) that set limits on what conditions the government can place on the approval of land use permits. The Nollan and Dolan tests ensure that government demands for property must have a link to the development’s substantive impact on the public and be proportional to that impact. In other words, the government’s demands cannot be arbitrary or excessive.
The Florida Supreme Court overturned the lower courts’ rulings because (1) the District denied Mr. Koontz’s permit (rather than demanding property as part of permit approval) and (2) the request for money to improve district-owned wetlands does not count as a taking. In other words, Nollan and Dolan do not apply because Mr. Koontz never gave up any property and money wouldn’t count as property even if he had paid for additional wetlands improvements.
However, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed on both counts. It ruled:
The Nollan and Dolan tests must apply even when a permit is denied, as it was in this case, to ensure that the government cannot coerce a permit applicant to give up their Fifth Amendment right to just compensation for property taken. This part of the decision was unanimous, with all nine justices in agreement.
The Nollan and Dolan tests apply even when the government demand is for money. This is where the liberal wing of the Court differed in the 5-4 ruling.
With the extension of the Nollan and Dolan tests, land-use planning will likely become more litigious and local permitting agencies may have less flexibility to require mitigation. Local permitting agencies now have an incentive to avoid the threat of litigation by either denying a permit without negotiating with the applicant or approve a permit without effective mitigation plans. One result stifles responsible development; the other impedes protection of wildlife and habitat. Neither is desirable.
As Justice Kagan said in her dissent, “If a local government risked a lawsuit every time it made a suggestion to an applicant about how to meet permitting criteria, it would cease to do so; indeed, the government might desist altogether from communicating with applicants.” (Emphasis added.)
If there is a silver lining in the decision, it’s that the Court recognized the value of mitigation. The Court held that “Insisting that landowners internalize the negative externalities of their conduct is a hallmark of responsible land-use policy, and we have long sustained such regulations against constitutional attack.” Such an affirmative statement bodes well for conservation cases that may come before the Court in the future, and the TRCP’s efforts to promote water conservation.
Theodore Roosevelt’s experiences hunting and fishing certainly fueled his passion for conservation, but it seems that a passion for coffee may have powered his mornings. In fact, Roosevelt’s son once said that his father’s coffee cup was “more in the nature of a bathtub.” TRCP has partnered with Afuera Coffee Co. to bring together his two loves: a strong morning brew and a dedication to conservation. With your purchase, you’ll not only enjoy waking up to the rich aroma of this bolder roast—you’ll be supporting the important work of preserving hunting and fishing opportunities for all.
This year, Gulf anglers get just 28 days 
