00:00:02 Speaker 1: Welcome to this special bonus drop of Backwoods University. We put out these bonus episodes on occasion when something on the extraordinary scale comes to our attention, and this is very well one of those times. If you remember, back in the fall, we published an episode called Pogy Boats where we dove into a long standing conflict between the commercial menhaden fishing industry and recreational fishermen, charter fishermen, and kind of the conservation community in that area. We talked about by catch concerns, which bycatch is non target fish or other aquatic wildlife that wind up in the commercial fishing boats per sane net that often ends up getting killed as a result. We talked about potential and known damage that this industry can cause to the habitat, and we also talked about proposed laws and buffer zones that would potentially alleviate some of these conflicts and ensure longevity of the wild resources without harming the industry or costing anyone a job. I'm quickly gloss over these details here, but I want to make sure that everyone is kind of caught up before we dive into today. If you want to be fully informed, you can go back and listen to episode three eighty one titled pogy Boats, and also episode three eighty four where we heard from a Minhaden fishing representative. So, without further ado, we are doing this bonus episode today because just a few days ago, and I mean less than a week ago, three key Minhaden reform bills passed through the Senate Natural Resources Committee, which is a big deal, and we're going to dive into that. 00:01:33 Speaker 2: So let's do it. 00:01:44 Speaker 1: Joined back again by Chris Mcalousso, who was a huge You were a huge part of the first pogy Boat episode that we did, and I think, man if I'm pretty sure where we left off is you are talking about, you know, the buffer areas and when those when that ended, the vote had the big vote that took place with the Commission hadn't even happened yet, right, And so I wanted to have you back on here to give a because we had a pretty prudent update that just came out like that. When did that happen? Like just a couple of days ago, right. 00:02:19 Speaker 3: Yeah, just two days ago at the Louisiana Legislature we had some bills and I think the significance here is to point out that these men haten conservation bills and really they're just accountability bills, but it's very important to get some of those accountability measures in place for this industry. Three bills made it through the Senate Natural Resources Committee and the legislature. That's significant because that committee has historically, you know, over the last five to six years of trying to get legislation passed regarding men haden management, that committee has been the sticking point. 00:02:55 Speaker 2: We very rarely get a bill. 00:02:56 Speaker 3: Out of that committee, and it's because the chair of that committee is in a district that has a pogee processing plan in it in southwest Louisiana, and he just does not let bills get through his committee. We've seen some resolutions, like you know, for instance, the money for the by catch study that was conducted in twenty twenty four. That resolution made it through its his committee, but only because the industry supported it. But really no other legislation, whether we're talking about you know, additional tracking measures on the boats or catch limits or buffers or things like that. You know, at no other time since we've been working on this issue for the last you know, five to six years has a bill gotten through his committee. So the fact that we were able to get three bills through that committee. Now they have to go to the legislative Senate floor. Uh and then hopefully once that happens, those bills have already passed the House. You know, we're looking at the potential of the governor signing them into law. So that is a big deal for us, and it's good news I think for folks who've been following this issue. 00:04:07 Speaker 1: Yeah, man for sure. Man, one thing that was so evident to me when I was digging into that episode was just how I don't know, like how close to this issue many of the people that I interviewed were yourself included, you know, and then and then the guides Keith Bergeron and Shane and you could just feel kind of like just the burden of this issue on these people, you know, like how important it was and which you know kind of was what propelled me to try to do a good job with it. I was like, man, it's just these people care about this, like this isn't just like a topic of discussion like this is this means something to these people, which is why I thought it was interesting. But before I ask you about you know what these you know, bills were in specifics like do you do you know why these were able to get through? Do you think when so many weren't. 00:05:04 Speaker 3: Well, I think part of the big reason here is that it you know, and this is not to minimize the impact of the bills, but they really weren't bills that were attempting to limit how much the industry catches or where they could fish necessarily. 00:05:21 Speaker 2: Now, there was a bill. 00:05:23 Speaker 3: That was introduced in the House that would have set a limit at twenty two feet inside of which the industry could not fish, and that was based on the data and the science that came out of that by catch study that showed a real solid inflection point where inside of twenty two feet the number of redfish that were being caught as by catch by the industry went up substantially. Outside of twenty two feet it went down. But there were other species that were being caught more often rays and sharks and jacks. So, you know, a lot of this a lot of the argument, you know, when you see a lot of the outrage, rightfully, so, a lot of the people being really upset about the impacts of the men haiden industry is because you know, you get these big redfish kills. You see dead redfish washing up on beaches and floating around in the bays and in the surf, and that gets people. 00:06:17 Speaker 2: Really worked up. 00:06:17 Speaker 3: Not to mention the fact that redfish are not doing great in Louisiana. You know, Louisiana is probably still the best place in the world to go catch a redfish, but we have had to see limits curtailed. We've seen slot limits changed, We've seen it becoming legal to keep redfish over twenty seven inches if you're a recreational fisherman, and all that is designed to help recover the species, you know, to bring the spawning rates of back up and the escapement rates so that the population is deemed healthy again. Right now, it's not in great shape, and there's a variety of factors that contribute to that, primarily habitat loss, but certainly the min Hayden industry is not helping. You know, you're killing twenty five thousand or so breeding sized red fish every year according to that bycatch study. You're also taking a substantial amount of their forage base out, and you're targeting them. The industry really praised upon those fish and targets them when they're mixed in with min hayden late in the summer when the red fish are spawning, and so a lot of legislators recognize the importance of protecting redfish. You know, redfish and speckled trout is a four hundred and fifty million dollars annual business in Louisiana. You know, almost a half a million people participate in fishing for those fish when you count in the people who come in from out of state every year. It's a big part of our culture and economy, and getting those fish healthy again is important. 00:07:45 Speaker 2: So there was a bill that would have made it illegal for the. 00:07:49 Speaker 3: Industry to fish inside of twenty two feet that got defeated in the House. It did make it through the House Natural Resources Committee. But you you know what you say about people taking this personally, it's hard to not take this resource personally. You know, if you fish down here, you live down here. This has been part of your life seeing these boats do what they do, fish as close to the beach as they do, sometimes getting right up on the edge of the marsh on the east side of the Mississippi River, killing redfish like they do at certain times of the year. Just seeing the aftermath of this fishery and caring about this place, and caring that these fisheries are healthy and that this habitat is protected. You can't help but be passionate about it. It sort of turns your stomach. And you know, I've talked to a number of lawmakers about this because you are sensing a. 00:08:40 Speaker 2: Frustration from legislators and others who. 00:08:42 Speaker 3: Keep hearing from constituents about the Menhaden industry and about people wanting them to do something about it. And I think they're getting a little fatigued because it does put them in a difficult spot to choose between conservation measures for fisheries and jobs. You know, we've tried to introduce legislation that we don't believe would cost the industry a lot of jobs, but would get us. 00:09:07 Speaker 2: Some conservation measures on the fishery. 00:09:09 Speaker 3: We since that the legislators are being frustrated, but my point to them is we either do something about it. 00:09:15 Speaker 2: You pass some legislation that put some better regulations. 00:09:19 Speaker 3: On this to limit those negative impacts, or you're going to keep hearing from people because the idea that people are not going to be upset about seeing a boat that drafts ten to twelve feet, fishing in five feet of water and chewing up to serve or that they're not going to be upset by those dead fish washing up on the beach. 00:09:39 Speaker 2: That's not going to happen. 00:09:40 Speaker 3: People are always going to be upset about that, and rightfully so, and they're going to ask their lawmakers to do something about it. And you know, we fortunately have some lawmakers who've listened to their constituents and are trying to do something about it. 00:09:56 Speaker 1: Yeah, and I can't say that enough, man, And like, the level of like, the level of authentic passion could not have been could not be overemphasized for everyone that I talked to, you know, and I and I it. 00:10:10 Speaker 2: Was so clear. 00:10:12 Speaker 1: It was so very clear, which is why I think it was such a compelling story to come out. And with all that being said, let's get into what these what these three bills are actually gonna do. I had one thing that caught my eye in the the t RCP, like, like, uh, it was a social media post that that I saw. 00:10:32 Speaker 2: That's why I reached out to you. 00:10:34 Speaker 1: But they worded it, they said, these bills provide common sense improvements to current regulations and so so let's go into a little bit of what those three bills look like. 00:10:44 Speaker 3: Sure, so the first one I was represented, was introduced by Representative Vincent Cox, who's from the New Orleans area. 00:10:52 Speaker 2: UH. 00:10:52 Speaker 3: It sets finds and penalties for the industry. It increases the fines and penalties for violating the buffers that are still in play. You mentioned earlier there was a vote at the Wildlife of Fisheries Commission, very contentious issue here, that reduced the size of the buffer zone from a half mile to a quarter mile off the beach in the area just east of excuse me, west of Venice, So in that Venice to Grand Isle area along Louisiana's coast, it reduced that buffer and that's always been a very contentious area. There's a lot of recreational fishing activity there. There's a lot of men haden fishing activity. So you know, we had a reduction in that buffer. But there were also some areas, like around the Chandelure Islands that see a little bit more protection provided to that habitat. So the bill introduced by Representative Cocks just increases the fines and penalties for violating those buffer lines. 00:11:47 Speaker 2: You know, there's a first first. 00:11:50 Speaker 3: Penalty violation, a second penalty violation, a third penalty violation, and of course those fines and penalties increase as the violations, you know, as you have more violations, as they should and so that's an accountability measure, you know, that's saying that that's disincentivizing the industry from the temptation of trying to fish inside of those buffer lines. And so that's a bill that we supported. It's been amended somewhat before it made its way into the Senate, but we still think that defines in the penalties there are deterrent to the temptation to fish inside of those buffers. The second bill, and this legislator has been a consistent champion of conservation measures. On the Menhaden industry Representative Joe Orgeron, who represents the you know, lower Lafouche Parish area, introduced a bill that makes the data on what the industry is collecting transparent and available to the public. Before, the industry didn't have to publicly report their data. Eventually that information would come out via you know, the Gulft State's Marine Fisheries Commission. They would reveal that data, but it was always months and months and months after the season. 00:13:05 Speaker 2: It ended, excuse me, and. 00:13:09 Speaker 3: The legislature is requiring the industry to report that information to them, but they don't have to report that to the public. 00:13:17 Speaker 2: Now. 00:13:17 Speaker 3: The point that we were trying to make is that by volume, this is the largest fishery that we have in the state. It's the largest fishery in the Gulf of Mexico. I think it's the largest fishery in the Lower forty eights by volume. You know, this is a public resource. The information about that catch harvest that's happening in Louisiana should be available to the public. And you know, making that information available to the public will help set better limits. Understand, you know, the seasonal nature of that fishery, how it changes year to year. But it's there's just no reason for it not to be available to the public. And so that was the impetus behind that bill. The third one, which we think is probably the most you know, has the ability to hold the industry the most accountable, requires all vessels involved in the fishery to have tracking devices on them the way Wildlife and Fisheries generally tracks where those boats are fishing, especially relative to those off limit areas. Is there's an AIS or GPS tracker on the large motherships, but there's never been one on the smaller boats that put the net out. This would require that tracking device on those smaller boats because there were a lot of complaints that we were hearing from recreational fishermen who said, you know, we were watching the big boat go right up to the line, but the net boat was going inside the buffer. Now, the industry, of course argues that doesn't happen, but it's hard to know either way. You know, if you're relying on GPS to tell you where these boats are fishing. The net boats, the two forty foot net boats that come off one hundred and fifty foot mothership, they're detached from that ship, right they can go inside that line. And we had enough you know what, I would say, reliable reports that that was happening that we felt like it was necessary in order for the Department of Widlife Fisheries to really be able to enforce those buffers to make sure that all the vessels involved had the tracking devices on it. So, you know, the industry, other than raising some concerns about, you know, what happens if the devices go down, things like that and another. The author of the bill, Representative Jerome zarrang is more than willing to work with the industry so long as they're not trying to intentionally water down the intent. You know, we understand that equipment malfunctions at times, but repairing and replacing that equipment is not terribly difficult. And there are some concessions being made that would allow the industry to continue to fish, say if one of those vessels lost their tracking device, but if two or three of them, uh lose it, they have to stop fishing completely. And so again accountability, you know, making sure that the industry is following the rules, knowing that we don't have enough enforcement agents out there to be out there watching every single boat all the time. 00:16:17 Speaker 1: These all seem to be they're like just trying to get some more transparency, you know, like uh, it's it's almost like it reminds me of like a Sunshine law kind of like a like a like just we want to know what's going on, and we deserve to know what's going on. Like no, like just let us know what you're doing. If you're not doing anything wrong, then let it. Then this shouldn't be a problem kind of thing. 00:16:43 Speaker 3: Yeah, and I agree, And I'll tell you when we really started, uh, you know, I want folks to understand that this whole effort behind trying to put some transparency in some some guardrails on that industry. This was not like a figment of our imagination. When we started working on these things. We had been hearing and I've been seeing my entire life some of the impacts from the industry. We've been hearing, especially for the last decade, from a lot of people who had concerns about the number of dead fish, how close the boats were getting to the beach, the impacts on you know, the habitat, and the fishery in general. There were just a lot of concerns, and when we took those to the Wildlife Fisheries commissioners and to the department, unfortunately they didn't know a whole lot about the industry, and it struck us all as very surprising and very concerning that the largest volume fishery we had in our state, the largest you know, in the Gulf of Mexico, had they had very little specific data about the impacts from the fishery. They didn't know how many red fish were being killed every year. They didn't know how many speckled trout, They didn't have a real good firm control on the amount of bycatch. 00:17:55 Speaker 2: They didn't exactly know where the boats were going all the time. 00:17:58 Speaker 3: You know, they didn't know if you know, redfish for instance, that got trapped in those nets could escape. There was just a lot of information that when you ask biologists and enforcement agents so you know, some specific questions about the fishery, they didn't really have good answers, and we didn't think that was acceptable. You know, we need and and and the same goes true for recreational fishing. You know, you need good data, you need good information in order to be to be able to accurately consistently manage the fishery. And so a lot of what we've been trying to do, you know, like getting that by catch study done, and you know, getting these transparency bills in place and making the data more available to the public. It's all about getting more precise scientific information about the fishery so that we can better manage it. 00:18:49 Speaker 1: Yeah, that's from my mind went when you were talking about why this was important, like just getting more data and more transparency is like if I were to draw parallels from from folks that you know, maybe they don't know as much about commercial fishing or anything. It's like, imagine, imagine if in any whoever's listening, Imagine if your home state someone was like, we need to establish bag limits for white tailed deer and they'd say, okay, well what's our state population? Well we don't know. Well, then how are you going to establish a bag limit? You know, like we need to set we need to we need to set a season framework for uh, for wild turkeys. Well, how many wild turkeys do we have and how many people hunt them? Well, we don't know, Like you have to have that information or you you you you literally cannot make a good decision. You can't make a fact you can't make a fact baked based decision if you don't have that data. And so it's it's hugely important, man. I think these are these are steps in the right direction. And I had one thing that I applauded all of you on that were in that episode, and you you alluded to this earlier. No one from your side or the guides I talked to, no one was ever gunning to take down an industry or gunning down or gunning to take someone's job. The entire aim the entire time was we need to make sure we have some conservation efforts in place to make sure that we have longevity of this resource. That's always been the focus, you know, and that can't get misconstrued. And that's what like, when I see these bills, that's what I see. I'm like, I don't see an industry getting hindered. I see a concession put in place to make sure we're not harming the resource. 00:20:30 Speaker 3: Right, I agree, one hundred percent, And I think that's why the industry didn't really fight that hard against these bills. Now, you know what goes on in social media. It goes on and chatter with you know, when the industry talks to certain lawmakers and things like that. Some of the points that they're trying to make, some of the allies they're trying to make with the shrimp industry or the crabbers and things like that. I can't control those narratives, you know, and we know that some of the things that the industry is telling people are just not true. This is not an effort to cut down on the amount of bait that's available to cravers or crows fishermen. This is not an attack on the shrimp industry. 00:21:05 Speaker 2: It's just not. 00:21:06 Speaker 3: Those things are not true. They're designed to try to beat back some of these conservation measures. But the industry in both the House when we had the House Natural Resources hearings and these bills made it through, and the Senate Natural Resources hearings, they voiced a few minor concerns that the authors of the bill were willing to work with them on, but in general they did not object to this legislation. And you know, I applaud that. I think, you know, as I pointed out when I gave some comments in the Senate Natural Resources hearing a few days ago, I said, you know, this is this has the ability to bring the temperature down, you know, to bring the rhetoric down, to. 00:21:49 Speaker 2: Calm some people down. 00:21:51 Speaker 3: If these bills would have gotten defeated outright because the industry just didn't want legislation going through at all, then you were talking about some seriously heated rhetoric. And it's good that we haven't gotten to that place, because I think the divisiveness and the anger and things like that were already high enough. 00:22:13 Speaker 2: Yeah. 00:22:14 Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I completely agree, man, And this is all this is very encouraging. Like I said, I don't eager to see where it goes like like from here, but just to see it's a step in the right direction. It's a step in the direction of conservation, which is what I'm always on board for. And I know you are as well. 00:22:33 Speaker 3: Yep, sure, am man, And I appreciate you bringing this to the public light, you know, and like you said, you know when we talked last year, really an eye opening experience, and I think, you know, hats off to you and the folks at Meat Eater for making that available because I can tell you even while like fisheries commissioners and legislators, you know, we talked to listen to that podcast and listen to the industry's response, and they got a lot of good information that they just didn't know about beforehand out of. 00:23:02 Speaker 1: That well, you know, like the information came from y'all, not me. We just did our best to get it out there. And that's why, man, I'm doing this up. I'm putting this bonus episode out for two reasons. One, I'm personally interested in it and I think it's a good story. But two folks were so interested and invested in this topic that I promised them at the when we closed that episode that we would keep folks in the loop. 00:23:25 Speaker 2: And so when this. 00:23:25 Speaker 1: Came out, I was like, well, we got we gotta let them know that there is there is an update and and I'm sure there will be more to come in the future. So, man, I can't thank you enough for doing what you're doing. And uh and and always thankful for the TRCP as well. They do y'all do great work over there. 00:23:41 Speaker 2: Thank you very much, man, It's always appreciated. 00:23:44 Speaker 1: Likewise, so some steps in the direction of conservation coming out of South Louisiana which is encouraging to hear, and we hear a Backwoods University will continue to keep you informed as this progresses. I am invested in this issue at this point, and I know a lot of y'all out there are as well. I want to thank all of you for listening to Backwoods University. Sincerely, thank you. It means a whole lot as well as listening to Bear Grease and this country Life. Be sure to tune in next Monday for the next regular episode of Backwoods University. It's going to be a good one. We'll see us soon.