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December 17, 2007
National fisheries director William Hogarth is leaving his post
By SUSAN WEST  Outgoing national fisheries agency director William Hogarth says he worries about the future of small commercial fisheries in places like North Carolina. “With the cost of fuel and the smaller quotas, it is really tough to make a living,” Hogarth said in a telephone press conference on Dec.13. “Fishermen face sort of a bleak future unless we find ways to rationalize the fishery,” he continued, noting that fisheries in North Carolina are experiencing trends similar to those in the Gulf of Mexico where shrimping effort has declined 80 percent. Higher fuel costs, lower harvest limits, and increased marketplace competition from cheaper, imported seafood are driving U.S. fishermen and processors out of business. Hogarth said rationalization, sometimes called market-based management, will have short-term social and economic impacts on fishing communities, but offers the best path to long-term viable and sustainable commercial fisheries in the U.S. Market-based management, in the form of limited access privilege programs or individual fishing quotas, manages fisheries on the basis of economic efficiency, allocating a percentage of the total harvest limit to some individual fishermen or companies. Hogarth, who leaves the position of director of the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) at the end of this month, said lower harvest limits are coming under what he called “strict requirements” to end overfishing and to rebuild fish stocks set in the Magnuson-Stevens Conservation and Management Reauthorization Act approved by Congress last year. The reauthorization act retained a 10-year deadline for rebuilding stocks to healthy, sustainable levels. Hogarth said NMFS had advised Congress that fisheries regulators need the option of extending the deadline for some species as long as the stocks are rebuilding and moving towards biological targets identified in management plans. “It’s no secret that the agency and the administration would like more flexibility in rebuilding,” he said. Legislation introduced by U.S. Rep. Walter B. Jones, R-N.C., in November would allow fisheries managers to extend the 10-year rebuilding deadline in some situations in order to minimize social and economic disruptions to commercial and recreational fishing communities. Congressmen Barney Frank, D-Mass., Tim Bishop, D-N.Y., Mike McIntyre, D-N.C., Jo Bonner, R-Ala., and Peter King, R-N.Y., have signed on as co-sponsors to Jones’ legislation, the Flexibility in Rebuilding American Fisheries Act (HR 4087). In January, Hogarth will become the interim director for the College of Marine Science at the University of South Florida. He has served as NMFS director since 2001. He joined NMFS in 1994 after serving as director of the North Carolina Division of Marine Fisheries. 
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