COLUMN: Article on flipper fury seems overblown

I am conducting a Sea Grant funded research project on dolphin interactions with sport fishing in the Central Gulf of Mexico. I would like to respond to some of the points made about “aggressive  dolphins” in a recent article that appeared online at thedestinlog.com.

I am intrigued by the statement: “brazen dolphins that are growing increasingly aggressive in their quest for food, with some taking fish right off the hook  — something that rarely happened just a few years ago.” In truth, fishermen have been complaining about dolphins for decades, and this problem has been discussed in the scientific and fisheries literature for quite some time.

I do not have a particular hypothesis that I am trying to support. My research study is merely descriptive and aimed at collecting data on this issue. My study sites are located in Destin and Orange Beach, Alabama, where I regularly make trips on for-hire and private fishing boats to observe sport fishing on the nearshore and offshore reefs.

In my study, I have not detected an increase of brazen dolphins being increasingly aggressive.

In fact, I generally don’t see dolphins interacting with fishing boats. I started making observations last summer, and so far it appears that interactions with dolphins are actually reduced over the levels reported in past years (based on interviews with captains and mates).
I’ve witnessed only a few times where dolphins took fish off of hooks; mostly they scavenge on discarded fish, although this is still of concern. Granted, I don’t see all the trips that happen every day, and I haven’t been over in Panama City to see if things are different over there.

But I’ve now observed over 34 fishing trips off Destin and Orange Beach, and have seen dolphins near boats on 44 percent of those trips. However, I’ve only witnessed dolphins engaged in interactions on 29 percent of those trips, always associated with taking of discards, but on only 11.8 percent of trips have I also observed depredation, which is taking hooked fish off a line.

In other words, I’ve seen this on just three out of about 30 trips.

On those few occasions, the depredation events were short-lived and involved only a few individual dolphins on each day. On the other hand, I have heard many accounts from anglers in interviews about their experiences with dolphins, and I do not doubt there may be a slightly higher percentage of interactions occurring than what I have seen so far, but it does not appear to be as alarming as presented in your article.

I have not witnessed any retaliatory actions by anglers: in fact most of the time the sport anglers appear to find the presence of dolphins somewhat amusing and oddly enjoyable.

Deckhands and boat captains may have a different opinion, but they’re not the ones doing the fishing or paying for the trips. Things are probably more frustrating for the private angler going out in his own boat: these folks are much harder to observe and to gauge, but they are not represented by the charter boat organizations that commented in the story.

There is, however, a significant problem with dolphins around the Gulf fishing piers.

This time of year, dolphins will spend whole days hanging around the piers, and some will readily take bait and hooked fish off of lines. From my observations, it does not appear to involve all the dolphins around the piers, but rather only a few individuals that are this bold.

There may be 5 to 10 others swimming around just outside of the fishing zone that are merely attracted to and feeding on the huge bait schools that surround these concrete structures.

It’s understandable that pier anglers get very angry and frustrated and may resort to retaliatory measures if they think those will work.

Truth is, nothing effective has yet been developed but we have a few ideas for gear modifications that will be tested this summer.

The data that is reported in the AP news article about the number of dolphins known to have washed up due to fisheries interaction is somewhat misleading.

These 46 stranded animals were mostly found in estuaries like the Indian River lagoon on the east coast, or were animals known from Dr. Wells’ research as permanent residents in Sarasota and Tampa Bay. It’s hard to extrapolate from the coastal and inshore dolphin community what is happening to the dolphins that frequent deeper reefs located 15 to 30 miles offshore. My observations so far are that the offshore dolphins on the reefs are not seen in the inshore regions in our part of the Gulf.

The article also presents a false image that charter boat captains have taken to shooting at dolphins in retaliation for this unwelcome interaction.

There is no doubt that commercial fishermen take retaliatory measures to discourage dolphins around their long lines and set rigs, and they may be responsible for a high level of mortality of dolphins. But in the recreational sector, only three very uninformed and seemingly dumb boat captains were charged in the past 5 years with harassing dolphins; in each case the passengers were the ones that reported them to authorities.

Given that all recreational trips are for the pleasure of the paying guest, it is difficult to imagine a boat captain willing to risk his license or reputation by shooting at a protected species in front of his clients. It’s very unlikely that the for-hire recreational sector poses a severe threat to dolphins from lethal retaliatory measures.

If there is an increased mortality threat to dolphins from interactions with recreational fishing, the greatest concern should be with gear ingestion and entanglement rather than lethal retaliations.

It is not my intention to downplay the issue, but I believe it’s important to use unbiased observer data to present a truthful picture of what really is happening here.

Anglers will easily recall the times they lost a fish to dolphins, but forget about all the other fish they took home and had for dinner.

I might also add that many fishermen (both private and for hire) will say that dolphins are becoming increasingly brazen as one further argument for why fisheries management policies requiring discard of regulated fish need to be changed. Charter captains have presented this dolphin argument using anecdotal stories at Florida FWC and Gulf Fisheries Council meetings and it has been suggested there may be a separate agenda involved than just a genuine concern about the welfare of these animals.

One objective of my research project is to explore techniques that might help solve some of the problems with dolphins interacting with fishermen, such as developing simple devices that discourage them from taking a fish off a hook, and using cages or descender rigs to lower discarded fish back down to the bottom so dolphins can’t scavenge them. I would hope that the captains would also argue for funding to assist development of things like this.

One last note: I do not oppose changing fisheries management policies regarding regulatory discards, and I believe there are valid arguments for why the current policies are ineffective.

I am simply stating that I have not personally observed a severe issue with dolphins interacting with offshore reef sport fishermen, and am as yet unable to support the claims being portrayed in this article as a reason for NMFS to consider such changes.

Since this research project is ongoing, my comments on the findings are preliminary. I plan to have a more complete report on this matter following this summer season.

Steve Shippee is a Dolphin-Fisheries Interaction Researcher who lives in Mary Esther.