Well, He Has a Point

Brenda Davis, fired DNR Official

Stephen Barry at the Capital Gazette, Our fishery management ignores science

Sunday’s letter from state Department of Natural Resources Secretary Jeannie Haddaway-Riccio supposedly was “correcting” state Sen. Gerald Winegrad’s excellent column calling for further restriction on blue crab harvest. What needs to be corrected is the mismanagement of our natural resources by political appointees with zero expertise in fishery management.

While her letter touts how DNR is committed to science-based management for blue crabs and depends on dedicated fisheries managers, she leaves out how she and other political appointees at DNR ride roughshod over the biologists and the science. One example of this usurpation of proper fishery management decisions is how she and her politically appointed aquatic resources assistant secretary oversaw the wrongful firing of Brenda Davis. Ms. Davis was a dedicated professional fishery biologist working in blue crab management.

 

Her offense? Daring to stand up to a group of commercial crabbers in 2017 who were trying to convince her to ease limits on crab harvest. After the watermen met with Governor Hogan to complain, she was fired after serving DNR for 28 years. This unwarranted dumping of such a professional for doing her job caused such outrage that there were legislative hearings where DNR officials refused to answer questions on the basis for her firing.

This fiasco resulted in embarrassingly widespread coverage in all regional press outlets, including The Capital. One of the captions cited by Senator Winegrad was from the Washington Post: MARYLAND OFFICIAL FIRED AFTER WATERMEN MEET WITH GOVERNOR. This outrageous action came on the heels of Governor Hogan criticizing some of DNR’s restrictions on commercial harvests, which he had called a “war on watermen”.

 

This firing affected the morale of fisheries and other staffers at DNR. It still may act as a deterrent for not towing the company line to cater to the needs of commercial harvesters.

Ms. Riccio came out of the House of Delegates and served as Deputy Chief of Staff for Governor Hogan responsible for oversight of departments including DNR at the time of the firing. Her assistant secretary of aquatic resources was appointed after serving in the Trump Administration and, like the secretary, has no expertise in fishery management. They have refused to hire a qualified replacement as director of fisheries for 2 1/2 years.

 

The secretary does not contest the alarming data about blue crab populations. Rather, it is more of the same politicization of fishery management that has led to the collapse of oysters, soft clams, shad, and sturgeon, and problems with crab and rockfish populations. This is what needs correcting.

There's simply no doubt that in Maryland, for the big three fisheries species, crabs, oysters and rockfish, politics drives regulations far more than fisheries science. That's been true under both Democrat, and the rare Republican administration.

 The Wombat has  Rule 5 Sunday: Agent Carter ready and waiting.