When I was a young man, I fished with my father, Joseph Niles, and my father-in-law, Bill Weigle, both great fishermen in an age of great fishing. In the 1960s, it would be nothing to go out and catch a cooler full of fish or a bushel of crabs from the bay or ocean, and the fish caught would provide good seafood for the year. The fish were often large — “Doormat” was my favorite description of flounder, but the same kind of thing could be said for weakfish, bluefish, stripers, tautog, black Bass, red drum and more. Although no one really noticed, horseshoe crabs were also abundant and over a million shorebirds fed on their eggs. The fish and shellfish populations were like a perpetual-motion machine driven by one of the most productive estuaries in the country. 
My Father with a handful of walleye and pike.
Much has changed. Just as corporations have gobbled up the wealth of the land, they now do the same in the sea. Industrial fisheries depend not so much on well-managed fisheries as a quick ride for maximum profits. Out of sight businessmen discuss the value of using up one species then switching to another, and their profits are soaring. For example, while the landings on the Cape May docks have stayed relatively stable in the last 10 years, the harvested species have changed and the income has nearly doubled. Maximizing profits for the industry doesn’t necessarily help fishermen — there are not many wealthy fishermen. It is not good for us either. Most seafood is now “product”, and you can’t actually catch it for free anymore. Try catching a bushel of crabs; if you catch anything the crabs are barely legal size. Cooler loads of any fish are illegal.
. . . . . . . . And these are the species that people care about! For the rest, it is either economic extinction or extinction outright. Horseshoe crabs are the poster child for this winner-take-all system of management, but this year both
Atlantic sturgeon and river herring are being considered for federal listing. I have written many times about the impact of horseshoe crab overharvest on shorebirds. The red knot, a shorebird highly dependent on the Delaware Bay as a pre-Arctic stopover, will also be proposed for federal listing this year. The Delaware Bay ecosystem is in shambles.
This why our new work in San Francisco Bay is so important. My son Joseph fishes the San Francisco Bay from his 23-foot Osprey powerboat. His fishing trips are glamorous affairs, what with Alcatraz, the Golden Gate Bridge and the San Francisco skyline in full view all at once. His trips are also productive, in both size and quantity of salmon, haddock, dungeoness crabs and more. When we go out fishing, Joe and I are reminded of his grandfathers.
My son Joe Niles with a salmon caught in San Francisco Bay
So why the difference between the two bays, and is the Delaware Bay doomed to an eternity of degraded fish and wildlife? The first answer is complex, but it’s enough to say it is about choice and power. The people of the each bay have made their choice — San Francisco Bay residents have demanded their public agencies and politicians create good management of the bay’s resources; residents of the Delaware Bay have chosen a system that rewards corporate interests above all else. Good for the industry in Cape May, not so good for the citizens of New Jersey, Delaware and Pennsylvania.
The answer to the second question is an emphatic “no”. The Delaware Bay’s condition can change nearly the day after residents decide to change it. The Delaware Bay is a highly productive estuary that spawns or supports most of the Mid-Atlantic fishery and many fish that define the entire bay watershed like sturgeon, shad and river herring. With care and public will, the bay could easily be turned around. Unfortunately, the care part is more easily achieved than the will.
It’s the lack of will that allows corporate interests, and the politicians that serve them, to rake in profit at the expense of the long-term prospects of fish and wildlife. The lack of will is a great mystery to the bay’s conservationists. For example, good science underpins good management, and sportsmen have been supporting good science with license fees and stamps since the Great Depression. So why did sport fishermen intentionally defeat a salt-water license in New Jersey — the only state on the entire east coast that has no license? The only “people” that gained from this were corporations that rely on the lack of good scientific data to continue destructive overharvests. Why would Fishermen lack the will to improve the dismal state of NJ fisheries on which their sport depends?
It’s the question of will that is the focus of a new project started by Manomet Center for Conservation Sciences. My shorebird biologist colleague, Charles Duncan, has organized a team including Enviromedia / Green Canary to investigate the will of the people of the Delaware Bay area for conservation. The first goal is to discover attitudes toward conservation from all the different user groups, sportsmen, fishermen, birders and, yes, businessmen. The second goal is to create a new social marketing campaign to lift peoples’ opinions of the bay. Biologists and conservationists recognize its value, why not the people who live here?
Perhaps if people recognize the true value of the Delaware Bay it could be as productive as it once was, but only when the people of the bay decide enough is enough and require more.
