BLACK SEA BASS MANAGEMENT: WHY BOTHER TO COMMENT?

 

On April 3^rd, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the parent agency of the National Marine Fisheries Service, published a notice in the Federal Register announcing 2025 recreational management measures for the northern stock of black sea bass.

The notice notes that

“The [Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management] Council and the [Atlantic States Marine Fisheries] Commission’s Summer Flounder, Scup, and Black Sea Bass Management Board (Board) meet jointly each year to recommend recreational management measures for all three species, generally set for two years, so that recreational harvest achieves, but does not exceed, the recreational harvest targets specified by the Percent Change Approach adopted in the Harvest Control Rule Framework…Black sea bass recreational management measures were previously only set for 2024 due to a delayed stock assessment.  This action proposes the recreational management measures for only black sea bass and for only the 2025 fishing year.

“…The Council and Board recommend status quo recreational black sea bass measures for 2025, including the continued use of conservation equivalency, with regional measures expected to achieve, but not exceed, the harvest target.  A status quo approach for 2025 complies with Framework 17 [the Percent Change Approach] given that the 2025 catch and landings limit were not set “in response to updated stock assessment information” and instead were left unchanged…According to the most recent stock assessment, the biomass of black sea bass remains well above the target and overfishing is not occurring.  Black sea bass measures are being set for only one year as an updated management track assessment is expected to be available later this year and will be used to inform specifications and recreational measures for 2026 and beyond.  Therefore, the Council and Board recommended that recreational measures remain unchanged in 2025.  [citations omitted]”

While those paragraphs pretty well outline what NMFS, and more particularly NMFS’ Greater Atlantic Regional Fisheries Office, plans to do, it leaves much unsaid and, when all the facts are considered, seems almost intended to conceal relevant facts, rather than to reveal them.  

While the first paragraph was fairly straightforward, the second was, in many ways, not at all forthcoming.

Take, for example, the statement that “A status quo approach for 2025 complies with Framework 17 given that the 2025 catch and landings limit were not set “in response to updated stock assessment information.”

That statement is objectively true, but…

Why wasn’t the 2025 catch and landings limit not set “in response to updated stock assessment information”?

It wasn’t because either the Council of NMFS lacked a stock assessment to respond to.  In fact, they had two stock assessments available.  One was a so-called research track stock assessment, which employed a new population model that could better incorporate some of the more challenging characteristics of the black sea bass stock.  The other was a management track stock assessment, based on the methodology used in the research-track assessment.  

After reviewing the management-track assessment, a peer-review panel wrote

“The Panel concluded that the [Terms of Reference] had been met and the assessment is sufficient for providing catch advice.  This assessment is the first to implement the many changes in the recently completed Research Track.  Changes include the use of a single model that allows for migration between northern and southern areas, estimation of fleet specific fishing mortality in both areas, and use of an integrated measure for relative abundance from the VAST model.  The new projection methodology I [the Woods Hole Assessment Model used in the assessment]…is thought to provide a more valid characterization of future uncertainty…” 

The peer-review panel also explicitly stated that

“The assessment represents Best Scientific Information Available (BSIA) for this stock for management purposes.”

So the Council and Management Board were given a bright, shiny new tool to use to manage black sea bass.  According to the peer-review panel, that tool could do things that the tools used before just couldn’t do, and it also constituted the best scientific information available, which was a very important consideration, because National Standard 2, a critical part of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, requires that

“Conservation and management measures shall be based upon the best scientific information available.”

The only thing is, neither the Council nor NMFS nor the regional office nor the Management Board wanted to use it. 

Despite the peer-review panel’s favorable review, despite the likelihood that the new assessment was more accurate than those that went before, due to how it addressed severable variables, and despite the fact that the new management track assessment represented the best available scientific information,the Management Board and the Council and NMFS chose to ignore it, and instead rely on an older assessment that gave rise to the existing regulations.

Why would they do that?

Apparently, because the new stock assessment would have required a reduction in black sea bass landings.  (Although it probably should be noted that, in issuing the 2025 management measures, NMFS and the Greater Atlantic regional office didn’t completely ignore the latest stock assessment; they were more than willing and happy to note that “According to the most recent stock assessment, the biomass of black sea bass remains well above the target and overfishing is not occurring,” which was true.  NMFS and the regional office only chose to ignore those parts of the new assessment that didn’t support their preferred narrative, that previous harvest levels should remain unchanged.)

Yes, there were various state managers who did not understand why the new assessment projected a decline in recruitment, when recruitment had been consistently robust in recent years.  That issue certainly merits investigation.

But what no one—no one at all—questioned was the new assessment’s calculation of the target biomass—that is, the biomass needed to support maximum sustainable yield—was about 11,225 metric tons, roughly 20 percent smaller than the 14,092 metric ton biomass calculated by the older assessment.

Nor did they question the new assessment’s conclusion that the maximum sustainable yield for the black sea bass stock—the level of landings that the stock could produce over an extended period—was just 3,649 metric tons, nearly 24 percent below the 4,773 metric tons previously calculated.

No one appeared to doubt that the black sea bass stock was less productive than previously believed.

But they just chose to ignore the fact, because black sea bass remained abundant, and many state managers just seemed afraid of the public reaction if they followed the scientific advice and reduced the acceptable biological catch, and thus the various catch limits, by 20 percent.  That fear was conveyed in the ASMFC’s summary of an August management meeting, which noted that

“With biomass currently more than double the target level and overfishing not occurring, it is challenging to communicate the conservation need for a 20% reduction in the [acceptable biological catch]”

And thus they didn’t even try.

After all, why try to engage in a challenging conversation, just because the best scientific information available strongly suggests that it’s the right thing to do?  

Instead, various state fisheries managers fretted about upsetting stakeholders, asking “how do we go back to stakeholders” with news of a landings reduction, worried that they were “at great risk of alienating our many stakeholders,” and declaring, despite the findings of the most recent stock assessment, that “this one [landings reduction] doesn’t make any sense.  The tone, if not the precise language, were reminiscent of parents worried about how to tell their spoiled child that he could not have any ice cream for breakfast.

The Management Board led the charge to ignore the scientific advice.  They can do that sort of thing, and have done it before, because the ASMFC has absolutely no legal obligations when managing fish stocks.  It can allow overfishing to continue unabated, it can allow overfished stocks to languish, and it can ignore the most compelling scientific information, and have no accountability at all.  Thus, when a motion was made to keep the 2024 black sea bass management measures in place throughout 2025 was made and seconded, it passed with few dissenting votes.

The Council dutifully made the 20 percent cuts, as Magnuson-Stevens required, but NMFS Greater Atlantic regional office would soon willingly undercut that statute with some active bootstrapping and some creative interpretations of the law.

NMFS and the regional office cited a regulation that reads,

“If the total catch, allowable landings, commercial quotas, and/or RHL measures adopted by the ASMFC Summer Flounder, Scup, and Black Sea Bass Management Board and the [Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council] differ for a given fishing year, administrative action will be taken as soon as possible to revisit the respective recommendations of the two groups.  The intent of the action shall be to achieve alignment through consistent state and Federal measures such that no differential effects occur to Federal permit holders,”

to justify the decision to violate National Standard 2 and ignore the best scientific information available, and instead conform its decision to that of the Management Board, and argued that the regulation

“require the Regional Administrator to take administrative action to align measures to prevent differential effects on Federal permit holders.”

But that is an apparent overstatement of what the regulation requires, as various sources define “revisit” as

“to consider or take up again” (Merriam-Webster),

“to talk or think about something again, with the intention of improving it or changing it” (Cambridge Dictionary),

or

“to return to an idea or a subject and discuss it again” (Oxford Learner’s Dictionaries).

The one common theme in all of those definitions of the verb “revisit” is that they all embrace the concept of returning to a topic, and reconsidering it, perhaps with the hope of improving or changing a preexisting condition, but none of those definitions suggest in any way that “revisiting” a previous decision or action requires that, after due consideration, any changes must be made.

Thus, NMFS’ and the regional office’s suggestion that the agency was required to conform its regulations to the Management Board action, and in so doing violate a very clearly stated provision of Magnuson-Stevens, is on as shaky factual ground as are a number of their other statements regarding black sea bass management.  

Similarly, NMFS’ and the regional office have taken the position that language in Magnuson-Stevens which requires “Each Council” to set annual catch limits no higher than the level recommended by that Council’s Scientific and Statistical Committee only binds the regional fishery management councils, and does not prevent NMFS from ignoring the Committee’s advice and setting an acceptable biological catch higher than the SSC recommendation (in the case of black sea bass, the Council’s SSC recommended setting the ABC 20 percent below what it had been in 2024, but NMFS and the regional office ignored that advice and maintained the ABC at its 2024 level, apparently believing that, while the Council cannot ignore the best scientific information available, the agency and its regional office may do so with impunity).

The end result is that the 2025 acceptable biological catch, annual catch limit, and related specifications (e.g., sector annual catch limits, commercial quota, recreational harvest limit, etc.) are all substantially higher than they should be, and higher than they would be had the advice in the latest stock assessment been followed.

Which leads us back to the initial question:  Why bother to comment on proposed management measures that NMFS and the regional office seem Hell-bent on adopting, regardless of what anyone else might believe?

Although I hate to say this, because I am a firm believer in participating in the management process and making everyone’s views known, in the case of black sea bass, I believe that there is no point in commenting at all.  Fisheries managers in most states, at the ASMFC, and at NMFS and the regional office seem determined to maximize landings, regardless of whether that is consistent with the best scientific advice.

Why?

I can only speculate that, at this point, fisheries managers have been so beat up by the constant whining and complaints, and just plain frequent bullying from representatives of the for-hire fleet and others in the recreational fishing industry that they’ve developed a sort of Stockholm syndrome with respect to the black sea bass fishery.

“Stockholm syndrome,” you may recall, is a term used to describe a seemingly irrational affinity that captives sometimes feel for their captors.  It got its name from a 1973 incident in which a former convict took four persons hostage in an effort to use them as leverage to free a friend from prison, and held them captive in a bank vault for six days.  After their release, none of the hoastages would testify against their former captors, and instead raised money to aid in their captors’ defense.  The former hostages apparently felt that law enforcement took irrational actions that threatened the hostages’ well-being, while the captors, who ultimately chose to release the hostages, acted more rationally, and so earned the hostages support.

It's not hard to draw an analogy between the hostages and fisheries managers who, beset at meetings by hordes of fishing boat crew and other persons, when even the completely sober folks in the crowd (which description, unfortunately, does not apply to everyone who attends such events) jeered and catcalled and insulted the professional managers, who were forced to support regulatory actions that were mandated by Magnuson-Stevens, but did not seem completely necessary given the temporary abundance of the black sea bass resource.  

Under such circumstances, it might not be surprising that the mangers became willing to ignore the science and the law, and to side with their critics in the hope that the chronic complaints and criticism might be, if not ended completely, at least be substantially reduced.

Regardless of the reason, it is just about certain that NMFS is intent on maintaining status quo regulations in 2025, regardless of what comments the public might make, and that making any comments at all would be a waste of time. 

Accepting that, the question becomes:  Can we believe NMFS when it says that “an updated management track assessment is expected to be available later this year and will be used to inform specifications and recreational measures for 2026 and beyond”?

I wish I could believe that, but given the experience of the 2025 assessment, I have serious doubts.

After all, in December 2023, the Summer Flounder, Scup, and Black Sea Bass Monitoring Committee advised the Council and Management Board against implementing the 10 percent reduction in recreational black sea bass landings supposedly mandated by the Percent Change Approach, because  that approach was designed to work with an updated stock assessment, and the planned 2023 management track assessment was never completed.  Instead, the Monitoring Committee recommended that status quo regulations be maintained, until the 2024 stock assessment provided a better idea of the stock’s status.

But when the 2024 stock assessment was completed, and seemed to require a 20 percent reduction in landings, a number of Monitoring Committee members recommended status quo once again, because they were unwilling to accept the assessment results.

So what does that bode for the 2025 management track assessment, once it is released?

If the results of the 2025 assessment rebut those of the 2024, there is little doubt that managers will take the new and better news as gospel, and after more than  a few “I told you so”s, will happily go about their business of maintaining high black sea bass landings.  And that scenario is certainly possible.

But it’s also possible that the 2025 assessment will tell a very different story.  After all, at least where I fish off Long Island (and from what people have told me, both north and south of Long Island as well), black sea bass numbers seemed to be down in 2024.  When we passed over a wreck, we no longer saw the towering schools of black sea bass rising from the ocean floor to 30 or more feet above the bottom, and most of the fish that we caught were disappointingly small, a continuation of the steadily shrinking size of the fish that we’re catching over the past decade or so.

Black sea bass benefit from a warm ocean, with the size of each year class determined not by the initial success of the spawn, but by the water temperature at the edge of the continental shelf, where young-of-the-year fish spend their first winter.  Warm, saline water tends to produce big year classes, while colder water reduces the young fish’s survival.

Last year, we observed water temperatures that were far lower than we normally see.  I had surface temperatures south of Fire Island in July that were six to eight degrees Fahrenheit cooler than what I typically see, and divers noted that bottom temperatures off Long Island were unusually cold this year.  I don’t know when the warm water started or when it ended, but it’s not at all impossible that black sea bass spawned in 2023 and/or in 2024 could have felt its effects.  If that happened, the worst case might be that we’re looking at a stock that has seen high fishing mortality removing most of the older, larger individuals, while cold water resulted in a smaller number of young fish recruiting into the population.

If the 2025 stock assessment reflects such a worst-case scenario, and shows a decline in the black sea bass population, will managers be willing to make the necessary cuts in recreational landings, which may at that point be well over 20 percent?

Or, assuming that the worst-case scenario doesn’t happen, and the 2025 stock assessment merely confirms the results of the 2024, and demonstrates that a 20 percent reduction really is needed, will managers finally concede and do what needs to be done?

I can’t confidently answer either of those questions in the affirmative.  

Black sea bass management no longer seems to have firm roots, whether those roots might take the form of a stock assessment or even just of a management plan.  Ever since 2019, black sea bass managers have, in every year but one, sought ways to avoid making the landings reductions called for by the standards and methodologies spelled out in their management plans.  Managers seem wedded to the status quo, regardless of what the data, the science, or the management plan might suggest.

I’ve already decided that they have no intention of considering public viewpoints that might differ from their own.

And I have a gnawing fear that they might not consider the findings of the 2025 assessment, either, if those findings contradict the status quo.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

STRIPED BASS ADDENDUM III CONTINUING TO TAKE SHAPE

 

This morning, the Plan Development Team charged with drafting the proposed Addendum III to Amendment 7 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan met for over three and a half hours, and made some important decisions on what the initial draft addendum will look like.

To get the big question out of the way first, if we keep regulations just the way that they are, and don’t touch the commercial quota, the stock may not fully rebuild by 2029, although it will probably come close. 

If the fishing mortality rate for the years 2026-2029 averages out at 0.122, the rate needed to provide a 50% chance that the stock is fully rebuilt, that’s exactly what we end up with—a 50% chance of rebuilding.

On the other hand, if the fishing mortality rate for those years averages out just a hair higher, to 0.123, the actual fishing mortality rate for 2024, it is slightly more likely than not that the stock won’t fully rebuild, with only a 48.7% chance of rebuilding (that calculation assumes a “normal distribution” of statistical values, while another calculation using a “skewed distribution” only finds a 43.6% likelihood of rebuilding; given that my degrees are in History, English, and Law, and that I avoided any class resembling math after freshman year Calculus, I have no idea what the technical differences between the two distributions are, and so can’t explain them to you, although the words “normal” and “skewed” seem to tell at least a small part of the story).

The Striped Bass Technical Committee recommended that the Plan Development Team use the assumption that the fishing mortality rate for 2026-2029 will be 0.123 when drafting Addendum III, so at least on paper, spawning stock biomass will probably fall a little short of its target by the end of 2029.  

I know a lot of folks won’t be happy with that—I know that I’m not particularly pleased—but the truth is that it’s impossible to craft meaningful management measures that will cut landings by just 1.3%--the data just isn’t that precise, and a 1% change would be lost in the statistical noise.

In fact, the Technical Committee said that any reduction of less than 10% would be “statistically indistinguishable from the status quo.” And that turned out to be an important statement, which I’ll discuss in a while.

But first, I need to point out that, in developing Addendum III, the Management Board doesn’t have to stick with its usual 50% probability of successful rebuilding.  At the last Management Board meeting, Chris Batsavage, a North Carolina fishery manager, asked that the Technical Committee also come up with management measures that have a 60% chance of fully rebuilding the stock by the end of 2029.  Using the same set of assumptions that led to the conclusion that the stock would not quite rebuild if no management measures were changed, the Technical Committee found that removals would have to be reduced by 7% to have a 60% probability of rebuilding by 2029.

The Plan Development Team will be including management options that will achieve that 7% reduction in its first draft of Addendum III.

But…  Remember the Technical Committee comment that anything less than a 10% reduction will be “indistinguishable from the status quo?”

The Plan Development Team will also develop management options that will reduce removals by 10%, and have a greater than 60% probability of rebuilding by the end of 2029.  Because the Management Board didn’t ask the PDT to do so, the 10% reductions won’t be included in the initial draft of Addendum III, but will instead be presented to the Management Board in a separate memorandum.  That way, if the Management Board wants to consider a 10% reduction, it only needs to instruct the Plan Development Team to include the already-prepared 10% options into the draft addendum when the Board meets again in May.

We don’t know what measures to reduce removals by 10% might look like, but this morning’s meeting provided some clues about what those attaining a 7% reduction might be.

The first question is who would have to take the reductions. 

For many years, the Management Board imposed seemingly symmetrical reductions on both the recreational and commercial sectors, which required the same percentage reductions of both.  In reality, the reduction’s weren’t symmetrical, as the recreational cuts were from actual landings, while the commercial cuts were from quota, and since commercial landings often fell far below state quotas, the cuts to cuts landings were far less; sometimes, a state's commercial landings were  not cut at all.

That all changed with Addendum II to Amendment 7 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass, which called for anglers to cut their landings by 14%, but only required a 7% cut in commercial quotas, a reduction so small that Maryland commercial fishermen could have actually increased their landings in 2024, because they were so far below quota the year before.

The initial draft of Addendum III will carry on that tradition, and offer three options:  Reducing both commercial quota and recreational removals by 7%, reducing recreational removals by 8% while leaving the commercial quota unchanged, and a third, bizarre option, which has appeared in previous draft management documents, that would multiply the necessary 7% commercial reduction by the commercial sector’s 11% share of overall fishing mortality, and so only cut the commercial quota by 0.8% while reducing recreational removals by 8%.

Although the Management Board still needs to decide, it’s probably a good bet that all three options will appear in the draft amendment that is finally released for public comment.

The next question is how any reductions will be achieved.

Commercial reductions are fairly straightforward, with the quota cut by the agreed-upon amount.  But when it comes to cutting recreational removals, things get complicated.

Given that anglers can already retain no more than one fish, the bag limit can’t go any lower, and certainly won't increase in Addendum III, so size limits and seasons will become the only available management tools.

In the ocean fishery, where the Management Board has already agreed not to consider the harvest of fish less than 28 inches long, or slot limits narrower than three inches, the size limit, too, is unlikely to change, as none of those considered would achieve even a 7% reduction in removals.  

That’s because the current spawning stock biomass is skewed heavily toward larger fish, with the 2018 year class, which will fill the slot this year, the last of the larger year classes; every subsequent year class has been far below average.  So the 36-inch minimum size that served so well a generation ago, and is supported by many anglers today, would actually increase removals by 10%.  

Of the five alternative size limits considered for the ocean fishery, only two would decrease 2026 removals.  A slot limiting harvest to 31- to 35-inch fish would lead to a trivial 1% reduction, while a 40-inch minimum size would reduce recreational removals by 5%; neither would achieve the minimum 7% reduction needed for a 60% probability of success.  While it’s possible that Addendum III might couple a new size limit with a season, the fact that the Management Board has decided that no closed season may be shorter than two weeks makes it likely that the 28- to 31-inch slot will remain in place, and seasons will be the only tool used to reduce ocean landings—although that’s only my opinion, and not the PDT’s.

The picture in the Chesapeake Bay is a little different.  There, changes to the size limit can achieve a 7% reduction.  Moving the bottom end of the slot up an inch, to 20 to 24 inches, would cut recreational removals by 8%, while taking two inches off the top end of the slot, resulting in a 19- to 22-inch size limit, would almost double that, and reduce recreational removals by 15%.  Adopting the 19- to 22-inch slot for private boat and shore-based anglers, while leaving the current 19- to 24-inch slot in place for those fishing from for-hire vessels, would yield a slightly smaller, 14% cut.  The only minimum-size option, 22 inches, would reduce recreational removals by 10%.  

Any one of those choices could allow the current seasons to remain unchanged.

As far as possible seasons go, none have yet been calculated, although they will be soon.  However, two related issues were discussed at today’s meeting.

One was whether the seasons will be of the traditional no-harvest sort, or whether they will also ban targeting striped bass.  While I suspect options for both will be included in the draft addendum, anyone calculating no-target options must consider whether people who would have fished for striped bass will merely stop fishing during any closure, or whether they will switch to other species, but might accidentally catch bass during that time (a third scenario, that people will keep fishing for bass, but say that they’re fishing for something else, was never explicitly discussed, although I have to believe that at least some people are thinking about it).

The other issue is whether, when establishing seasons, Addendum III ought to break the coast down into two or three regions, and what states such regions should include.  The ASMFC’s Law Enforcement Committee supported a two-region breakdown, with one region running from Maine to Massachusetts and the other from Rhode Island to North Carolina, as they felt it important to keep all of the states active in the Block Island fishery in a single region.  

However, the ocean fishery in the southern states can be very different from that on the rest of the coast, militating in favor of a three-region approach.  Should such an approach be adopted, the Law Enforcement Committee supported regions consisting of Maine through Massachusetts, Rhode Island through Delaware, and Maryland through North Carolina, for ease of enforcement in the Delaware Bay.

The Plan Development Team will also calculate how seasonal closures will impact the individual states in each region, to determine whether any one state shoulders a disproportionate share of the conservation burden.  While such action may seem reasonable on its face, it carries the risk that a state--say, perhaps, New Jersey--will try to use such calculations reintroduce conservation equivalency into the management process, and use it to wiggle out of the region-wide rules, so undercutting the rebuilding process.  Although Amendment 7 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass explicitly prohibits the use of conservation equivalency when the stock is overfished, the Management Board has the power to end that prohibition in Addendum III.  We can only hope that such power is never used.

Specific season-related proposals will be developed at future Plan Development Team meetings, and will be discussed in a future edition of One Angler’s Voyage.

Beyond that, the only topics discussed at today’s meeting were mode splits—providing special, more lenient harvest privileges for anglers fishing from for-hire vessels, which would not be shared by the shore-based and private boat anglers, who account for 98% of all directed striped bass trips—commercial tagging procedures, and creating a uniform way to measure striped bass.

Although I believe the first issue is the most important of the three, I can’t write much about it because my internet provider chose that point in the meeting to shut down, and couldn't be restored until the discussion was over.

The commercial tagging issue revolved around the question of whether commercially caught bass should be tagged as soon as they’re caught, or in any case, before being taken off the fisherman's boat, or whether it’s acceptable for them to be tagged at the point when they’re purchased from the fisherman.  

The Law Enforcement Committee generally preferred the former option, which is already in force in all states but Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and North Carolina, believing that tagging upon capture reducing highgrading (the practice of throwing back a smaller fish, that is often dead, and replacing it with a larger, more valuable individual) and increases fishermen’s accountability, although a small minority preferred tagging at the point of first sale, saying that it reduced the administrative burden associated with sending tags to all eligible fishermen, and made it less likely that a fisherman will pass tags to someone else to conceal a black market sale.

The measurement issue arose because some states don’t specify how a striped bass should be measured, which results in the slot size limit being applied inconsistently.  A Massachusetts representative suggested language that read

“Total length means the greatest straight line length in inches as measured on a fish with its mouth closed from the anterior most tip of the jaw or snout to the farthest extremity of the tail with the upper and lower fork of the tail squeezed together.”

It seemed a simple suggestion, but led to discussions about whether a fish should be measured flat, as it would lie on a measuring board, or along the curve of its body, as anglers often measure fish with a flexible tape.  There weere also discussions of whether the rack of a filleted fish would, if measured, be the same length as the fish was when whole.

No decisions were made on either of the last two issues, but significant progress was nonetheless made.  And this morning’s meeting was only the first of four that will lead to in the initial draft of Amendment III.

Before I close, I want to make one more point.

Often, I hear fishermen—whether recreational, commercial, or for-hire—attack proposed management measures with comments like “The data’s no good,” or “It’s MRIP [the Marine Recreational Information Program, used to estimate recreational catch, effort, and landings], and I just don’t believe it,” without really understanding what folks on the Technical Committee and Plan Development Team do to assure that the data used really does represent the best scientific information available.

This morning, there were two examples of what appeared to be “outliers” in the data, data points that deviated significantly from all of the others.  One was a seemingly anomalous spike in the number of 19-inch fish caught in 2019; the other was a similar spike in the number of live releases during March and April in Rhode Island in 2021. 

In both cases, the Plan Development Team addressed the outliers in great detail, using Technical Committee advice and other analysis to resolve the seeming incongruities.  As I noted at the beginning of this essay, I am not a statistician, and have no desire to become one.  However, to my layman's eyes, the analysis and the outcomes reached this morning appeared both comprehensive and logical, and I could only come away with the belief that the PDT was doing its best to assure that the data is relies on truly reflects reality.

And on that note, I will end.

The Plan Development Team will meet three more times before it prepares the first draft of Addendum III, on April 4, 9, and 10.  I hope to sit in on all of those meetings, and let you know what went on.  Right now, the draft addendum seems to be progressing fairly well, but it remains important for all concerned anglers to monitor the document’s progress, and do their best to assure that the process remains on track, and doesn’t get hijacked by one interest group or another.

Because, if history is any guide, someone will certainly try.

SALMON AQUACULTURE DEBATE CONTINUES TO ROIL PACIFIC WATERS

 

When the State of Washington outlawed net pen aquaculture of non-native species in 2018, the decision seemed to foreshadow the end of net pen salmon aquaculture on the Pacific coast of the United States.

At the time, no open water salmon aquaculture facilities existed in Oregon, California, or Alaska.  In Washington, fish farms still produced coho salmon and sea-going rainbow trout, the latter also known as “steelhead,” but sentiment against the net pens was growing.  And in 2022, the state decided not to renew the aquaculture leases of Cooke Aquaculture, one of the largest net pen operators (Cooke was also responsible for negligently releasing 263,000 Atlantic salmon into Washington waters in 2017, after one of its net pens collapsed), with the Washington State Department of Natural Resources noting that it

“determined that allowing Cooke to continue operations posed risks of environmental harm to state-owned aquatic lands resulting from lack of adherence to lease provisions and increased costs to DNR associated with contract compliance, monitoring, and enforcement.”

Hilary Franz, Washington’s Commissioner of Public Lands, said that

“Since the catastrophic Cypress Island net pen collapse in 2017, I have stood tall to defend the waters of Puget Sound.

“This effort began by terminating finfish net pen operations due to lease violations.  Despite years of litigation—and a company that has fought us every inch of the way—we are now able to deny lease renewals for the remaining net pen sites.  Today, we are returning our waters to wild fish and natural habitat.  Today, we are freeing Puget Sound of enclosed cages.”

On January 7, Washington took even more definitive action, as its Board of Natural Resources adopted final regulations banning commercial net pen aquaculture in state waters.

The regulations were widely supported, with over 80 percent of the comments received by the Board in favor of the prohibition.  The Wild Fish Conservancy, a Washington-based nonprofit founded over 35 years ago to support conservative, science-based management of Pacific Coast fishery resources and the habitats that support them, issued a press release celebrating the new rules, which said, in part, that

“…On Tuesday, Washington State made history, becoming the first—and only—place in the world to successfully remove and permanently ban commercial net pen aquaculture.

“…This decision ensures that this dangerous industry will never return to threaten Puget Sound’s ecosystems, safeguarding the health of Washington’s public waters for generations to come.

“’This is a landmark moment for environmental protection,’ said Emma Helverson, Executive Director of Wild Fish Conservancy.  ‘Thanks to the commitment of the public and the leadership of Tribal Nations, we have achieved something extraordinary.  This victory is not just for Puget Sound—it’s for every community, every species, and every ecosystem that has been impacted by the harmful practice of commercial net pens.’

“…These actions resulted in the complete removal of commercial net pens in Washington, making 2024 the first year in four decades that Puget Sound was free from daily pollution and the devastating impacts that net pens cause…

“Washington’s success will also serve as a powerful model providing important momentum for the global movement to eliminate open water net pens, an industry that poses a threat to marine ecosystems everywhere in the world that they exist.  Similar efforts to protect public waters and ecosystems from this industry are already underway in countries such as British Columbia, Chile, Scotland, Norway, Finland, and Tasmania…”

While that all sounds good, there were also people who were very unhappy about Washington’s actions, most or all of whom were positioned to profit from continued open-water net pen aquaculture.

An editorial in the media outlet Fishfarmingexpert.com declared that

“Washington State’s fish farm ban ‘is out of step with America,”

and went on to note that a

“Lobbyist points to growing bipartisan support for sector in Congress,”

undoubtedly the same sort of support that often occurs when just the right mix of lobbyists, congressmen, and campaign contributions is achieved.  The article went on to quote Drue Banta Williams, identified as the “campaign manager” for a group that calls itself Stronger America Through Seafood, who complained that

“This decision in Washington State is out of step with the growing bipartisan momentum for open ocean aquaculture across the country and in the nation’s capital, as Americans and environmentalists recognize that open ocean aquaculture can be conducted without harming the environment, is beneficial for our communities, and is a sustainable source of protein farmed here at home…

“Aquaculture is increasingly recognized by those on both sides of the aisle (in Congress) as a critical industry to boost our nation’s economy and ensure a steady supply of healthy, sustainable, American-raised protein.  The US should be making every effort to expand aquaculture in the US, and today’s decision in Washington State is a step in the wrong direction,”

which is probably what any lobbyist for the aquaculture industry would be expected to say.

Another group, the Northwest Aquaculture Alliance, which claims to be

“Championing the Growth of Responsible aquaculture in the Pacific Region, [sic]”

made similar comments, with the organization’s president, Jim Parsons, alleging that

“This ban was not based on the best available science, but rather on political maneuvering.

“DNR ignored hundreds of pages of scientific documentation that demonstrated that responsibly managed net pen aquaculture can coexist with Washington’s marine ecosystems.”

The catch, of course, appears in the phrase “responsibly managed;” Washington’s initial decision to end net pen aquaculture of non-native species was based on the collapse of what it viewed as negligently maintained net pens, and its decision not to renew Cooke Aquaculture’s leases was supposedly based on Cooke’s “lease violations.”  Some might thus consider it reasonable for Washington to believe that “responsibly maintained” net pens were more of an aspiration than anything that might exist in the real world.

Nonetheless, the Northwest Aquaculture Alliance brought a legal challenge to Washington’s new regulations, claiming that the rulemaking process used to adopt them was

“predetermined and inadequate,”

that the Washington Department of Natural Resources

“does not have unfettered authority to regulate aquaculture,”

and that

“As the demand for seafood continues to rise and wild fisheries are unable to meet that demand, net pen aquaculture is a crucial component of the vision shared by the Alliance and its members.”

Without having reviewed the administrative record underlying the Washington regulations, and without knowing anything about Washington law, it’s impossible to predict who will prevail in that legal action.  About the only certainty is that the issue of net pen salmon aquaculture in Washington, which appeared settled less than three months ago, is still very much up in the air.

Yet, while there is nothing unusual about an industry going to court to protect potential profits, something fairly surprising, and also aquaculture related, is happening up in Alaska.

Alaska has banned fish farming of any kind since 1990, when its legislature decided that

“Avoiding harm to the state’s wild finfish, land, and water resources must take precedence over the development of a new speculative and potentially harmful commercial finfish farming industry.”

However, on February 21, its governor, Mike Dunleavy, introduced legislation that would

“authorize the Commissioner of the Department of Fish and Game, in consultation with the Commissioner of the Department of Conservation, to permit the cultivation and sale of certain finfish in inland, closed system bodies of water.”

The legislation is relatively conservative, as it requires all finfish “acquired with a finfish farm permit” to be triploid hybrids that are sterilized and so unable to reproduce, prohibits the farming of Atlantic salmon or any of the five species of Pacific salmon, requires fish farms to be enclosed within a “natural or artificial escape-proof barrier,” and allows stocking a lake on private property with fish for personal consumption only, provided that the lake is also enclosed within such an escape-proof barrier.

Governor Dunleavy justified the bill by arguing that

“This legislation is a continuance of my administration’s efforts to grow Alaska’s food security by creating a new fish farming industry.  Alaska can join other regions of the world by raising fish that can be sold and consumed here in Alaska and be available for export.  This legislation will yield new jobs, economic growth, and a new food source for all Alaskans.”

But it seems many Alaskans aren’t convinced.

An opinion piece that appeared in the Anchorage Daily News declared that

“Dunleavy fish-farming plan shows he’s given up on Alaskan fishermen.”

It goes on to argue that

“…the signs have been there for a long time.  Dunleavy sided with the foreign backers of the Pebble Mine over the health and sustainability of Bristol Bay.  His appointees to the North Pacific Fishery Management Council have repeatedly failed to take any meaningful action to rein in the devastating negative impacts of trawl bycatch on salmon, halibut, herring and other species.  Now he has reached a new low with his introduction of legislation to permit fish farming in Alaska…

“It’s true fish farms are an established and growing part of the global food supply.  It’s also true that fish farming is oftentimes terrible for the environment and nearby communities…”

The Alaska Daily News is not alone in its criticism.

State legislators, in particular, have objected to its introduction.  Rep. Sarah Vance, who is typically a Dunleavy ally, made a post on social media saying,

“Friends don’t let friends eat farmed fish,”

while another legislator, Rep. Louise Stutes, opined that

“Lifting a ban on fishfish farming—regardless of the species or whether its in salt or freshwater—would send the wrong signal to the industry, fishing communities, and fishing families across the state that are struggling to recover.”

Rep. Stutes is also concerned that

“Pursuing freshwater finfish farming of any kind is a foot in the door for salmon farming in the state.”

Governor Dunleavy has attempted to play down such concerns, saying that

“This bill does not allow the farming of salmon.  That is an iconic Alaskan species of fish.”

But there is some evidence that Rep. Stutes worries are well-founded.  No less an authority than SalmonBusiness.com, which describes itself as

“an independent news source focusing on salmon farming,”

has recently reported that

“The bill is also of interest to the global salmon marketing sector, which has long faced opposition in Alaska.  While HB 111 does not propose lifting the ban on salmon farming, it signals a potential softening of the state’s stance on aquaculture.  If successfully implemented, the legislation could set a precedent for future discussions on farmed salmon in Alaska, a market that has remained exclusively reliant on wild-caught supply.  Any move toward finfish aquaculture in the state is likely to be closely watched by salmon farming companies looking to expand operations in North America.”

Thus, along the Pacific coast of the United States, we’re currently observing two potentially convergent events taking place which are keeping the salmon farming debate on the front burner.  

In Washington, state efforts to outlaw net pen salmon farming are being challenged in court by the aquaculture industry, while in Alaska, a 35-year old law that outlaws any sort of finfish aquaculture is being challenged by the state’s governor, who has introduced a bill that would chip away at the total ban and allow some aquaculture, initially for non-salmon species, but could eventually lead to the sort of salmon aquaculture that Washington is trying to abolish.

The long-term fate of Pacific salmon aquaculture in either state is impossible to predict right now, but whatever that fate may be, it appears that the debate over salmon aquaculture in the Pacific coast states will be continuing for some time to come.

 

 

FISHERMEN FEEL IMPACTS OF FEDERAL BUDGET CUTS

 

Not quite one month ago, I speculated about the current administration’s impacts on the federal fisheries management system, focusing on both cuts to the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration’s budget and workforce, and on recent curbs on the agency’s regulatory powers.

Now, some of those impacts are beginning to emerge, and many fishermen are unhappy about what they’re starting to see.

Most of their concerns are related to the reductions in scientific staff at NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service.  The first such reduction took place on February 27, and saw 23 jobs terminated at the Northeast Fisheries Science Center alone; far more jobs were abolished at NMFS' other science centers and across the agency as a whole.  And although such terminations supposedly only affected “probationary employees,” that category is far broader than it might at first appear; although it certainly includes people newly employed by the agency, it also includes long-time NMFS employees who were recently promoted or assigned to new duties, who had a deep understanding of the science and the fisheries management process.  As one recently discharged employee of NMFS Greater Atlantic Region Fisheries Office noted,

“A lot of institutional knowledge has been lost.  It’s going to severely impact the way fisheries are managed.”

Worse, the loss of such valuable employees’ services hasn’t even accomplished the administration’s supposed goal of reducing government spending.  Although a federal district court judge has stayed the NMFS employees’ termination, and reinstated them to their previous positions, a letter they received from the Department of Commerce, NOAA’s parent agency, noted that they were reinstated

“retroactive to the effective date of your termination, and placed in a paid, non-duty status until such time as this litigation is resolved or the Department of Commerce determines to take other administrative action with respect to your employment.”

In other words, they still have a job, and will receive both back pay from the date of their termination and a salary going forward, but they won’t be allowed to do their jobs, or perform any other duties that might benefit the public.  They will be paid for just sitting around. 

It also appears that some of the work done by the terminated-and-reinstated NMFS employees immediately prior to their initial termination may have been lost.  One employee of the Northeast Fisheries Science Center, who helped determine fishery observers’ assignments to various vessels, said that she lost access to her computer files soon after termination, and observed that

“Everything I collaborated on, all my [computer] codes, I had no opportunity to transfer it to anyone…data that could be used by colleagues to further the mission of NOAA.  It’s not a professional way to treat individuals or the folks that are remaining.”

She went on to state something that should be obvious to those making the cuts.

“It’s very unfortunate to think about the rebuilding that we’re going to have to do after this.  If there is some kind of regulations freeze, it can end up where people can’t fish”

due to a lack of the data needed to manage regulated fisheries.

While that’s hardly a model of government efficiency, it does seem to be the administration’s preferred—or, at least, the administration’s default—approach to running things.

And that approach has many people in the fishing industry, or closely related to it, concerned.

Daniel McKiernan, the Director of Massachusetts’ Division of Marine Fisheries, pointed to the contributions NMFS makes to his state’s efforts to manage marine resources, noting that the cuts to NMFS funding and personnel

“may harm our state’s ability to conduct research and assess fish populations.  This would negatively affect our commercial fishers, seafood dealers, aquaculture operators, and seafood processers who work tirelessly to provide healthy seafood, support our coastal communities, and provide for their families.”

In Alaska, a state that has long hosted important commercial fisheries, fishermen are also expressing concerns about the cuts in NMFS science staff.  Linda Behnken, the executive director of the Alaska Longline Fisheries Association, expressed her worries that

“The indiscriminate firing of NOAA personnel could cripple our fisheries.  The impact to resources and the seafood industry will be substantial unless the administration corrects course.”

A letter signed by 170 fishing businesses and related entities located throughout the coastal United States, to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick earlier this month, noted that

“U.S. fisheries are heavily dependent on the regulatory process to open the fishing season and implement reasonable management measures, and any delays or inconsistencies can have immediate and severe consequences for our fishermen’s livelihoods.”

Those concerns were echoed by a scallop fisherman in New Bedford, Massachusetts, who commented anonymously out of fear of possible consequences should his name become known.  That scalloper stated his view that

“If people are aware of impacts, they are concerned.  Some aren’t aware and think government and regulations are bad and have ruined the fishery, and are welcoming the cuts.  But that’s not going to solve the issue that they have a problem with.

“If we don’t have the data, we can’t process the data or don’t have enough people, everything gets delayed.  It’s fair to say the loss of the one federal survey could impact quota.”

Yet that doesn’t seem to matter to the budget-cutters.  They cut the spending limit on all government-issued credit cards to $1, making it difficult, if not impossible, for many NMFS employees to do their jobs.  The Alaska Beacon reported that

“The first round of NOAA Fisheries staffing cuts have been accompanied by a freeze on most credit card spending.  One Alaska Fisheries Science Center biologist, who requested anonymity to avoid retaliation, said she would typically use her credit card to buy gloves, life vests, extension cords and other gear needed for upcoming survey cruises off Alaska.

“’I am trying to figure out how to supply our surveys with the gear we really need.  It’s really frustrating,” the biologist said.  “We’re going to do our best.”

Many fishermen fear that NMFS’ biologists “best,” in the current budget environment, may not be good enough.  As noted in a recent edition of The New Bedford Light, fishermen fear that

“In the absence of sufficient data or analysis (which could happen if a federal survey gets defunded or cancelled, or analysts have been fired), stock managers will take a precautionary approach and err on the conservative side to avoid overfishing.  This means setting a lower fishing quota, which means fishermen may not catch as much.”

Fishermen are also concerned that their voice is going unheard, particularly after NOAA leadership terminated the Marine Fisheries Advisory Committee, which saw fishermen, other members of the seafood industry, academics, and representatives of environmental organizations volunteer to provide advice to and share their concerns with NMFS.  Sarah Schumann, a Rhode Island commercial fisherman who sat on the Committee, lamented that

“We’ve been robbed of a voice.  It felt like a real place to collaboratively, honestly evaluate the larger scale trajectories of fisheries management in the U.S.  And now that’s gone.”

But, once again, the administration budget cutters don’t seem to care.  Instead, they merely posted a notice on the Committee web page that

“The Secretary of Commerce has determined that the purposes for which the Marine Fisheries Advisory Committee was established have been fulfilled, and the committee has been terminated effective February 28, 2025.”

But Ms. Schumann questions both the rationale for and the wisdom of the Committee’s termination.

“I don’t think the Trump administration’s decision to cut committees like that has anything to do with saving money.  It’s consistent with a larger emphasis within this administration to bring everything under the control of the White House and to remove any source of independence that our public agencies might have.

“The ocean is getting more complicated.  I really fear reducing our scientific capacity at a time like this is a huge mistake.”

And the cutting isn’t limited to future expenses.  Under the current administration, agencies including the United States Department of Agriculture and the Environmental Protection Agency are reneging on past commitments to fishermen and the fishing industry, cancelling grants and abandoning contractual obligations.  Such actions are causing real economic harm to fishermen and fish processing companies.

Much of the hardship arises out of an ongoing program to replace old, inefficient diesel engines and obsolescent refrigeration systems, which would both cut fishermen’s costs and reduce the industry’s carbon footprint; not surprisingly, the program’s carbon-reduction goals, and so its connection to the climate change debate, made it a natural target of the climate change deniers at the top of the Trump administration.

That put fishermen and fish processers in a bind because, trusting that the government’s word was good and that they would receive the grant money that the government was contractually obliged to pay, they began to upgrade their vessels, only to learn, after work was done and expenses incurred, that the Trump administration had apparently decided to dishonor its obligations to reimburse program participants.

Thus, fishermen are finding themselves in the same situation as Seattle salmon fisherman Robert Buchmayr, who replaced the refrigeration unit on his boat, relying on a $45,000 grant from the government to pay for much of the work.  However, the grant payment is now on indefinite hold, leading the fisherman to comment that

“I’m scrambling, where does the money come from.  I was counting on the grant.  I was under the impression that if you got a grant from the United States, it was a commitment.  Nothing in the letter was saying, ‘Yes, we’ll guarantee you the funds depending on who is elected.’”

But even if the $45,000 is never paid, it represents a relatively small financial burden, at least when compared to the hundreds of thousands of dollars now being denied to Alaska vessel owner Lacey Velsko, after she relied on a government promise to replace the large refrigeration unit on one of her trawlers.  She admitted that

“Of course we think it was unfair that we signed a contract and were told we would be funded and now we’re not funded.”

While many of the grants have not been officially cancelled, but instead are on “indefinite hold” and supposedly being reviewed, Ms. Velsko acknowledges that

“If six months down the road we’re still not funded I don’t know what avenue to take.”

Togue Brawn, a Maine seafood distributor, did not mince words.

“The uncertainty.  This is not a business-friendly environment.  If they want to make America great again, then honor your word and tell people what’s going on.”

It’s not at all clear that will happen.

In the meantime, America’s commercial fishing fleet, as well as millions of recreational fishermen, will be forced to stand by, and hope that the arbitrary attack on fisheries science will end, and that the Trump administration will eventually give the nation’s fishermen, commercial and recreational, the recognition, and the respect, that their multi-billion dollar industries deserve.