Most of our striped bass are spawned in Chesapeake Bay, and
most of those come from the waters of Maryland.
For that reason, Maryland’s
striped bass young-of-the-year index has generally been the best future
predictor of the future health of the stock.
Thus, folks who care about the striper’s future have been
rightly concerned by the fact that the index has been coming in below average
for most of the years in the past decade, with the 2012 index the lowest in
more than fifty years—even lower than anything recorded during the depths of
the last stock collapse.
The one bit of good news came in 2011, when a dominant year
class was produced.
You would think that the folks who manage bass down in
Maryland would be doing whatever they can to help
those 2011s live long enough to recruit into the spawning stock, something that
should happen in 2017 or so.
But if you thought that, you would have been wrong.
Maryland has a long history of killing immature bass (back before the
collapse, a legal “pan rock” was just 12 inches long), and it doesn’t look like
they’re planning to reform any time soon.
Right now, they’ve got the 2011s fixed dead in their sights.
It started last fall when, despite the steady decline if the
spawning stock biomass, the
state declared its intention to increase the harvest by 14% in 2014. I suppose that went over well with the folks
who make their money off the heads of dead fish, but folks capable of thinking
about the long term—which, in this case, is anything past the current
season—figured out that beating up on the only solid year class in the last
decade was probably a dumb idea.
Coastal Conservation
Association Maryland, which seems to represent the most rational and
responsible anglers in the state, made a really solid effort to prevent such
foolishness from going forward but, in the end, the chance of plucking more
dollars from the heads of dead bass proved far too attractive for the state to
change course.
So this year, the Maryland folks are killing more bass, even though a
peer-reviewed stock assessment, that was presented to the Atlantic States
Marine Fisheries Commission last October, and updated
in December, noted that
“If the current fully-recruited [fishing mortality rate]
(0.200) is maintained during 2013-2017, the probability of being below the
[spawning stock biomass] reference point increases to 0.86 by 2015...If the
current fully-recruited [fishing mortality rate] increases to Fthreshold
(0.219), and is maintained during 2013-2017, the probability of being below the
[spawning stock biomass] reference point reaches 0.93 by 2015 and declines
thereafter…
“…there is a probability of 0.46 that the 2012 female
[spawning stock biomass] is below or equal to the [spawning stock biomass]
threshold, and a probability of 0.31 that the 2012 fully-recruited fishing
mortality is above or equal to the fishing mortality threshold…”
The stock assessment
also made it clear that, although the stock was not yet overfished and that
overfishing did not occur in the past couple of years, the target fishing
mortality levels had been exceeded, and the spawning stock biomass had been
below target levels since 2006.
“If the Management Board determines that the fishing mortality
target is exceeded in two consecutive years and the female spawning
stock biomass falls below the target in either of those years, the Management
Board must adjust the striped bass management program to reduce the fishing
mortality to a rate that is at or below the target within one year.“
That seems pretty clear, but not if you’re Thomas O’Connell,
the marine fisheries director for the State of Maryland. He took a look at Amendment 6, and its mandate to reduce fishing mortality, but wasn’t
too impressed.
Instead of making meaningful changes to the management
program in order to reduce fishing mortality to the target level,
O’Connell decided that he’d rather make changes to Amendment 6, and allow harvest reductions to be phased in over three
full years, instead the one year currently required.
As too often happens at ASMFC, it was a matter of elevating short-term economic gains over the need to conserve and rebuild the stock. At the May Striped Bass Management Board
meeting, O'Connell said
“I think it really comes down to a cost-benefit analysis and trying
to weigh the impacts versus the likely benefits of our action today…
“I think, as I mentioned earlier, a 32 to 36 percent
reduction is going to have large socio-economic impacts as well as potential
ecological impacts. I think we don’t
have a stock situation that is in dire need of protection…”
Not everyone on the Management Board shared that view. Paul
Deodati, the state fisheries director from Massachusetts, eloquently opposed O’Connell’s
approach, correctly noting that
“We’re actually working off the tenets of Amendment 6, which
are pretty clear about what this board is supposed to do. We’re not supposed to wait until new fall
down well below the levels that [Thomas O’Connell is] suggesting. We’re supposed to take an action now.
“It is always difficult when we have to make a cut,
especially when our fisheries aren’t completely falling apart; but with striped
bass we took a very deliberate approach to how we were going to react to and
address changes in stock condition. This
is the change that we identified many years ago as a point in time when we’ll
take a serious action to reduce fishing mortality. We’ve reached that. In fact, in my belief we have gone well
beyond the time that we allowed ourselves to take this action.
“I think that any further delays is going to hurt the
credibility of the commission. It is
going to completely tarnish the integrity of the Striped Bass Management Plan,
which I think we’ve worked really hard to maintain as a top-notch managed
program. I don’t think that’s our
intent, but I’m afraid that would be the result of delaying action on this…“
Pat Augustine, proxy for New York’s legislative appointee,
also raised the issue of ASMFC’s credibility, pointing out that
“I think at the end of the day if we just decide we’re not
going to follow through on what our commitment was last year to be well on our
way to recovery and implementation January of 2015 and come up with anything
that is going to dilute the direction we’re going, I think we will totally lose
the credibility of the public…
There is a lot of emotion out there; and to do anything other
than what we committed to do, we’re going to have mud all over our face and
we’re going to embarrass ourselves…“
However, Tom Fote, governor’s appointee from New Jersey and
long-time opponent of ever reducing the recreational harvest of anything,
regardless of the health of the stock, was quick to jump on the O’Connell
bandwagon, trying to discredit Augustine with a somewhat unintelligible
argument that
“The credibility is that we’re basically trying to
accommodate fishermen. New York has
always wanted one fish. When we opened
the fishery when there is plenty of fish, their surf fishermen wanted one
fish. That is not the reality in New
York.
“That is the reality of other states, and this is a compact
of all the states that we try to accommodate our fishermen whatever they need…
“I have no problem and our credibility always stands as it
is…”
Although, in the end, the facts spoke for themselves, and
Deodati was clearly correct. When ASMFC
adopted Amendment 6, it made a covenant with the public to take management
action when a trigger was tripped.
Should the Striped Bass Management Board ultimately approve a three-year
phase-in of the reduction, it will have violated the public trust, and
demonstrated that its word is not to be trusted.
Hopefully, that will not happen, but…
There’s no doubt that Maryland is going to work hard to make
that happen, and in the end, it's easy to understand why.
The 2011 year class won’t recruit into the coastal fishery
until 2017. Until then—perhaps not
coincidentally—Maryland and the other Chesapeake fisheries will have them to themselves. The females will migrate out of the bay for
the summer, but most of the males will stick around, and the Maryland
fishermen—commercial and recreational—and the Maryland charter boats will be
able to pound on them pretty hard while they’re around.
Given that the 2011s are the first good year class since
2003, that 2012 was the worst ever recorded and that we don’t know when the next good
spawn will be (although there’s reason to hope that 2013 might be solid), it’s hard to blame Maryland for trying to take what they can while
the taking’s good.
Except…even their own anglers are cautious. CCA Maryland adopted its “My Limit is One”
campaign to try to protect some fish and mitigate the damage that
the 14% harvest increase will do.
So why does Maryland want to kill so many striped bass?
As O’Connell said, for “socio-economic” reasons.
Which is the nice way of saying that it’s all about the almighty buck, and someone trying to squeeze a
little more blood from the stone before casting it aside.
We always have to remember that responsible anglers such as the
folks at CCA Maryland aren’t the only people fishing for bass.
Maryland’s commercial sector killed 2,524,181
pounds of stripers in 2012 (compared to the 1,445,187 pounds landed by its
anglers), and it has a big charter fleet that puts dead bass high on its list
of priorities, killing 46% of the entire
recreational harvest. O’Connell is trying to put a little more money in their pockets today, rather than trying to restore the
stock—and so putting more money in their pockets tomorrow.
Even Maryland’s United States senators got into the
act. A letter addressed to Robert Beal,
ASMFC's Executive Director, co-signed by Senators Barbara A. Mikulski and
Benjamin L. Cardin says that the proposed reduction in striped bass harvest
“will adversely impact Maryland’s striped bass fisheries—and
could affect entire Bay communities and other fishery industries as a
whole—without the benefit of achieving the Commission’s desired level of
protection to the spawning stock…
“The Commission is considering action due to concerns over a
fishing mortality rate that exceeds the target level, and the dacade long
decline in the female spawning stock.
Both of these conditions warrant some conservation action, but that
action should not be so extreme as to cause undue economic hardship to coastal
communities…
"We ask for the Commission’s continued support for
inclusion of a multi-year approach to reducing fishing mortality to the target
level…”
In other words, the good senators know that there’s a
problem with the striped bass stock, and know that something needs to be done,
but doesn’t want ASMFC to do anything that might—according to the best
available science—be truly effective, because that might affect the short-term
health of some constituents’ bank accounts.
What is worthy of note—and particularly heartening to those
who support doing the right thing for the striper—is that the senators’ letter
was the only letter received by ASMFC that supported the three-year phase in of
harvest reductions.
All 36 of the
letters included in the original meeting materials (which include a petition
signed by 1,428 people), and the remaining 51 letters included in the supplemental
materials, supported imposing meaningful harvest restrictions. None supported a three-year phase in of
harvest reductions, and the vast majority specifically opposed such action.
The other comments received from Maryland residents included
14 letters from individuals, who asked the Management Board to “cut the
fishery…as much as you can legally” and one from a Solomons-based charter boat
captain, who said that
“The people from Md DNR have done nothing about the decline
of the striped bass. I fish about 100
trips a year that the decline is Very Clear [sic] a limited number of rock fish
in a small area that will be wiped out sooner than later.”
It doesn’t seem likely that the captain would appreciate the
position taken by O'Connell, his state fishery director, nor with that taken by Senators Mikulski and Cardin…
All 17 letters received from anglers in Virginia, which
shares Chesapeake Bay—and any special Chesapeake Bay regulations—with Maryland
call for taking action in one year, not three.
Maryland’s staunchest allies on the Management Board, Tom
Fote of New Jersey and Rick Bellavance of Rhode Island (who said “..from the
folks that I speak to in our neck of the woods, we don’t see a problem”), don’t
seem to have much constituent support.
There were no comment letters from New Jersey at all, while the only
comment letter from Rhode Island stated that
“THERE ARE FEWERE AND LESS [sic] LARGE BASS AND IT’S GETTING
WORSE EVERY YEAR. Traditional areas of
past striped bass abundance are shells of what they used to be…Even the
commercial fishermen have to travel farther and farther to target dwindling
stocks of striped bass“
and supports
“…drastic action…Complete moratorium on commercial and
recreational harvesting of striped bass until stocks are at 2006 levels or at a
minimum of one fish at 36 inches…“
So it looks as if Maryland officials—both its fisheries
director and its U.S. senators—and their allies from other states have taken a
position that is not supported by the public at large, by Amendment 6 to the
management plan nor by the stock assessment.
I suppose that only the folks who profit from dead striped
bass stand behind them.
Yet they continue to oppose needed conservation measures.
Which just shows, once again, that so long as there is money
to be made, there will always be someone trying to do the wrong thing at ASMFC.
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