Nothing bad happened at the February 2016 meeting of the
Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Striped Bass Management Board.
The
previous November, the State of Maryland had tried to convince the Management
Board to reopen the debate that ended with the adoption of Addendum
IV to Amendment 6 to the Atlantic Striped Bass Interstate Fishery Management
Plan. Maryland was seeking
more fish for its commercial and for-hire fisheries in Chesapeake Bay, although
its effort was soon broadened by representatives of states in the upper
mid-Atlantic, who sought to increase the coastwide kill.
However, action on that motion was postponed after the
Management Board agreed to schedule an update to the benchmark stock assessment,
which would evaluate the health of the stock at the close of 2015. Satisfied with that action, in February Maryland
again agreed that a vote on its motion be postponed, this time
indefinitely.
That removed the immediate threat to the regulations adopted
pursuant to Addendum IV. The question
is, where do we go from here?
The 2016 assessment update will be a good thing. More information can only improve management
of the striped bass stock; a
year ago, I argued that just such an update should be performed, to
determine whether the new regulations were sufficient to reduce fishing
mortality to the target level.
The updated assessment will probably be released to the
Management Board in November; in the meantime, folks both for and against a
harvest increase will be speculating about what it will say.
Maryland is betting that it will show a healthy stock,
bolstered by a strong 2011 year class that has just entered the fishery with a
smaller, but still above-average, 2015 year class waiting in the wings, and
justify an increase in harvest.
Conservation-minded anglers will point to the Atlantic
Striped Bass Stock Assessment Update 2015, which indicated that
fishing mortality in 2014 was 0.205, about halfway between the target and the
fishing mortality threshold. They’ll note
the good weather that stretched all the way through December 2015, and allowed
anglers to kill lots of big bass throughout the autumn migration, and wonder
whether 1 fish at 28 inches was enough to significantly reduce last year’s kill.
Anecdotal information can be found to support either
scenario, and some will also support the folks who predict that we’re right on
target now. On the other hand, the 2015
update included an almost-even chance that the stock would become
overfished at some point last season, so the size of the female spawning stock
biomass will be on everyone’s mind.
In the end, though, the biggest question is not what the update will say, but what the Management Board will do
with such information.
After a 2011
update indicated that the stock was declining, and that overfishing might be on the horizon, the
Board took no action, arguing that despite its decline, the stock was still neither
overfished nor subject to overfishing.
Instead, it hold off until a new stock assessment, scheduled to
begin in 2012, was completed.
Based on past performance, it’s pretty likely that the
Management Board will take no action even if the 2016 update shows that fishing
mortality remains well over target and that spawning stock biomass has not
increased by any significant amount, and again would wait for the results of
a new benchmark stock assessment scheduled for 2017.
So-called “management triggers” contained in Amendment 6 to the
Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass would
supposedly compel action in the unlikely event that fishing mortality exceeded
the overfishing threshold or the less-unlikely event that declining biomass
took the stock into “overfished” territory by the end of 2015. However, the odds are
still pretty good that the Management Board, always reluctant to restrict
landings, would choose to wait until the benchmark assessment is completed before
taking action.
On the other hand, if the 2016 update shows a significant
increase in female spawning stock biomass, or if it shows that fishing
mortality in 2015 fell well below target, some members of the Management Board will undoubtedly echo the words of the
Potomac
River Fisheries Commission’s Robert O’Reilly, who said last November
that
“Management certainly can take place without a benchmark”
At this point, it’s anyone’s guess what would happen then.
If the Management Board decided to increase the harvest
ahead of the benchmark stock assessment, and followed its usual procedures, it
would have to begin an addendum process.
If such process were initiated in November 2016, we could see a
draft Addendum V released for public comment in February 2017, public hearings
in March and April, and a final version of the addendum adopted no earlier than
May 2017.
If such an addendum
were approved, states would then have to go through their typical rulemaking
process to put new regulations into effect.
And If all of that happened, the states would
probably wait until 2018 to impose any new regulations,
to avoid the confusion that is inevitably caused by in-season changes.
Any new regulations adopted pursuant to the upcoming benchmark assessment probably wouldn't be put in place until 2020, so the folks seeking a bigger
kill will certainly fight to make it happen sooner if they get the chance.
On the other hand, it’s difficult to imagine that any data
contained in the 2016 update will have a major impact upon the resource.
Target fishing mortality will remain 0.180,
and the overfishing threshold will still be 0.219. Any allowable increase or decrease in harvest will be wholly dependent upon the size of the spawning stock
biomass.
Stock size would have to increase substantially to justify any significant change in the Addendum IV regulations—except,
perhaps, in Chesapeake Bay, where a strong 2011 year class and an above-average
spawn in 2015 might be used in an attempt to justify a higher kill of immature
bass. Now that the Chesapeake
Bay fishery is fully integrated into that coastwide management system, and not
awarded its own unique set of reference points, the likelihood of that
occurring has substantially diminished.
Still, striped bass anglers are advised to remain aware of
what’s going on in the fishery, and what’s going on at ASMFC. For regardless of the state of the stock,
there will always be folks who want to push things a little too far,
and take more fish than is reasonably prudent.
The only curb on such folks’ excesses is an informed angling public that is willing to raise
the alarm and put up a fight when things threaten to get out of hand.
It's important to manage this fishery properly... I love fishing stripers and want my children to as well.
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