Thursday, November 9, 2017

GETTING SERIOUS ABOUT BLACK SEA BASS

It’s long been said that “familiarity breeds contempt.”

Maybe the black sea bass has been suffering from some of that contempt lately.

They’ve always been a popular saltwater panfish, offering wonderful, flaky white flesh that is particularly prized in East Asian recipes.  For many years, black sea bass were overfished; more recently, federal fishery managers armed with the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act and helped by good wintering conditions at the edge of the continental shelf have restored the species not just to abundance, but to ubiquity, along most of the coast between New Jersey and Massachusetts.

A benchmark stock assessment completed in 2016 indicated that the spawning stock biomass at the close of 2015 was about 230% of the target level.  Such abundance was readily confirmed by fishermen, who were catching black sea bass in greater numbers than they had previously experienced, and in places where they had never seen them before.

Much of that abundance was due to a huge 2011 year class, nearly three times the average year class size, which benefitted from unusually favorable oceanographic conditions during the extraordinarily mild winter of 2011-2012.

The explosion of black sea bass abundance came at just the right time, since in 2016 summer flounder, the traditional mainstay of thesummer small boat fleet in southern New England and the upper Mid-Atlantic, hadjust experienced six consecutive years of below-average spawning success.  Lacking a reliable summer flounder fishery anglers, and in particular the party boat fleet, shifted much of their effort from the often-scarce fluke onto black sea bass.

The party boats often still advertised to their fares that they were fishing for summer flounder, and they did catch a few; however, instead of fishing on the open sand bottoms of the bays, inlets and nearshore ocean, they began spending more time fishing around wrecks and artificial reefs, where anglers had a chance of hooking some big summer flounder, but were virtually certain of putting a few black sea bass into their pails even if the fluke didn’t show.

Farther from shore, wrecks that had historically seen only modest fishing pressure were crowded with private and foir-hire boats seeking black sea bass; even hard-to-find, low-profile pieces were frequently visited.

As a result of the increased effort, even as black sea bass abundance increased, regulations grew more restrictive.


It seemed to be a counterintuitive change, since it would be logical to assume that growing abundance and increased annual catch limits would lead to relaxed, rather than more stringent, regulations.  And regulations probably would have been relaxed, if it hadn’t been for the effort shift.

The National Marine Fisheries Service’s recreational harvest estimates show that New York anglers harvested about 275,000 black sea bass, weighing roughly 400,000  pounds, in 2011.  By 2016, the number of black sea bass harvested by recreational fishermen in New York had nearly quadrupled, to slightly over 1,000,000, while the total weight of the fish landed was more than five times what it was in 2011, increasing to a little more than 2,200,000 pounds.

Viewed in that light, it’s pretty clear why regulations had to be tightened.

Members of the recreational fishing industry, however, didn’t see things quite that way.  Instead of considering the increased fishing effort being directed at black sea bass, as well as the increased abundance, they focus solely on the abundance, and thus complain that regulations are too stringent.  That was well exemplified in the summary of the comments made at a recent meeting of the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council’s Summer Flounder, Scup and Black Sea Bass Advisory Panel, where it was noted that

“the size limit should be decreased because we are in a downward spiral where fish get larger and it takes fewer fish to reach the [recreational harvest limit] even when it is higher.  This flies in the face of the premise that ‘if you cut back today, you will be allowed more tomorrow’ because regulations get tighter with higher abundance.  Because people see this now, they have lost faith in management and are more prone to totally disregard any regulation as they feel they have sacrificed size, season, and bag limit for too long.  If you are allowed fewer fish when the stock is at 2.4x target then when will things liberalize?  If fishermen never get any ‘real’ relief that they can see in their buckets or time allowed to fish then this exercise of management has failed.  The more disconnected that regulations get from reality the less people will be inclined to follow them.  For example, there would be a lot of cars speeding on I-95 if the limit was 40 miles per hour the whole way, it is just how it is.”
The local angling press bears a lot of the blame for such attitudes, because they never take the time to educate their readers about the impacts of increased effort on harvest and, consequently, on regulations.  Instead, they quote individuals such as Jim Donofrio of the Recreational Fishing Alliance, who wrote a semi-hysterical letter to the White House that said, in part,

“At this time, the Atlantic black sea bass population is at the highest level recorded in fisheries’ management history.  It’s more than double its rebuilding target and we have a shut down.  Currently, arbitrary and non-scientific provisions that were implemented in the last Magnuson Act are keeping fishermen and our for hire boats (party and charter boats) from accessing this completely healthy fishery.  They will be losing over a month of business facing this closure.”
Donofrio, of course, never mentions the sharply increased effort going into the black sea bass fishery, effort that could also conceivably be “the highest level…in fisheries management history,” nor does he mention that one of the big reasons that New Jersey anglers were facing a closed black sea bass season at that time is because the state chose to adopt regulations that included a 12 ½-inch size limit—fully 2 ½ inches smaller than the minimum size in any other northeastern state with a significant fishery—and that the closed season was necessary to compensate for the large number of smaller fish harvested as a result.

But anglers usually aren’t told all of those critical details; instead of understanding the facts that lead to fisheries regulations, they become enraged by writers who try to stir up uninformed indignation, and the management process suffers as a result.

That is particularly true in the for-hire industry, where black sea bass have been receiving particularly shabby treatment.


“I didn’t think it was that many.  And I’m not getting paid by the state of New Jersey to take fish out of people’s buckets.”
Rumors—perhaps better deemed to be descriptions—of blatant disregard of the black sea bass regulations have been steadily trickling out of the party boat fleet ever since.  


Readers will have to decide for themselves whether those were the only times the people involved broke the law, and whether they were the only boats in the fleet that dabbled in illegality…

But people are finally noticing, and starting to take some action. 


“several members observed that repeated abuse of size and bag limits on certain for-hire vessels has been an ongoing problem.  If all states could implement the needed measures to charge and prosecute captains or operators (along with customers), it would help in putting a stop to these illegal practices.”
Unfortunately, no immediate action will be taken.  Instead, the Black Sea Bass Recreational Working Group has been asked to develop options designed to improve for-hire compliance in the fishery.

Even as such ongoing violations of the black sea bass regulations were being discussed, both the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council and ASMFC moved forward with an  operationally incomplete proposal to allow black sea bass fishing during Wave 1—January and February—when it is currently closed. 

The proposed open season would run for the full month of February, with a 15-fish bag limit and 12 ½-inch minimum size.  Despite the fact that, at least in the northern half of the Mid-Atlantic region, the February fishery would be prosecuted primarily by for-hire vessels, the recreational harvest limit for the main summer/fall season would be reduced by 100,000 pounds to account for what was caught in February, making the entire angling community pay for a privilege enjoyed by relatively few.

The 100,000 pound harvest would be just a rough estimate of what might be caught during a February season, since the Marine Recreational Information Program does not sample anglers north of the Carolinas during the first two months of the year.

States will have to decide whether or not to opt into the February season before it begins.

Not many years ago, such a proposal would have been automatically approved by the states.  However, problems related to noncompliance, accurately counting the fish caught during the first two months of the year and even fairly distributing the benefits and burdens of the open season are making people think twice.

In New Jersey, the Marine Fisheries Commission decided to defer action on a February season, until they could get a better idea of what restrictions might be placed on the 2018 black sea bass fishery.  

Anglers and party boat operators who don’t sail for black sea bass during the winter seemed generally opposed to the new season, as they didn’t want to see the primary summer/fall season shortened; the only way that they would support the February season would be if the primary season wasn’t affected at all.  Owners and operators of vessels who want to participate in the winter fishery, on the other hand, want to see it established.

The same sort of discussion played out at New York’s Marine Resources Advisory Council meeting last Tuesday.  

While no one was opposed to the concept of a winter season, the majority of the Council wanted to see such a season done right, with little or no impact on the primary summer/fall season and observers on board the vessels to get an accurate count of the fish caught.  

I attended the meeting, and noted that, given the acknowledged abuses taking place in the party boat fishery, the ability to assure regulatory compliance was also an important issue.  

In the end, a motion recommending that the Department of Environmental Conservation adopt a February season in 2018 received only two affirmative votes, and was defeated—although the Council left open the possibility that a well-regulated season could be adopted in 2019.

Such concerns about the black sea bass fishery are a good thing.

Because sure, there are a lot of black sea bass around right now, and the 2015 year class looks very strong.



When you think about that for a minute, it shouldn’t seem unreasonable for fishery managers to try to take good care of black sea bass today, despite its current abundance.

Because in the end, the best time to conserve any species is when it’s still plentiful, and not when it’s mostly gone.







No comments:

Post a Comment