SOUNDS LIKE BAD NEWS FOR STRIPED BASS

I spent a lot of time trying to decide whether I should write this particular blog.

Usually, when I write about specific fisheries actions, I’m very careful to get the facts right, and provide links to any information that I may have, so that you can check it out for yourself.  I let you know when the data’s not clear, and try hard to avoid anything that smacks of reckless hyperbole or worse, crying wolf.

But today, I’m going out on a limb. 

The new benchmark stock assessment went through a peer review meeting a little over a week ago.   Because I wasn’t able to listen in, I normally would have waited until the official reports from the meeting came out, before I addressed what might have happened there.  But a lot of unofficial reports are already coming out of that meeting.  All are saying about the same thing.

And none of what they’re saying is good.

So, because striped bass are such an important fish to Atlantic Coast anglers, and because, if the stories are right, we’re likely to have a big fight on our hands very soon, I decided to take a chance and report on what I’m hearing now, even if that means that I’ll have to recant some or all of it at some point down the road.

I wish I could have been at the peer review meeting, because the assessment team has put together a new model that tries to assess the striped bass population at a stock level, breaking out the fish that spawn in Chesapeake Bay, assessing their biomass separate from that of the fish from Delaware and the Hudson River, and assigning the Chesapeake fish their own fishing mortality thresholds, both for the time that they were in the bay and when they migrate along the coast.  Similar biomass and mortality reference points were established for the combined Delaware and Hudson stocks, so that striped bass could be managed in a more precise, stock-specific manner.

The new model found that the striped bass isn’t doing all that well.  To quote from the assessment report,

“Female SSB₂₀₁₇ for the Chesapeake Bay stock was estimated at 24,688 [metric tons], less than the SSB_threshold of 52,893 mt, indicating the Chesapeake Bay stock is overfished.  The associated F_threshold was 0.297 for the Chesapeake Bay fishery and 0.353 for the ocean fishery; F₂₀₁₇ was 0.255 in the Chesapeake Bay and 0.400 in the ocean, indicating that the Chesapeake Bay stock is experiencing overfishing in the ocean but not in the Chesapeake Bay.

“For the Delaware Bay/Hudson River stock, female SSB₂₀₁₇ was 21,347 mt, below the SSB_threshold of 24,683 mt, indicating the Delaware Bay/Hudson River stock is overfished.  F₂₀₁₇ was 0.400, above the F_theshold of 0.340, indicating the Delaware Bay/Hudson River stock is experiencing overfishing.”

I received the report as a downloaded file, so I can’t provide a link at this time, but the above language makes it perfectly clear that, according to the new model, the striped bass is overfished, whether one looks at the overall population, or breaks it down into two distinct, overfished spawning stocks. 

It’s also clear that the striped bass is experiencing overfishing throughout its range, except for the Chesapeake Bay stock, which is not experiencing overfishing during that time when it remains within the confines of Chesapeake Bay.

That accords with reports I’ve received from folks at the meeting, who said that they were hearing “mostly bad news.”

What is not clear at all is whether the new assessment will pass peer review.  We probably won’t know that until early next month, when the peer reviewers’ reports are released.  However, there are persistent rumors, supposedly originating from reliable sources, suggesting that the new model still needs too much work to be deemed suitable for management purposes.  

If that is the case, then its finding of overfishing and overfished stocks will play no role in striped bass management for the next five or so years.

That doesn’t mean that managers are without an acceptable population model.  It is my understanding that, because presenting a new model always carries some risk of rejection, a second model was also prepared, one that is similar to the model used to manage striped bass today, but which has been updated with the most recent fisheries data, including the revised recreational catch and effort data that was released last July.

Again, I wasn’t at the stock assessment meeting, nor was I able to listen in on the webinar/call that ran at the same time.  However, it seems that such second model was probably responsible for a slide that was shown at the webinar, and captured by a striped bass conservation advocate, which is clearly labeled

“SAW-66 ASSESSMENT SUMMARY REPORT

“B.  ATLANTIC STRIPED BASS ASSESSMENT SUMMARY FOR 2018”

and says

“The current [Spawning Stock Biomass] threshold for Atlantic striped bass is the 1995 estimate of female SSB. The [Fishing Mortality] threshold is the F value that allows the stock to achieve the SSB threshold under long-term equilibrium conditions.

“Female SSB for Atlantic striped bass in 2017 was 68,476 [metric tons], less than the SSB_thresold of 91,436 mt, indicating that the stock is overfished.  The associated F_threshold was 0.240.  F₂₀₁₇ was 0.307, indicating the stock is experiencing overfishing.”

So that model, despite its different reference points and different estimates of both spawning stock biomass and fishing mortality in 2017, also found that the striped bass stock is overfished and experiencing overfishing.

Unless there’s some other information out there that no one is talking about, and hasn’t yet been leaked by someone in the know, it looks like the bass is in trouble.  Again.

The question is, what happens now?

Amendment 6 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass, which supposedly governs the species’ management, makes that pretty clear.  It contains “management triggers” and language that reads

“Upon reaching any (or all) of these triggers, the Management Board is required to alter the management program to ensure the objectives of Amendment 6 are achieved.  [emphasis added]”

Two of those triggers read,

“If the Management Board determines that the fishing mortality threshold is exceeded in any year, the Board must adjust the striped bass management program to reduce the fishing mortality rate to a level that is at or below the target within one year,”

and

“If the Management Board determines that the biomass has fallen below the threshold in any given year, the Board must adjust the striped bass management program to rebuild the biomass to the target level within [ten years].”

Whichever population model survives peer review and ends up being used, those two triggers will have been tripped, and seem to give the Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board clear marching orders, and a mandate for what they need to do.

But anyone who has watched ASMFC at work over the years knows that words like “required,” when used in a management plan, don’t mean exactly what they mean in the outside world.  For example, there is another trigger in Amendment 6 that says

“If the Management Board determines that the female spawning stock biomass falls below the target for two consecutive years and the fishing mortality rate exceeds the target in either of those years, the Management Board must adjust the striped bass management program to rebuild the biomass to a level that is at or above the target within [ten years].”

But when the last benchmark stock assessment indicated that such trigger had been tripped, Amendment 6’s requirement was completely ignored.  After a full year of debate, the Management Board finally, if somewhat reluctantly, reduced fishing mortality to the mortality target, as required by yet another trigger, but it never addressed rebuilding at all.

If it had, maybe the bass would be in a better place now; perhaps still having problems, because no one foresaw the impact of the revised recreational catch figures back then, but at least less in the weeds than we find them today.

But far too many people still haven’t learned that putting off needed management measures today just means that they’ll end up paying the Piper at some point in the future, nor have they learned that the Piper will always charge interest, at usurious rates, when that bill finally becomes due.

Folks who don’t pay attention to how things can work at ASMFC also forget that there are two ways to get fishing mortality below the F_target and get female spawning stock biomass above the target for SSB.

One is to do it the hard way, working out management measures that will increase biomass to levels that best assure a healthy and sustainable stock, even if adverse spawning conditions intervene for a few years, and keeps fishing mortality low enough to assure long-term abundance.

The other is to change the reference points, reducing the spawning stock biomass threshold and allowing higher levels of fishing mortality, accepting decreased abundance and increased long-term risk to the stock, in exchange for keeping landings, and incomes, high in the short term.

ASMFC’s Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board has already discussed taking the latter course; at the May 2018 Management Board meeting, the Fishery Management Plan Coordinator for the species acknowledged that

“we’ve heard some concerns from members around this table that the current reference points may be too conservative and/or are restricting fishing unnecessarily; which has raised questions about whether the [Fishery Management Plan] objectives have changed since the implementation of Amendment 6, and maybe those acceptable risk levels have changed as well—an example being the balance between preserving biomass and allowing fishing…”

There are certainly Management Board members from some jurisdictions, particularly those that abut the Chesapeake and Delaware bays, who have expressed those concerns, and will be very reluctant to further reduce harvest.  On the other hand, there are also many Management Board members who support meaningful conservation measures.

Right now, it’s not clear which philosophy is in control.

But it looks like we’re going to find out.

As I said when I started this piece, the final decision of the peer review committee has not been released, and won’t be until next month.  There is no official word.  So it’s possible that much of what I wrote in this piece is wrong.

For the sake of the striper, I hope that it is.

But anglers ought to start thinking about what we’ll need to do, and how we’re going to do it, in the event that it’s all too correct.