ARE STATES READY TO ADDRESS THE STRIPED BASS PROBLEM?

Earlier this month, I wrote a piece questioning whether the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission had the political will to rebuild the striped bass population.  We still don’t know the answer to that question—although we might start to get an idea in May—and I believe that there is still a significant chance that ASMFC will decide to end overfishing, but duck the rebuilding issue, just as they did when they drafted Addendum IV to Amendment 6 to the Atlantic Striped Bass Interstate Management Plan five years ago.

There has also been some concern over an effort that arose at ASMFC’s Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board a little over a year ago, which saw some states suggesting that the biological reference points used to determine when overfishing occurs and a stock is overfished be changed.  As originally contemplated, such new reference points would permit the female spawning stock biomass to fall to lower levels, and the fishing mortality to increase, before any management action was taken.

But that effort predated the new benchmark stock assessment, and its finding that the striped bass stock was both overfished and subject to continued overfishing.  

Before that assessment came out, managers could still choose to believe that the stock wasn’t having serious problems; while spawning stock biomass was well below the target level, they could find comfort in data saying that the stock was not overfished, that overfishing wasn’t occurring, and that no management action was needed.

The benchmark assessment completely fractured that narrative.  

As I listened in on the Management Board’s February 2019 meeting, the main impression I got was that everyone was somewhat shocked at the news, and were somewhat at a loss about what to do.  The usual gadflies who, in the past, consistently tried to increase landings didn't say very much, while the staunchest conservation advocates on the Management Board were very reserved when they made comments.

Management Board Chairman Michael Armstrong, a state fishery manager from Massachusetts, probably summed up the prevailing sentiment when he observed

“It’s clear we need to do something,”

but added no further details.

Lacking both a final version of the stock assessment—which, everyone admitted, was unlikely to change—and any sort of recommendation from the technical folks, the February meeting wasn’t a time for action.  Instead, it was a time for managers to sit back for a minute, think deeply about the data, and try to figure out what to do.

As a practical matter, there was probably little reason for haste, as both the ASMFC's management process, and the regulatory process in the various states, tends to move slowly, and it seemed unlikely that any measures adopted in response to the benchmark assessment would be effective in 2019.  Even so, it now appears that some states are beginning to move forward, on their own, with measures intended to reduce fishing mortality, and it’s not impossible that more states will still follow suit.

Massachusetts seems poised to be the first state out of the box.  It is liikely to adopt modest restrictions that would require the use of circle hooks for all bait fishing and prohibit the use of gaffs to land striped bass.  While such regulations wouldn’t, by themselves, be enough to end overfishing, they would go a long way to reduce the number of bass that die after being released, and thus would help to reduce overall fishing mortality.

Virginia seems willing to go a step farther.  The Virginia Finfish Management Advisory Committee is going to meet on March 25, and when it does, it will consider a number of possible management measures.  Those possible measures include a circle-hook requirement, which would bring Virginia into alignment with a rule already in place on Maryland’s side of Chesapeake Bay.  But other proposed measures include allowing anglers to take only one striped bass measuring 36 inches or more in each year, a 3- or 4-fish boat limit, increasing the Chesapeake Bay size limit to 28 inches (the current size limit in Chesapeake Bay is 20 inches), along with other measures that would substantially limit Virginia anglers’ striped bass landings.

It’s not clear whether Virginia will actually adopt any such rules, or whether any other states are planning to change their 2019 striped bass regulations.  However, it is clear that state regulators are concerned with the condition of the striped bass stock.

A recent article in the Bay Journal, a publication that reports on news related to Chesapeake Bay, quotes Maryland fisheries manager Michael Luisi as saying

“We had all hoped that the results of the assessment would be a little better.  It is clear that we need to do something.”

That’s an important statement since, over the past four or five years, Luisi has been one of the more consistent proponents of an increased striped bass harvest.  

In November 2015, a time when the harvest reductions imposed by Addendum IV had not even been in place for one season, he moved that the Management Board reconsider such reductions, and possibly allow a bigger kill.  He later moved to indefinitely postpone action on that motion, but in October 2016 again sought to increase harvest,  in order to increase fishing mortality from an estimated 0.16 in 2015 to the statistically indistinguishable target of 0.18.  

One year later, in October 2017, he strongly recommended that the Management Board consider changing the reference points used to evaluate the health of the stock, to allow for a smaller spawning stock biomass and a higher fishing mortality rate, a position that he reiterated in a motion made in May 2018. 

Thus, his statement that something needs to be done to address the health of the stock is a very welcome event.

But, again, we don’t know what that “something” will turn out to be.

The Management Board could decide to honor the commitment it made when it adopted Amendment 6 to the management plan, and initiate a plan to rebuild the stock in no more than ten years.

Or, it could decide to ignore that obligation, and put some lesser measure in place that ends overfishing in the near term, but makes no affirmative effort to rebuild the stock.

However, the first step to resolving any problem is to acknowledge that it exists.  From all of the recent news, it seems as if many state managers have now gone that far.

And that, in itself, is progress.

Now, it’s our job to convince them to go the rest of the way, and rebuild the striped bass population to levels that it has achieved, and even exceeded, in the not-very-distant past.  

For it can achieve such abundance again if everyone involved is willing to take the actions needed to get it there.