On
April 30, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Atlantic Striped Bass
Management Board will meet for more than four hours, to discuss the
2018 benchmark stock assessment, and its conclusion that the striped bass stock
is both overfished and subject to overfishing.
The actions that the Management Board decide to take at that
meeting will likely determine the health of the striped bass stock, as well as
the health of the striped bass fishery, for many years into the future.
If the Management Board acts responsibly, and moves quickly
to end overfishing and rebuild the bass stock, we should see both the stock and
the fishery recover fairly soon.
However, if the Management Board dawdles, adopts ill-advised
half-measures, or chooses to change the reference points that define a healthy
stock and a sustainable fishing rate, we could be looking at further declines
and perhaps even the sort of fishing that some of us remember—and try to forget—from
back in the 1980s.
The good news is that people who matter seem to be concerned
about where the stock is heading. On April 17, the top marine resource managers
in three states, Virginia, Connecticut and Massachusetts, sent a letter urging
prompt action to Jim Gilmore, ASMFC’s current Chairman.
That’s a good sign.
But the big question is what, exactly, ASMFC ought to do.
Probably the first thing to be said is that they ought to do
something. Ever since Addendum
IV to Amendment 6 to the Atlantic Striped Bass Interstate Management Plan
was adopted in 2014, there
have been some voices on the Management Board who have complained that its
terms are too restrictive, and that new, more permissive regulations should be
put in place.
ASMFC’s policy on such matters is clear. It’s Interstate
Fisheries Management Program Charter states that
“It is the policy of the Commission that its [Interstate
Fisheries Management Program] promote the conservation of Atlantic coastal
fishery resources, be based on the best scientific information
available, and provide adequate opportunity for public participation. [emphasis added]”
The Charter also states that
“Above all, [a fishery management plan] must include
conservation and management measures that ensure the long-term biological
health and productivity of fishery resources under management.”
To better achieve that objective, the Charter includes
standards for its management plans, including one that that reads
“Conservation programs and management measures shall be
designed to prevent overfishing and maintain over time, abundant,
self-sustaining stocks of coastal fishery resources. In cases where stocks have become depleted as a
result of overfishing and/or other causes, such programs shall be designed to
rebuild, restore, and subsequently maintain such stocks so as to assure
their sustained availability in fishable abundance on a long-term basis. [emphasis added]”
“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.”
It also requires that
“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 the
timeframe established in Section 2.6.2.”
Section 2.6.2 allows the Management Board to set any
rebuilding timeframe that it deems appropriate, so long as that timeframe does
not exceed ten years.
The new benchmark stock assessment has found that the
striped bass stock is both overfished and subject to overfishing. Thus, according to the policy and standards
set forth in the Charter, along with the language of the fishery management
plan, the Management Board’s course seems clear.
The problem is that, in
the past, ASMFC has failed to live up to its own conservation policy and
standards. And when the
previous benchmark assessment came out in 2013, and found that fishing
mortality was regularly exceeding the target, and that the female spawning
stock biomass had fallen below its target and remained there for a few years, the
Management Board ignored another directive included in Amendment 6, which
states that
“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 timeframe established in Section 2.6.2.”
This time, as the letter mentioned earlier suggests, it
seems that state fishery managers are serious about fixing the striped bass’
problems. But we can never forget that
states only get one vote on any management matter, and that a state fishery
manager’s professional advice can be overruled by the other two members of a
state delegation, who are generally political appointees with little or no
background in fisheries science. Thus,
despite positive signs, it’s not a given that the Management Board will do the
right thing.
And, if they do take action, there is bound to be a lot of
discussion about what that “right thing” will be.
Hopefully, most will agree on the basics, which are nothing
more than the requirements set out by Amendment 6: Reduce fishing mortality to the target level
within one year, and rebuild the stock within ten.
Neither of those things should be too hard to do. Ending overfishing is merely a matter of
reducing landings, establishing commercial quotas, and recreational size
limits, bag limits and very possibly seasons, calculated to return fishing
mortality to the target level. And given
that Amendment 3 to
the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass
managed to restore a collapsed stock within ten years, it would be hard to
argue that a new addendum couldn’t restore the current stock to health, given
that bass are still in far better shape today than they were in 1985.
What will be hard will be convincing all of the governors’
appointees and legislative appointees and/or their proxies that rebuilding and
conserving the striped bass stock will be worth the short-term economic
inconvenience that such actions will inevitably entail—and, more to the point,
will be worth all of the political pressure that will be directed at them from
folks who feel that their income is directly related to the number of dead bass
that folks put on the dock.
But assuming that the Management Board gets over that
initial hump, and moves on to considering specific management measures, here are some measures that ought to be considered.
The size limit, both on the coast and in Chesapeake Bay,
needs to go up if we’re to end overfishing and rebuild the stock. We won’t know how much it needs to increase
until the Technical Committee; makes their calculations, and throwing a number
out prior to that is just taking a shot in the dark. But some sort of increase is inevitable.
If the Management Board wanted to hedge its bets and take a more
risk-averse approach, it could borrow a strategy from Amendment 3, and
establish size limits in Chesapeake Bay, and eventually on the coast, that increase
each year in order to shield the strong 2015 year class from significant
fishing mortality until the spawning stock is rebuilt. Even with such a limit in place, survivors of
the big 2011 year class would provide anglers with some fish to harvest during
the rebuilding process.
The coastal bag limit will, of necessity, remain unchanged,
as one fish is already as low as it can go; however, managers should ask whether
it would make sense to reduce Chesapeake Bay’s two-fish bag to one fish as
well. As for seasons, the Management
Board ought to seriously consider complete closures—yes, catch and release
would be outlawed, too--at times and in places where water temperature,
salinity or other physical conditions typically result in high levels of
discard mortality.
To further reduce the number of fish that don’t survive
release, circle hooks should be required in all bait fisheries likely to
encounter striped bass.
To maximize the impact of such regulations, they should be
required for all coastal states, with complimentary, but also consistent,
rules adopted for Chesapeake Bay. Currently, ASMFC’s striped bass management
plan embraces the concept of “conservation equivalency,” and allows states to
adopt regulations different from those established by the plan, so long as such
regulations provide the same benefit to the fish being managed. Yet such equivalency is too often theoretical;
there has been little or no follow-up to assure that “equivalent” regulations actually
meet their conservation goals.
“Management measures need to be measurable and achievable. Too often we do things that look good on
paper but don’t meet the necessary conservation requirements.”
That’s a particular problem with overfished stocks such as
striped bass. ASMFC’s Conservation
Equivalency: Policy and Technical
Guidance Document notes that
“During the development of a management document, the Plan Development
Team (PDT) should recommend if conservation equivalency should be permitted for
that species. The board should provide a
specific determination if conservation equivalency is an approved option for
the fishery management plan, since conservation equivalency may not be
appropriate or necessary for all management programs. The PDT should consider stock status,
stock structure, data availability, range of the species, socio-economic
information, and the potential for more conservative management when stocks are
overfished or overfishing is occurring when making a recommendation on
conservation equivalency.
[emphasis added]”
Keeping every state on the same regulatory page would allow
data to be collected and analyzed on a coastwide basis, leading to more
accurate harvest estimates and a better understanding of the efficacy of whatever
regulations are ultimately adopted.
If conservation equivalency is permitted at all, it should
be conditioned upon states being held accountable for their “equivalent”
regulations. If they do not meet the
mandated harvest reductions, whether expressed as a percentage, in fish or in
pounds, they should be required to pay back such overage in the following
year. States adopting such equivalent
regulations might argue that state-level landings estimates are not
sufficiently accurate to be used in such a manner, but if such estimates are
deemed to be accurate enough to be used to calculate conservation equivalent
measures, than there is little reason why they shouldn’t be deemed accurate
enough to be used to calculate accountability measures, too.
For states that stick with the management measures specified
in the management plan, and don’t seek conservation equivalency, accountability
measures should be imposed on a “fleet-wide” basis. That is, an individual state, which adopted
the coastwide management measures approved by ASMFC, would not be held
accountable if such state failed to meet the mandated harvest reduction in any given
year. However, if the entire coast, or
all of Chesapeake Bay, failed to achieve the required reduction, regulations
would have to be tightened to better assure success in the following year.
Such a provision would help to avoid a repeat of the
situation that occurred after the adoption of Addendum IV, when anglers in
Chesapeake Bay, who were supposed to reduce their landings by 20.5% (compared
to landings in 2012), actually increased their landings substantially,
continue to harvest fish at much higher levels that the addendum contemplated,
and have not been held accountable at all.
It should be noted that such accountability measures would
not be completely foreign to the ASMFC, nor to its striped bass management
program, although they would represent a new approach to recreational striped
bass management. Accountability has long
been imposed on the commercial striped bass fishery, where states are required
to pay back any overages in the following year.
Also, given that the striped bass stock is overfished and subject
to overfishing, it makes little sense to transfer quota between the recreational
and commercial sectors in order to increase a state’s landings. For example, in New Jersey, which has
eliminated its commercial fishery, anglers are allowed to keep a
third striped bass, at least 24 but less than 28 inches long, after
September 1, in addition to the state’s two-fish “conservation equivalent” bag
limit. That third fish comes out of New
Jersey’s unused commercial quota, and allows Garden State anglers to harvest immature female striped bass
throughout the fall run—hardly the best situation when managers are trying to rebuild
the stock.
Finally, the Management Board
should seriously consider whether management measures that have only a 50%
chance of success—and an equal likelihood of failure—are appropriate when
trying to end overfishing and rebuild the overfished striped bass stock. Regulations that have a higher chance of
success will pinch a bit more in the short term, but are more likely to avoid even
greater pain later on.
A 50% chance of failure is just too
high.
It’s unlikely that many fishery
managers would risk all of their personal assets in a business venture that has
a 50-50 chance of going bankrupt. They
shouldn’t be willing to accept more risk on a management venture that has a
50-50 chance of squandering a public resource.
The striped bass is arguably the
most important recreational fishery on the East Coast. It is an important, and very valuable asset.
We can only hope that fishery
managers treat that public asset with as much care as they would treat an asset
of their own.
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