ASMFC'S UPCOMING STRIPED BASS AMENDMENT: GET READY FOR A TOUGH FIGHT

Last Tuesday, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board voted, 15-1 (New York was the only state opposed) to begin a new amendment to the striped bass management plan.

The wording of the motion, which was made by Maryland’s Michael Luisi, was

“I move to initiate an Amendment to the Atlantic Striped Bass Fishery Management Plan focused on the following management topics: 1) Fishery Goals and Objectives; 2) Stock Rebuilding/Timeframe; 3) Management Triggers; 4) Biological Reference Points; 5) Regional Management (Recreational Measures, Coastal and Producer Areas, Regional Reference Points); 6) Recreational Dead Discards; 7) Conservation Equivalency; 8) Recreational Accountability; and 9) Coastal Commercial Quota Allocation.  Each of these topics will be presented in a Public Information Document in order to solicit stakeholder comment focused on prioritizing the importance of each topic for continued development and inclusion in the Amendment.”

The motion touches on just about every important aspect of striped bass management, and relies heavily upon the ASMFC Work Group document that I discussed a week ago.  Luisi argued that everything should be considered in a Public Information Document, and that the Management Board should then be guided by the comment that the public makes.

That all sounds good, until you realize a few things:

First, the Management Board gets to decide on the options that receive comment, and how those options are worded. 

It can, if it chooses, leave questions completely open, and say things such as “What do you want the striped bass stock to look like in the future,” and “What is more important to you, having large numbers of striped bass, having large striped bass, or being able to harvest more striped bass?”

It can also offer specific options, asking whether the reference points used to gauge the health of the stock (fishing mortality target and threshold, and female spawning stock biomass target and threshold) should be based on 1995, when the stock was declared recovered, on 1993, when the female spawning stock biomass was smaller but still produced a strong year class, or on various models that have not yet passed peer review, but might allow for a bigger kill in the Chesapeake Bay, which is something that Luisi is always trying to achieve.

But without going into great detail on the risk each set of reference points might pose to the long-term health of the striped bass stock, the questions themselves could be steering the comments received from a public that is not completely informed.

A number of Management Board members expressed a concern that COVID could impact the public input process, with Dr. Michael Armstrong, the Massachusetts fishery manager, expressing his view that on-line hearings don’t work out very well, and that nothing should go out to the public for another year or so, when holding in-person hearings is less likely to be an issue. 

It’s a valid concern, for no one knows how COVID could impact the public hearing process.  Will people feel more comfortable testifying on-line rather than in person, with so many commenting that they inadvertently jam up the process, and so impact other people’s ability to be heard?  Will those who don’t like some aspect of striped bass management—whether on the pro-conservation or pro-harvest side—intentionally try to interfere with the process, perhaps by getting so many people to sign on that the hearing can’t be held at all ?

Some states may have regulations preventing large gatherings, making hearings in those venues effectively impossible.  In other states, where hearings may be held, will the comment be biased because those who don’t believe the medical advice on COVID are largely congruent with those who don’t believe the scientific advice on striped bass, so they will come out to present their positions while the more scientifically literate, and perhaps more conservation-oriented, stakeholders stay home?

And will the Management Board consider that when crafting the new amendment, or will it take all comment at face value, without considering its source?

We might have reason to worry, because the New Jersey reps were pushing hard to hold virtual hearings, and we know how they always come out with respect to bass conservation…

But the big worry is that, based on the Work Group report, the process appears to be stacked against striped bass conservation.  The three “themes” that emerged from the Work Group process were management stability, flexibility, and regulatory consistency.  None of those things are particularly good tools for effective, adaptive management in the face of a troubled striped bass population.

The striped bass has already suffered from too much management stability, in situations that saw the Management Board unwilling to adopt regulations in response to a declining biomass.  Consider the words of Tom Fote, New Jersey’s Governor’s Appointee, at the November 2011 Management Board meeting, after a stock assessment update informed the Management Board that the stock would become overfished by 2017.

“…how can I be a hypocrite and go out to my public in New Jersey and basically say, oh, by the way, we’ve been doing so great with striped bass and there is really no—we haven’t hit any of the [management] triggers [in the fishery management plan that require Management Board action if fishing mortality is too high and/or the striped bass biomass is too low] and now I’m going to reduce your catch by 40 percent.”

If I was sitting in his place, I’d consider a warning that the stock would become overfished a call for corrective action, but even giving Fote the benefit of the doubt, and agreeing that no management document then required the Management Board to take action, look at his reaction in May 2014, after the 2013 benchmark stock assessment informed the Management Board that the fishing mortality rate had been over target for a number of years, and that the female spawning stock biomass was below target in some of those years as well, conditions that tripped management triggers calling for both ending overfishing within one year and rebuilding the stock within ten.

“At 33 percent or whatever we’re going to wind up as a reduction here, at that level is a huge amount of reduction in one year.  I mean, we have a recreational fishery and a commercial fishery that are in trouble up and down the coast, between the storms and between everything else that is affecting them, the price of gas and everything else—and there is a social and economic impact to do this.

“…I’m looking at this and if we want to do something, let’s do in incrementally because two years from now when the regression analysis says we’re not even close to mortality, I don’t have to sit here and say I told you so.”

So in 2011, he argued against adopting no regulations because no management triggers were tripped, and in 2014, after two management measures were tripped, he was still trying to prevent, or at least slow down, the adoption of needed conservation measures.  Which could lead one to believe that management triggers were never the real issue.

And, of course, we now know that after a few years had passed, and a new scientific analysis came out, the 2018 benchmark stock assessment didn’t justify Fote’s position, but instead found that things were worse than believed, and that the stock was both overfished and experiencing overfishing, which was a clear indication that, far from being unnecessary, the management measures that Fote opposed in 2014 weren’t strict enough.

But that didn’t faze Fote, for even after the benchmark assessment declared the stock to be both overfished and subject to overfishing, and so tripped yet two more management triggers, he kept fighting management measures, saying

“I’ve also been down this road before, as you made me change my slot limit years ago, when I basically go for a regulation and four years down the road, three years we find we were not in as bad shape as we thought we were.   I think there were a lot more reasons [other than a dearth of striped bass] why we saw a 25 percent reduction [in recreational striped bass landings] in 2018; if that’s the number.  I think that is going to continue because of the drop off of anglers going out, and reduction of trips again.  I would really think it’s important so we can justify, because if people see we have a 25 percent reduction when we need a 17, we average it out between [20]16, [20]17, and [20]18.  It will smooth it out some and we should have an idea with the ’18…”

The problem is that there is an institutionalized reluctance to reduce harvest on the Management Board and throughout the ASMFC.  Fote may be one of the loudest and most outspoken opponents of needed, science based management measures, but there are plenty of others who agree with his general philosophy.  That was, unfortunately demonstrated by the fact that, although four separate management triggers were tripped since the 2013 benchmark assessment was released, the Management Board completely ignored two of them; while it did adopt the minimum measures needed to bring fishing mortality down to target, it completely ignored the requirements to rebuild the spawning stock biomass.

So if the new amendment emphasizes even more regulatory stability and flexibility, you can imagine how little they’ll do to assure the striped bass stock’s long-term health.  As Capt. John McMurray, New York’s Legislative Proxy, noted at Monday’s preliminary Management Board meeting, if “flexibility” means ignoring the science, permitting overfishing and not rebuilding overfished stocks, most striped bass anglers are against it.

But that doesn’t mean that we won’t see rebuilding deadlines and management triggers diluted, and perhaps the spawning stock biomass target lowered, in the name of “flexibility,” because Fote isn’t the only Management Board member out there who wants to see a bigger kill, and the new amendment is their only vehicle to achieve that goal.

There also seems to be a strong sentiment on the Management Board to limit catch and release.

Yes, you heard that right.  Catch and release, or at least the mortality that accompany releases, was seen as the number one issue that the Management Board needs to address. 

Quite honestly, there is a lot of release mortality; the latest benchmark assessment revealed that it actually exceeds the mortality from recreational landings.  But that’s what’s going to happen when anglers release more than 90% of the striped bass that they catch; harvest declines, and release mortality increases.  Yet, even though a dead fish is a dead fish, and a bass that succumbs to release mortality is no more dead, and does no more harm to the stock, then one that is whacked on the head and tossed into a cooler, release mortality is seen by yield-oriented fisheries managers as a far greater “problem” then fish tossed in a box.

Capt. McMurray tried to explain that in a fishery that is 90% recreational, and with a 90%-plus recreational release rate, release mortality is going to seem high, but that managers should learn from other primarily catch-and-release fisheries, such as bonefish and tarpon, where release mortality is probably close to 100% of all fishing mortality. 

Predictably, Fote took umbrage at that, and characterized the striped bass fishery as catch-and-harvest, but whined that because catch-and-release kills so many fish, it leads to more restrictive regulations and prevents kill-oriented anglers from binging more fish home.

Fote’s colleague, Adam Nowalsky, New Jersey’s Legislative Proxy, jumped on the same argument, ignoring the intent of Capt. McMurray’s point that other jurisdictions have learned to manage primarily recreational, primarily catch-and-release fisheries.  He acknowledged that the data supported Capt. McMurray, but then made a tangential argument that tarpon and bonefish weren’t food fish, while the striped bass is.  So, perhaps, Capt. McMurray should have used permit, or Atlantic salmon, or the trout found in no-kill waters to make his point, because it was a valid one—fisheries should be managed for their primary uses, which in the case of striped bass is recreation.

One size—based on yield, does not fit all.

But that’s too novel a concept for most of the Management Board to grasp.

Thus, conservation-minded anglers are going to have their work cut out for them on the new amendment.  States such as Maryland, New Jersey and Delaware, along with the Potomac River Fisheries Commission, with be fighting for a bigger kill and a smaller biomass, for more flexibility and less science-based management. 

Other states will support conservation, but always with caveats.  Catch and release will likely be in many of their sights.

And complicating the entire process, the impacts of COVID-19, both with respect to data and to public input, will make informed comment more difficult.

This will likely be the last big striped bass fight of my lifetime, and the lifetimes of my contemporaries.  I’ll do what I can to win it, but understand that I’ll largely be fighting for to have a healthy striped bass stock in someone else’s future, and not in mine.

And I’ll know as I do so that there will also be folks on the other side, who don’t care if your grandkids ever see a striped bass, so long as they get their payout now.

How each of us responds to the coming challenge will likely determine who prevails.