STRIPED BASS AMENDMENT 7: IT'S NOW UP TO YOU

 

Yesterday, as expected, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board hastily agreed to approve the Public Information Document for Amendment 7 to its striped bass management plan, and send it out for public comment.

Releasing the Public Information Document is the first step toward drafting and adopting a new amendment to the ASMFC’s Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass, and could result in real and significant changes in the way striped bass are managed for the next couple of decades.  If Amendment 7 gets things wrong, and the bass population goes into steep decline, those of us who lived through the first stock collapse probably won’t live long enough to see them recover from the next one—assuming that recovery is on the table.

Now that the Public Information Document has been approved for release, the ASMFC will soon make it available on its website, and begin seeking public comment on the issues raised in the PID.  The public comment that results will go a long way toward shaping the rest of the Amendment 7 debate.

Thus, it would make sense for the Management Board to get everything right, and make sure that the PID provides the public with all of the information that it needs to make rational, fully informed comments on striped bass management when they get their chance to do so.  Last week, I suggested—without much hope that it would actually happen—that the Management Board ought to slow down for a while, and not take any more action until the ASMFC can hold in-person meetings on the PID; get reliable data on how Addendum VI to Amendment 6 to the management plank, adopted last October, was impacting fishing mortality; and perhaps even see the results of two important new studies being conducted by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, which could provide information that will be very relevant to the Amendment 7 process.

But getting the PID right didn’t seem to be as important to the Management Board as getting a flawed document out to the public as quickly as possible.

And the PID is certainly flawed. 

Capt. John McMurray, the legislative proxy from New York, did his best to put it on the right track, but found himself fighting alone.  Thus, when the average angler, who doesn’t follow fisheries issues very closely, reads the PID, that angler will be presented with the statement that

“the 2007 and 2013 benchmark assessments, indicated female [spawning stock biomass] was above the [spawning stock biomass] was above the target for a period of time during the early 2000s.  This fits our understanding of striped bass population dynamics, as the population was considered to be at a historically high level during that time period…Given the 2018 benchmark assessment found overfishing was occurring and the [spawning stock biomass] was below the target even during those years that the spawning stock biomass was at a historically high level, the current reference points may be unattainable.  [emphasis added]”

Go back and re-read that section, and maybe go back and read it a third time, and let its full meaning set in. 

Wade through the words long enough, and you realize that they’re arguing that, because fishery managers at the ASMFC knowingly allowed too many bass to be removed from the population under Amendment 6, the failure of the overfished stock to achieve the target spawning stock biomass proves that such biomass could be “unattainable.”

What the PID doesn’t say is that there is not a shred of science to support the statement; the latest benchmark stock assessment, which was peer reviewed by a panel of recognized experts, suggests that if fishing mortality was reduced to target, target spawning stock biomass could be achieved. 

Yet the Management Board had no problem sending that sort of biased language out to stakeholders, at least some of whom are likely to believe that it’s true.

Worse, because the language in question says that the “current reference points,” and not merely the current biomass reference points, are unattainable, it’s also suggesting that it may be impossible to reduce fishing mortality to the target level, something that is patently untrue.  The only reason that fishing mortality is too high today (I can give the Management Board some benefit of the doubt for it being too high 15 years ago, because back then, no one realized how many bass recreational fishermen were really removing from the stock) is because every time it is given a chance to reduce fishing mortality to the science-based target, the Management Board fails to summon the political courage to impose the needed harvest restrictions. 

Instead, it repeatedly caves in to New Jersey and Maryland and anyone else who wants to kill too many striped bass.

Yet when Capt. McMurray pointed out that the PID shouldn’t include statements that were unsupported by science, not a single Management Board member stood with him to support that seemingly obvious truth. 

Meagan Ware, a fisheries scientist from Maine and one of the co-chairs of the Work Group that provided recommendations on the scope of the PID, did admit that she was “uncomfortable” with the PID’s statement about the reference points, and added the following qualifying words to the section:

“given current objectives for fishery performance.”

I’m not sure whether that made it better or worse, since the qualification essentially admits that the only reason that the reference points might be “unattainable” is that at least some states’ “current objectives for fishery performance” is simply to harvest as many bass as possible, without regard for the health of the stock.   

On the other hand, the current “objectives for fishery performance” spelled out in the management plan include

“Manage striped bass fisheries under a control rule designed to maintain stock size at or above the target female spawning stock biomass level and a level of fishing mortality at or below the target exploitation rate, [emphasis added]”

“Maintain fishing mortality to maintain an age structure that provides adequate spawning potential to sustain long-term abundance of striped bass populations [emphasis added]”

and

“Establish a fishing mortality target that will result in a net increase in abundance (pounds) of age 15 and older striped bass in the population, relative to the 2000 estimate.”

There’s certainly nothing in any of those current objectives—which were all formally approved and adopted by the ASMFC—that would render the current reference points “unattainable.”  All would takes is summoning the courage to follow through with what the Management Board had promised the public it would do when Amendment 6 was adopted in 2003.

So far that sort of moral courage has been in notably short supply at the Management Board. 

It was definitely lacking yesterday, when no one other than Ms. Ware and Capt. McMurray was willing to admit that there might be something wrong with foisting a scientifically unproven statement off on an unsuspecting striped bass fishing public (and there were more such statements included in the PID but not discussed, including one warning that “management measures focusing on reducing discards could discourage participation from anglers that value food fish and negatively impact the industry that caters to those anglers”), and then seeking their comments in response.

I couldn’t help but notice that those who typically champion “conservation” in the abstract were notably absent from the discussion of that particular topic.

Yet, when you look at the history of the ASMFC, there’s nothing new about a handful of Management Board members wanting to kill too many bass, and the rest of the Management Board letting them do it.

I can still recall the fight over Amendment 6 to the striped bass management plan that took place twenty years ago.  There was one contingent who wanted to focus on yield, and set the target fishing mortality rate at 0.41, which was thought, at the time, to approximate maximum sustainable yield.  I was part of another contingent who, armed with data developed by the Northeast Fisheries Science Center, recommended setting the target somewhere between 0.20 and 0.25, which would have allowed more large spawning females to survive, and so increase the number of larger, older fish in the spawning stock. 

The Management Board ended up cutting the baby in half, setting a compromise fishing mortality target of 0.30 that supposedly

“provides a higher long-term yield from the fishery and adequate protection to ensure that the striped bass population is not reduced to a level where the spawning potential is adversely affected.”

But cutting the baby in half, while perhaps a fair compromise, doesn’t do the baby much good, and the current state of the striped bass population pretty well shows us how such compromises typically work out for the bass.  The latest benchmark stock assessment informs us that the appropriate fishing mortality rate is about 0.20—at the low end of the range that we were arguing for back in 2001.

So yes, the Management Board had reason to know that they were allowing too many bass to be killed back in 2003, and so also has reason to know, today, that if proper regulations were put in place, the current reference points would probably not be “unattainable.”  But they also know that it could be politically unpopular among some constituencies and in some states to adopt such rules, and maybe that’s why they had no problem letting the bad language stand.

Now that the PID has been approved for release, it’s up to you—up to us—to shepherd a reluctant Management Board down the right path, and keep them from exposing the already-depleted striped bass stock to additional hazard.

It’s not going to be easy. 

Maryland seems to have a lot of sway with the Management Board, and Michael Luisi, the Maryland fisheries manager, has already begun his push for a bigger kill.  John Clark, his counterpart from Delaware, is just as avidly looking to reduce the biomass target and increase Delaware’s commercial landings—at yesterday’s meeting, he took full credit for putting the “unattainable” language in the PID.  And New Jersey, well, you know where they always stand.

To steal a line from President George W. Bush, those three states constitute an “axis of evil” on the Management Board, that will continue to threaten the long-term sustainability of the striped bass stock unless they are decisively defeated.

Twenty years ago, when Amendment 7 was being drafted, we faced the same sort of opponents of striped bass conservation—in one or two cases, it’s still the same people who are calling for a bigger kill.  Back then, we didn’t get the fishing mortality target that we wanted, but we also prevented the target from being set at 0.41, which in itself was a sort of win.  And we convinced the Management Board to adopt the objectives of maintaining the age structure of the spawning stock and increasing the number of older, larger fish in the population.  Those were wins, too, even if they were smaller wins than we were hoping for.

Today, when I look at the PID that was approved yesterday, it feels like we’re back where we were two decades ago, making the same arguments, for the same reasons, that we did back then.  Although then we were dealing with a healthy and, we thought, fully restored stock, while today we’re dealing with a stock that is overfished and in need of recovery.

It’s a stock that needs a real win even more than we do.

So now, with the PID approved and being released to the public soon, it’s time to forget about the times that the Management Board didn’t listen to public comments, and shake off the disappointments of past defeats that might make us want to throw up our hands in frustration.  For make no mistake—if you’re anywhere close to might age, this is the big fight that could decide how striped bass are managed for the rest of your lifetime. 

I’m gearing up for the fight, and you should be getting ready, too.  You can’t afford to sit on the sidelines.

Having said that, I do think that yesterday’s meeting should have been rescheduled for February 2^nd, instead of the 3^rd.

Because after being part of the fight over Amendment 6, which was bitter and lasted three years. when I heard the Management Board push through the flawed PID, containing all the same issues we debated back then, it sure as Hell felt just like Groundhog Day.