STRIPED BASS AMENDMENT 7--NAVIGATING THE PID: PART IV, CONSERVATION EQUIVALENCY AND ANGLER ACCOUNTABILITY

In the last three editions of One Angler’s Voyage, I dealt with what might generally be considered the biological aspects of the Public Information Document for Amendment 7 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass.  Today, I’ll address two blatantly political aspects of the PID:  Issue 6, Management Program Equivalency (Conservation Equivalency) and Issue 8, Recreational Accountability.

I’m grouping the two topics together, because both are political issues that can best be summed up as ways that individual states, and an individual sector, can escape the full burden of their conservation responsibilities under the management plan, and push those burdens onto the shoulders of other states, or onto the striped bass stock itself.

Let’s start with conservation equivalency, the practice of allowing states to adopt regulations that differ from those adopted by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, but theoretically have the same conservation impacts on the managed stock.

The ASMFC’s most recent position on the use of conservation can be found in its publication Conservation Equivalency:  Policy and Technical Guidance Document, which tells us that “conservation equivalency” includes

“Actions taken by a state which differ from the specific requirements of the [fishery management plan], but which achieve the same quantified level of conservation for the resource under management.  One example can be, various combinations of size limits, gear restrictions, and season length can be demonstrated to achieve the same targeted level of fishing mortality.  The appropriate Management Board/Section will determine conservation equivalency.  [emphasis added]”

In theory, that sounds reasonable.  But the same publication also tells us that

“In practice, the ASMFC frequently uses the term “conservation equivalency” in different ways depending on the language included in the plan.”

That difference between theory and practice has already hurt the striped bass.  While both the ASMFC’s Charter and its guidance document refer to conservation equivalency measures that “achieve the same quantifiable level of conservation for the resource under management,” the PID reveals the other face of conservation equivalency which arises, “in practice,” when conservation equivalency isn’t used to achieve the same level of conservation for the resource through alternative management measures, but instead uses alternative regulations to seek the same level of harvest reduction for all states’ fishermen.

When it employs conservation equivalency in that manner, the Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board weakens the overall effectiveness of its own management measures, and makes it less likely that such measures will adequately address the problems faced by the striped bass.  We saw that in the recent adoption of Addendum VI to Amendment 6 to the Atlantic Striped Bass Interstate Fishery Management Plan which, because of conservation equivalency proposals adopted by New Jersey and Maryland, has only a 42 percent probability of achieving its management goal; such a high likelihood of failure would be legally impermissible for federal fishery managers, but isn’t given a second thought at the ASMFC.

As veteran Management Board member, and long-time conservation advocate, Dennis Abbott, the legislative proxy from New Hampshire, observed at the Management Board’s August 2019 meeting,

“Many anglers through the years have expressed to me and others the strong displeasure with varying regulations.

“Its disparity is principally due to the generous application of conservation equivalency.  I may be wrong, but I don’t know of any conservation equivalency application that isn’t really intended to increase mortality of striped bass.  In my many years in the State Legislature, I always held the belief that when one is advantaged someone else is going to be disadvantaged.

“We’re here today in part because some of us have been advantaged, and we’re all here to pay the piper…  [emphasis added]”

Conservation equivalency, when used for political and/or socioeconomic, rather than biological, reasons, can only hurt the striped bass stock.  But even when used as it was originally intended, to allow states to adopt alternative regulations that supposedly have the same conservation impact as those adopted by the Management Board, it is a flawed concept.

A big reason for that can be attributed to the ASMFC’s attachment to one of the three “themes” of the PID, management stability, in a natural environment where the only true constant is change.  

Conservation equivalent regulations try to freeze time, assuming that the striped bass population will look the same in the future as it did in the year upon which the supposedly “equivalent” regulations were based.

To see why that doesn't work in the real world, we can look at a real-world example, Maryland recreational regulations in 2015. 

Pursuant to Addendum IV to Amendment 6 to the Atlantic Striped Bass Interstate Fishery Management Plan, Maryland anglers were expected to reduce their striped bass fishing mortality by 20.5 percent, compared to 2012.  Maryland anglers primarily fish on little striped bass, with most of their harvest composed of immature fish that haven’t yet had a chance to contribute to the spawning stock.  In 2012, the Maryland size limit was 18 inches, and the fork length of the vast majority of the fish landed fell between 17 and 21 inches.  That would be roughly equivalent to 3- and 4-year old bass, from the 2008 and 2009 year classes.

Both of those year classes were below average.  The Maryland juvenile abundance index for 2008 was 3.20, and for 2009 it was 7.87, both well below the long-term average of 11.7.  So in constructing its conservation equivalency program, Maryland adopted a 20-inch minimum size, which would theoretically reduce its landings by 20.5 percent compared to 2012.

But the Chesapeake Bay striped bass population in 2015, when the new conservation-equivalent rules took effect, looked nothing like it did in 2012.

There had been a big year class produced in 2011; the Maryland juvenile abundance index was 34.58, three times the long-term average.  By 2015, those 2011 bass were four years old; that was reflected in Maryland’s landings, which were dominated by 20- to 22-inch (fork length) fish.  Because of the flood of 2011 bass into the fishery, Maryland not only failed to reduce recreational landings to approximately 570,000 bass, as contemplated by Addendum IV, but instead increased such landings substantially, to 1.1 million fish in 2015, 1.5 million in 2016, 1.1 million in 2017, 1.0 million in 2018, and a little under 0.8 million in 2019, the last year when Addendum IV was in force.

Not only did Maryland never achieve the reductions contemplated by Addendum IV, but length frequencies show that much of the harvest during the peak years came from excessive removals of the 2011 year class, the same year class that Addendum IV was intended to protect.

But the Management Board, consistent in its desire for “management stability,” did nothing to reduce Maryland’s landings.

That brings us to conservation equivalency’s companion topic:  recreational accountability.

While most the striped bass management plan places hard quotas on the commercial fishery, and even requires pound-for-pound paybacks when those quotas are exceeded, it places no such constraints on the recreational sector.  As the Maryland example demonstrates, anglers are managed only by a “soft” fishing mortality target, and face no consequences for exceeding such target, even if such overharvest continues for years.

That doesn’t help to maintain fish stocks at sustainable levels, particularly in the case of stocks which, like striped bass, see the overwhelming majority of fishing mortality generated by the recreational sector.  It undoubtedly contributes to the fact that, in sharp contrast to federal fishery managers, the ASMFC has failed to successfully rebuild a single stock of fish that is under its sole jurisdiction, and then maintain such stock at sustainable levels over the long term.

There are many keys to federal fishery managers’ success, all of which are probably contrary to the PID’s themes of “management stability” and “flexibility.”  Pursuant to the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, federal fisheries managers must base their actions on the best available science, prevent overfishing, promptly rebuild overfished stocks, set annual catch limits for each managed species, and hold fishermen accountable when those limits are exceeded.

So long as the ASMFC and its Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board are more concerned with management stability and flexibility, and in addressing the short-term socioeconomic concerns of a handful of stakeholders, than it is with rebuilding fish stocks and maintaining sustainability in the long term, its track record of failure will probably extend far into the future.

Thus, it’s refreshing to see that the PID raises the issue of recreational accountability, and asks

“Should the Board consider implementing [a recreational harvest limit] for recreational striped bass management?”

If we really want to maintain the long-term health and stability of the striped bass stock in the long term, the answer to that question is yes.  But, as always, the devil is in the details, with the states most addicted to conservation equivalency most opposed to being held accountable when their supposedly “equivalent” regulations don’t work.

The biggest obstacle to recreational accountability is the inherent level of uncertainty in the Marine Recreational Information Program; there is always some level of error in any survey, and MRIP is no exception.  Even a manager such as Rhode Island’s Jason McNamee, who generally favors the concept of recreational accountability, has expressed concerns about how such error ought to be treated, saying at the Management Board’s February 2020 meeting that

“I really like the concept, but this is not a trivial decision…what we’re talking about, in the case of striped bass, is accountability to a statistical sampling program, specifically MRIP.  I think that would be an extremely difficult situation to put a state in, and that would be to hold them accountable to a point estimate from a statistical survey.”

However, given that MRIP's level of uncertainty, expressed as "percent standard error" or "PSE," is generally tied to the number of anglers sampled—the more samples, the lower the level of error—the problem of holding states accountable to MRIP point estimates is one that can be addressed.

When striped bass harvest data is collected for the combined Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions, the PSE for the last five pre-COVID years—2015-2019—ranges from 6.8 to 9.9, which is certainly low enough for accountability purposes.  Such accountability, for the states that adhere to the Management Board’s recommended management measures and didn’t seek state-specific conservation equivalency, should be collective.  That is, compliance with the fishing mortality target would be calculated on a coastwide, and not on a state-by-state basis. 

Under such an arrangement, if anglers exceeded the coastwide fishing mortality target, then the Management Board would be expected to adopt more restrictive coastwide regulations to get such mortality under control; regulations would not be changed on a state-by-state basis.  

While such an approach would seem to fly in the face of the PID's theme of “management stability,” both stability and the required level of conservation could be achieved by setting, in addition to a recreational harvest limit, a recreational harvest target as well.  Based on the PSEs described above, a target, set 10 percent below the recreational harvest limit would prevent uncertainty from impacting regulations, while still protecting the bass from excessive harvest.

The approach would be different for states that opt for conservation equivalency, for they should be held accountable at the state level where the uncertainty in the MRIP data is substantially greater.  The PSE for New Jersey, one of the biggest beneficiaries of conservation-equivalent measures, during the period 2015-2019 ran between 14.0 and 25.6.  It’s understandable why New Jersey would not want to be held accountable for landings based on those numbers.

Yet such a position comes with a substantial share of hypocricy, as New Jersey has no problem seeking conservation-equivalent regulations based on such uncertain estimates.  Pursuant to Addendum VI, conservation equivalency was based on landings in 2017, when New Jersey's PSE was a whopping 24.9.  

I have not yet heard the state make a cogent argument as to why such uncertain MRIP estimates might appropriately be used to grant it a special advantage, compared to other states in the fishery, but are not appropriate for holding New Jersey accountableif its landings exceed the predicted level.

States opting for conservation equivalency should also be held accountable if their “conservation equivalent” regulations prove, in practice, not equivalent at all.

Thus, with respect to Issue 6, Management Program Equivalency, Amendment 7 should require that any proposed conservation equivalent measure “achieve the same quantifiable level of conservation for the resource under management,” and not merely address the differing impact of coastwide measures on individual states.  Conservation equivalency should only be used to address biological issues (e.g., the size of fish available in nursery areas such as the Hudson and Delaware rivers, and the Chesapeake Bay) rather than a state’s preference for a different bag limit, size limit, or season.

With respect to Issue 8, Recreational Accountability, a recreational harvest limit and, ideally, a recreational harvest target, should be established in the management plan, and anglers should be held accountable for exceeding such limits.  States that adopt the recommended coastwide management measures should be held accountable on a collective, coastwide basis, not individually.  However, states that deem their MRIP estimates accurate enough to serve as the basis for conservation equivalent measures should be held accountable, at the state level, should those measures fail to achieve the intended level of conservation for the striped bass resource.

Such an approach would end the current anarchic approach to conservation management, which allows states to adopt measures that weaken the overall impact of the fishery management plan, and suffer no consequences when such measures prove to be inadequate.

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In the next edition of One Angler’s Voyage, I’ll wander a short distance away from biology and politics, and address a philosophical issue:  Should Amendment 7 specifically address recreational release mortality and, if so, how should that be done?