Striped
bass are one of the United States’ most important recreational fish. Between
2010 and 2019, anglers landed more striped
bass (measured in pounds) than any other saltwater fish.
The bass has paid for its popularity. A benchmark stock assessment released
in April 2019 found that female spawning stock biomass (SSB) had fallen so low
that the stock has become overfished. It also found that fishermen were still
removing too many bass from the water, subjecting the stock to continued
overfishing.
The benchmark assessment’s findings seemed to catch some state
fishery managers by surprise. But they didn’t surprise striped bass anglers, some
of whom had spent the past decade trying to convince the Atlantic States Marine
Fisheries Commission’s Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board to take steps to
reverse the species’ decline.
However, the management board showed no inclination to do so.
Over the past decade, it has been given repeated warnings that the SSB was in
decline, and that the striped bass stock was headed for trouble. Yet each time, the management board has opted to
either do nothing, or to take indifferent action that fell far short of what
was needed to rebuild the stock, even when rebuilding was explicitly required
in the striped bass management.
Its long history of ineffective management culminated in 2019
when, after learning that the striped bass stock was both overfished and
experiencing overfishing, the management board adopted an addendum to the striped bass
management plan that it knew was more likely to fail than to
succeed in reducing fishing mortality to its target level. At
the same time, the management board, for the second time in just five years,
ignored its clear obligation to initiate a 10-year rebuilding plan.
The management board has now embarked on a path that will end in
the adoption of a new amendment, Amendment 7, to its striped bass management
plan. Given the importance of the striped bass fishery, and the fact that the
striped bass stock is now overfished, we can only hope that the management
board will do everything in its power to ensure that the new amendment, when
finally adopted, will promote the long-term health and sustainability of the
striped bass stock.
That may be expecting too much from the management board.
For when the Public Information Document For Amendment 7 to the
Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass (PID),
which seeks public comment on the direction that Amendment 7 should take, was
released, we learned that the rebuilding the SSB and achieving sustainable
fishing mortality levels were not among the management board’s highest
priorities. In fact, those two pillars of competent fisheries management didn’t
appear to be priorities at all.
Instead, the PID informs readers that “The [Management] Board
identified management stability, flexibility, and regulatory consistency as
guiding themes for future striped bass management.”
That’s troubling, for the management board’s past embrace of two
of those favored “themes,” management stability and flexibility, only
accelerated the SSB’s decline.
Yet the management board seems eager to double down on its
flawed approach to striped bass management. The PID includes statements like
“the shorter timetables for corrective action [in the current management plan]
are in conflict with the desire for management stability,” and “a quota-based
management approach conflicts with the stated objective of management stability
for the fishery.”
Yet PID doesn’t comment on far more important questions: Would
shorter timetables for corrective action and a quota-based management approach
allow more effective management of the striped bass stock? Would such
management measures make it easier to rebuild the SSB, prevent overfishing, and
keep the stock from being overfished again?
After all, the primary job of the management board is to protect
the long-term health and sustainability of the striped bass stock.
Subordinating that obligation to a bureaucratic ideal like management stability
is a clear dereliction of the management board’s duty to both the public and to
the striped bass resource.
History teaches us how that works out.
In November 2011, the management board failed to reduce fishing
mortality after a stock assessment update warned
that striped bass would become overfished by 2017. Believing that the SSB was
still above the biomass target, it declared striped bass to be a “green light fishery,” decided
that any action taken to avert future problems would constitute “overmanaging,”
and opted for stability.
If the management board had instead taken decisive action when
the stock was still healthy instead of waiting for things to get worse, the
striped bass might not be overfished today.
History teaches us about “flexibility,” too.
A “Work Group” report,
which guided the PID drafting process, explained
Some [Work Group members] felt that
incorporating more flexibility into the management triggers [that require
Management Board action] could give managers the ability to make adjustments
that make sense while still being accountable for their management actions. For
example…there is a 1-year response [requiring the Management Board to take
action] for exceeding the F-threshold [and overfishing the striped bass
stock]…Some stakeholders support the 1-year requirement for change while others
believe that it promotes ‘knee-jerk’ reactions that may not always be
necessary. It was discussed that there could be a goal to find balance that
promotes conservation while also considering the impacts that changes in
regulation have on commercial and recreational industries.
Incorporating that sort of “flexibility” into Amendment 7 would merely
reinforce the management board’s inclination to do nothing when problems that
threaten the striped bass stock first arise, and can most easily be addressed.
Even without a formal endorsement of “flexible” striped bass
management, the management board ignored its
clear obligation to initiate a
10-year rebuilding plan in 2014, when the SSB was in steep
decline, and again in 2019, when it became overfished. Given the management
board’s track record of inaction when the bass stock is threatened, it’s
daunting to contemplate how little they’d do if such inaction was explicitly
condoned in Amendment 7.
The management board’s long history of inaction renders its
fixation on making management stability and flexibility the focus of Amendment
7 difficult to understand. A quarter-century ago, the striped bass stock was
declared fully recovered; recreational management measures that included a
2-fish bag limit and 28-inch minimum size for the coastal fishery, and
complimentary measures for nursery areas such as the Hudson River and
Chesapeake Bay, were adopted. Since then, recreational management measures were
only changed twice.
The first change came in 2014, in response to a stock assessment
that found the SSB in decline. The second came in 2019, after the stock was
declared overfished. Two changes over the course of twenty-five years, both in
response to clear and present threats to the health of the stock, hardly
justify such a focus on stability and inaction, instead of rebuilding the SSB.
If the management board was governed by the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery
Conservation and Management Act (MSA), as federal fishery
managers are, such issues would never arise, as MSA elevates the health and
sustainability of fish stocks above all other concerns.
Pursuant to MSA, managers must “develop annual catch limits…that
may not exceed the fishing level recommendations of its scientific and
statistical committee;” thus, such limits are set by scientists, not by the amateur fishery managers who
dominate the management board. If fishermen exceed those limits
in any given year, MSA holds them accountable for doing so.
Had striped bass been managed pursuant to MSA back in 2011, it’s
very likely that the management board’s scientific advisors would have set a
lower annual catch limit, and so reduced fishing mortality to prevent the stock
from becoming overfished. The management board would have been unable to idly
sit by and observe the SSB’s decline.
And
had bass been managed pursuant to MSA in 2014, when the management board,
finally recognizing the need to reduce fishing mortality, adopted Addendum IV to Amendment 6 to the Atlantic Striped Bass
Interstate Fishery Management Plan (Addendum
IV), the management board would not have been able to just sit on its hands and
watch when state regulations failed to adequately constrain fishermen’s landings.
That would have made a particular difference in Maryland where
anglers, instead of reducing their fishing mortality by 20.5 percent, increased it substantially.
Instead of landing 570,000 fish each year, as contemplated by Addendum IV, they
took home far more in every year between 2015 and 2019, reaching a high of over 1,500,000
striped bass in 2016.
The management board knew that, yet did nothing. Instead of
holding Maryland anglers accountable, it opted for management stability, and
allowed such excessive harvests to continue, while the SSB continued to decline.
Had MSA applied, Maryland anglers would have been held accountable for their
excesses. At the least, state regulations would have been changed to adequately
constrain anglers’ future landings, but pound-for-pound paybacks might also
have been in the cards.
If striped bass were managed pursuant to MSA back in 2014, the
Atlantic State Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) might also have found itself
in court. The ASMFC’s striped bass management plan clearly states that, when
the SSB falls below target for two or more years, and fishing mortality also
rises above its target level, “the Management Board must adjust the striped
bass management program to rebuild the biomass to a level that is at or above
the target [emphasis added]” in no more than 10 years. Such management trigger
was tripped in 2014, but the management board took no action.
It could ignore the clear language of the management plan
because, in 2010, a federal appellate court found
that the ASMFC’s management actions weren’t subject to judicial review under
the Administrative Procedures Act. MSA, on the other hand, specifically
provides for judicial review of all actions taken under its aegis.
In 2019, when the striped bass was found to be both overfished
and experiencing overfishing, MSA would have made even a bigger difference.
Although the management plan required the management board to
initiate a 10-year rebuilding plan upon learning that the stock had become
overfished, that provision of the management pan was, once again, ignored.
Depending on how Amendment 7 turns out, such rebuilding may never occur. If
bass had been governed by MSA, the management board would have been legally
obligated to implement a rebuilding plan no more than two years after being
notified that the stock was overfished. Under such a provision, rebuilding
would have been underway by May 2021, in time for the upcoming season.
Even the limited action that the management board did take, when
it implemented Addendum VI to Amendment 6 to the Atlantic Striped Bass
Interstate Fishery Management Plan (Addendum
VI) at the end of 2019, wasn’t enough to meet the MSA’s standards. Addendum VI
was intended to reduce fishing mortality to the target level, but because the
management board allowed states to adopt their own, flexible regulations, and
so limited Amendment VI’s effectiveness, the addendum only has a 42 percent
probability of achieving its goal. Under MSA, that’s not good enough;
management measures must have at least a 50 percent chance of success
to pass legal muster.
At the management board’s February 2021 meeting, Dr. Justin
Davis, Connecticut’s chief marine fisheries manager, advised the board that
stakeholders were “losing faith” in the management board’s stewardship of the
striped bass stock. Dr. Davis is right.
How can stakeholders not lose faith in a management board that
has repeatedly failed the striped bass, and believes that maintaining
“management stability” is more important than promptly rebuilding an overfished
stock?
At one time, the federal fishery management councils were just
as ineffective as the management board. They failed to rebuild overfished
stocks, didn’t get fishing mortality under control, and, like the management
board, often prioritized the short-term wants of the fishing industry above the
long-term needs of fish stocks.
Congress responded to that problem by passing the Sustainable Fisheries Act of 1996, which amended the
MSA to include clear legal standards for the conservation and management of
federal fisheries. Ten years later, Congress amended MSA again,
to require science-based annual catch limits for all managed species, and hold
fishermen accountable when those limits are exceeded. Now, MSA is arguably the
most successful fishery management law in the world.
Considering the management board’s history of inaction when
faced with a declining and depleted stock, it may take similar congressional
action to secure the future of the striped bass, and restore stakeholder’s
faith in the ASMFC’s management system.
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This
essay first appeared in “From the Waterfront,” the blog of the Marine Fish
Conservation Network, which can be found at http://conservefish.org/blog/
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