STRIPED BASS: WILL THE ASMFC LISTEN THIS TIME?

 On the afternoon of Wednesday, May 5, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board will meet to decide on its next steps toward the development of the proposed Amendment 7 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass.

Last week, in anticipation of that meeting, the ASMFC published a summary of all of the public comment received during the period that ended April 9.  ASMFC staff did an extremely good job of summarizing and objectively analyzing such comments; a quick perusal of those comments indicates that an overwhelming majority of the public supports strong striped bass conservation measures, and are far more interested in a healthy bass stock than they are in “flexibility” or “management stability.”

In all, the ASMFC received 3,063 comments, which included 2,397 that constituted some sort of form letter, 616 written by individual stakeholders, and 50 submitted by various recreational angling, fishing industry, and conservation organizations. 

In that regard, it was particularly heartening to see mainstream conservation organizations, which historically have not been heavily engaged in striped bass management issues, supporting striped bass conservation this time around.  So I’d like to recognize, and personally thank, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, which stated that

“the recent benchmark stock assessment paints a concerning picture for the current status of the striped bass population with the stock being both overfished and currently experiencing overfishing.  The current stock status is both a symptom of recent management choices as well as a call to action,”

and included, among its many recommendations, that

“Considering the long history of excess mortality, ASMFC should focus on ensuring fishing mortality is reduced to appropriate levels in order to allow the age structure of the population to expand;”

The Nature Conservancy, which observed that

“Two decades ago, striped bass management was considered a national success story.  Managers and stakeholders widely celebrated the successful rebuilding of the striped bass population, and in the years that followed the striped bass fishery took its place as the premier inshore sport fishery in many East coast states.

“Unfortunately, the dedication and commitment it took to rebuild the striped bass population were not maintained.  Consequently, the striped bass population and the quality of the fisheries it supports have been declining.  The fact that problems with this fishery have manifested for over a decade, that measures to effectively curtail fishing mortality were not taken much sooner, that a rebuilding plan of ten years or less has not yet been adopted, and that state conservation equivalency provisions have repeatedly been used in ways that appear counter to what is needed to assess and achieve coast-wide fishing mortality and biomass goals have collectively been eroding stakeholder confidence in the ability of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission to accomplish the intended long-term objectives for striped bass, and several of the other fisheries managed by the Commission;”

and Wild Oceans which, among other things, asserted that

“When the 2019 Atlantic striped bass stock assessment concluded that striped bass are once again overfished, we urged the Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board to initiate a rebuilding program that does not exceed 10 years, as required by Amendment 6 to the Atlantic Striped Bass Interstate Fishery Management Plan (ISFMP).  It has been nearly two years since the release of the stock assessment, and the Board has yet to take up the issue of developing a rebuilding plan.  The Board’s most pressing priority should be restoring striped bass stocks to healthy levels.  A rebuilding plan that will restore striped bass to the target biomass by 2029 should either be incorporated in Amendment 7 or initiated through an addendum action at the spring 2021 meeting.”

It’s heartening to have those voices on our side of the issue.

And I’m very comfortable saying “our” side, as the great majority of stakeholders who commented supported strong conservation measures.

For example, when it came to Question 1, whether the current goal and objectives ought to be changed, out of 1,698 written comments addressing the issue, 1,676 (98.7%) stated that such goals and objectives should not be amended.  That broke down further into 119 out of 130 (91.5%) of individuals, 1,530 out of 1,534 (99.7%) of the form letters, and 27 out of 34 (79%) of the organizations that commented on the issue.

Another item worth noting is that, out of the 119 individuals who commented on the goal and objectives, all 119—fully 100%--stated that bass should be managed for abundance, and not for yield. 

With respect to the issue, ASMFC staff noted that

“Many comments noted the goals and objectives are sound but the problem is the Board has not adhered to the goal and objectives…

“A notable amount of comments stated striped bass should be managed for abundance rather than managing for harvest or yield…Some individuals and form letters noted that the management themes, especially flexibility and management stability, should not override the goals and objectives of the [fishery management plan].

“Regarding the timing of Amendment 7, some commenters noted concern about developing a new amendment before a rebuilding plan is put in place to address the overfished stock and before there is information available on the effectiveness of Addendum VI measures put in place to reduce fishing mortality.  [emphasis added]”

Given the comments on the goals and objectives, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that stakeholder sentiment on changing the biological reference points was even more overwhelming, with 2,668 out of 2,678 (99.6%) comments on the issue supporting the status quo.  Again, the sentiment was equally distributed across all categories of comment, including 237 out of 243 (97.5%) of individuals, 2,389 out of 2,389 (100%) of form letters, and 42 out of 46 (91.3%) of organizations.

On this issue, ASMFC staff noted that

“An overwhelming majority support maintaining 1995 as an appropriate reference year and basis for the [biological reference points].  Many comments noted concerns that changes to the [biological reference points] were being considered and commenters noted that not achieving the target thus far is not a reason to change the [biological reference points]…”

The biological reference points issue received the most comments of any of the issues considered in the Public Information Document For Amendment 7 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass.  That being the case, it’s somewhat surprising that far fewer stakeholders commented on the triggers for management action and the maximum time to rebuild the striped bass stock, because without meaningful triggers and prompt rebuilding, the biological reference points lose a lot of their meaning.

Still, the response to those issues is consistent with the earlier responses.

Out of the 407 comments on management triggers, 209 (51.4%) supported maintaining the existing triggers, while 185 (45.5%) support the current spawning stock biomass and fishing mortality triggers, but would like to see a more effective trigger to address low recruitment.  Again, such preference extended across all comment categories, with support for either all triggers or just the biomass and fishing mortality triggers expressed by 132 of 136 individuals (97.1%), 242 of 242 form letters (100%), and 20 out of 29 organizations (69%).

With respect to the 10-year rebuilding period, none of the 519 comments received on the issue suggested that rebuilding should be extended beyond 10 years, although there were 32 comments that 10 years was too long.

So it’s pretty clear that virtually no one wants striped bass to be managed any less conservatively than they are today.  ASMFC staff observed that

“Many comments noted concern that there is not yet a rebuilding plan in place to address the current overfished status of the stock.  Commenters noted the Board should adhere to this rebuilding requirement as specified in Amendment 6 and should act quickly to implement a rebuilding plan to address the overfished status tock [sic] by 2029 (10 years after the last benchmark stock assessment results were adopted for management use).  Many commenters expressed a need for urgency to implement a rebuilding plan and take action in response to triggers more quickly.”

The goals and objectives, biological reference points, management triggers and rebuilding timeline represent the heart of the management plan, as they define a healthy stock and the management actions that should be followed to get there.  But the Public Information Document also addressed some other issues that were more about providing the Management Board with some guidance about how to rebuild and maintain a sustainable stock than about what such a stock should look like.

The first of those issues was the possibility of a regional management approach.  On the whole, stakeholders didn’t like the idea, largely because there wasn’t enough peer-reviewed science available to support it.  Out of 806 comments on regional management, 770 (95.5%) said that regional management was a bad idea.

It’s not clear how many comments were received on the next procedural issue, conservation equivalency, a doctrine that allows states to adopt regulations different from the management measures adopted by the Management Board, so long as such measures are calculated to have the same conservation impact. 

The total number of comments on the issue listed by ASMFC staff actually exceeds the number of comments made on the entire PID, which can be attributed to the fact that the comments aren’t mutually exclusive; a commenter can, for example, take the position that conservation equivalency should only be employed if the stock is not overfished, and also take the position that a state should be held accountable if its conservation equivalency measures fail to adequately constrain recreational landings.

But the one thing that can be said with complete certainty is that conservation equivalency is at best viewed with suspicion, and at worst is disliked by many stakeholders.  That is made very clear in the ASMFC staff’s report, which reveals that just 35 commenters supported retaining conservation equivalency as a part of the management plan, while more than seventeen times that number—612 individuals and organizations—believe that it should be completely removed.  Of those with more nuanced opinions, 1,527 believe that conservation equivalency should only be used if the stock is not overfished or experiencing overfishing, while 1,463 commenters noted that if conservation equivalency is employed by any state, such state should be held accountable if its supposedly “equivalent” measures don’t adequately constrain landings.

Such strong support for accountability when conservation equivalency is used stands in stark contrast to the response to the question of whether anglers as a whole should be held accountable; only 294 comments were received on that question, and of those comments, only 19 (6%) felt that including recreational accountability language in Amendment 7 would be a good idea.  Of those, the majority, 180 comments (62%) felt that the issue was “too complex” to be a part of the Amendment 7 process, while 38 commenters (12.9%) were completely opposed to the concept of angler accountability.

When all of the numbers were crunched and all of the comments analyzed, it became clear that stakeholders very strongly support striped bass conservation, and oppose compromising the long-term health of the stock in order to increase landings.  

I’ve been involved with striped bass conservation since the mid-1970s—since before the stock collapsed—and in the nearly 50 years that have passed, I have never seen such lopsided support for conservation measures.

Just look at those numbers again:  98.7% of the comments support the current goals and objectives of the striped bass management plan, with 99.6% supporting the current biological reference points.  96.9% support the current spawning stock biomass and fishing mortality management triggers; `100% of commenters believe that the stock should be rebuilt in no more than 10 years, with some believing that rebuilding should occur sooner.  95.5% of the comments opposed regional management, and just about no one liked the way conservation equivalency is currently being utilized to manage striped bass.

If public sentiment governed the Management Board’s actions, it probably would stop work on Amendment 7 right now, and merely initiate a new addendum to limit the use of conservation equivalency in the striped bass management program.

Unfortunately, striped bass management is governed not by public sentiment, or by science, or by any set legal standard, but by the unfettered discretion of the Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board, and there is no guarantee that the Management Board will heed what the public thinks about striped bass management.

It has certainly not adhered to public preferences in the past.

John Papciak, an angler who fishes out of Montauk, New York, put it this way:

“I can’t help thinking back to the ASMFC call of October 30, 2019 when our public feedback was discussed.  I remember New York’s James Gilmore commenting on how public input clearly showed support ‘up and down the coast’ for a larger striped bass size (1@35) over all the other management options being offered.  The public acknowledged that a larger size worked, and the fishery recovered [after the collapse of the late 1900s].  Gilmore’s comments came just before the Commissioners went ahead with their own agenda anyway, and pushed through something entirely different, a slot size.  There is a long-standing pattern here, of collecting such public input—and then disregarding it…

“As I see it, the problem goes way beyond providing input to a specific document here.  ASMFC is facing a vote of no-confidence from the public.

“It is understood ASMFC is not legally bound to the management and legal standards that one might expect within the Regional Fishery Management Councils.  There appears to be little appetite to bring this body up to that type of standard.  Instead, we see Commissioners regularly looking to exploit loopholes in management plans (in the name of “flexibility”), and ignoring stock assessments.  This only delays or defers rebuilding plans.  A strong case can be made that the Commission should cease moving forward with any new Management Plans.  Instead, it should be completely restructured to work more like a Council, or be absorbed by a Council in the name of regulatory streamlining.

“The Public Information Document (PID) for Amendment 7 is a hastily prepared paper which appears to draw attention away from significant administrative failures with the execution of the current Striped Bass Management Plan.  The stock is now overfished, yet there are no ‘Lessons Learned’ being shared here.  There are no credible studies to guide the public in understanding any broad new set of objectives.  The reader is left wondering the motivation behind curious opening sentences (“the status and understanding of the striped bass stock and fishery has changed considerably which raises concerns that the current management program no longer reflects current fishery needs and priorities”).  It is highly unlikely that the final product of this Amendment 7 proposal, as written, could ever drive the rebuilding of a stock that nearly everyone agrees is a shadow of its former self.”

It’s fair to say that, at this point, the Management Board, if not the entire ASMFC, is on trial.

Stakeholders have made it abundantly clear that they want the striped bass stock to be rebuilt as soon as possible—and in any event, within no more than ten years—and managed conservatively, with the emphasis on abundance, not yield, once the stock is restored.

There is no excuse for the Management Board not to yield to the overwhelming public sentiment on this matter.

Thus, if the Management Board moves forward with a draft Amendment 7 that seeks to materially alter the goal and objectives of the management plan, or that seeks to adopt new biological reference points, or that would give the Management Board the “flexibility” to ignore management triggers, or that drags out rebuilding beyond ten years, then it will be manifestly clear that the Management Board does not even pretend to represent the public interest, and instead is representing only itself.

Should that prove to be the case, the Management Board should understand that the public will then feel obligated to protect its own interests, and will seek to limit the Board’s freedom to act in a way that continues to put the striped bass stock at risk.     

-----

NOTE:  In the original version of this blog, I said that my comments were not included in the package prepared for the Management Board.  I was in error; the comments were, in fact, in the package.  My thanks to ASMFC staff, who (unlike some on the Management Board) are working hard trying to do things right.