Over the past few years, it was pretty clear to anyone who regularly fishes for Atlantic striped bass that the stock was declining badly, even before the latest benchmark stock assessment, released in 2019, confirmed what most serious fishermen already suspected—that the stock was overfished and suffering from overfishing.
The ASMFC has a dismal
record when it comes to rebuilding overfished stocks. Its “ASMFC Stock Status Overview,”
last updated in June 2021, reveals that out of the 23 stocks managed solely by
the ASMFC (it manages other stocks jointly with the National Marine Fisheries
Service), 11 are currently overfished, and that it has allowed the only
overfished stock that it ever successfully rebuilt, Atlantic striped bass, to
become overfished once again.
Amendment 6 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic
Striped Bass (Amendment 6) contains provisions, deemed
“management triggers,” that require rebuilding. Management Trigger 2 states
that “If the Management Board determines that the biomass has fallen below the
threshold in any given year, the Board must adjust the striped bass management
program to rebuild the biomass to the target level within [no more than 10
years].”
While that trigger addresses what the Management Board must do if the stock becomes overfished, a second trigger, Management Trigger 4, requires action when the stock isn’t yet overfished, but is nonetheless in decline. It says that “If the Management Board determines that the female spawning stock biomass falls below the target for two consecutive years and the fishing mortality rate exceeds the target in either of those years, the Management Board must adjust the striped bass management program to rebuild the biomass to a level that is at or above the target within [no more than 10 years].”
The ASMFC isn’t
governed by the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery
Conservation and Management Act (Magnuson-Stevens), which only
applies to fisheries prosecuted in federal waters; even so, Management Trigger
2 is similar to Magnuson-Stevens’ requirements for rebuilding overfished
stocks, while Management Trigger 4 is actually more prescriptive than the
federal law.
In the case of striped
bass, they did it twice in less than ten years.
The first time was in
2014, after a previous benchmark stock assessment,
released in 2013, revealed that management trigger 4 had been
tripped. The clear language of Amendment 6 allowed no room for discretion; it
stated that the Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board (Management Board)
“must” adopt a 10-year rebuilding plan. Yet both the Management Board and ASMFC
staff ignored that injunction, with Michael Waine, then the ASMFC’s Fishery
Management Plan Coordinator for Atlantic Striped Bass advising the Management
Board that
“Management
Trigger 2 [sic] in Amendment 6 says that you need to rebuild the [spawning
stock biomass] back to its target over a specified timeframe that should not
exceed ten years…The board is acting to reduce [fishing mortality]. Through
that action we see the projections showing that [spawning stock biomass] will
start increasing toward its target, but we’re uncomfortable with projecting out
far enough to tell you when it will reach its target because the further on the
projections we go the more uncertainty that is involved. Therefore, I think the
trend is to get back towards the target, but we can’t tell you exactly how
quickly that will happen.”
Of course, as we now
know, the stock didn’t rebuild at all. In the absence of a rebuilding plan,
instead of the spawning stock biomass “increasing toward its target,” it
continued to decline, until the stock became overfished.
Even then, the
Management Board failed to heed the plain language of Amendment 6, and did not
put a rebuilding plan in place. Instead, it adopted the ineffective Addendum VI to Amendment 6 to the Atlantic Striped Bass Interstate
Fishery Management Plan: 18% Reduction in Removals & Circle Hook Measures (Addendum
VI), which had only a 42% probability of reducing
fishing mortality to the target level.
Despite the unambiguous language of Management Trigger 2, it did not include a 10-year rebuilding plan.
Once that addendum was
completed, the Management Board began work on a new Amendment 7 to its striped
bass management plan. It decided that the “guiding themes” for such amendment
would not be rebuilding the striped bass stock, as might be expected, nor
managing such stock for its long-term health and sustainability. Instead, the
Management Board envisioned a management plan built around the bureaucratic
ideals of management stability,
flexibility, and regulatory consistency, themes that would provide
formal sanction for any Management Board failures to act in the face of
declining abundance and increasing fishing mortality.
Fortunately, stakeholders insisted that the Management Board do better. They submitted over 3,000 individual comments, in which striped bass fishermen from every part of the coast were nearly unanimous in their demands that the striped bass be managed for abundance, not for yield, that the stock be rebuilt within 10 years, and that the current reference points—the levels of spawning stock biomass and fishing mortality used to gauge the health of the population—remain unchanged.
Recognizing that the public had spoken, the Management Board largely acceded to public demands, and agreed not to change the goals and objectives, reference points, or rebuilding timelines that were established in Amendment 6. But they did not agree with the public comments that supported the management triggers. Instead, it directed that changes to such management triggers be considered in the upcoming amendment.
Thus, the Plan
Development Team (PDT) was told to develop new options for management triggers
that might be included in the first draft of Amendment 7; some Management Board
members emphasized the need for those proposals to promote management
stability, flexibility, and consistency, despite the public rejection of such
themes. Following the instructions that they were given, members of the PDT
designed management trigger options that would allow the Management Board to
delay remedial actions; instead of management changes being triggered by a
single year of overfishing, a two or three or five year average of fishing
mortality exceeding the threshold might be required before any effort to reduce
landings began.
And when it came to
overfishing, the most remarkable proposal of all was made: A PDT member suggested
completely removing the trigger that required rebuilding an overfished stock.
That doesn’t mean that
Management Trigger 2 will, in the end, be removed from the management plan.
Before that could happen, the Management Board would first have to agree to
include that suggestion in the initial draft of Amendment 7, which will be sent
out for public comments.
Given the public’s
overwhelming support for rebuilding the stock, expressed in the last round of
comments, it’s hard to believe that a proposal to eliminate Management Trigger
2 would get any support at all. And we can only hope that the Management Board
would yield to public sentiment on that issue.
It’s also difficult to
reconcile the Management Board’s decision to maintain the 10-year rebuilding
timeline with any proposal to eliminate the management trigger that requires rebuilding,
for what use is a timeline when rebuilding need never occur?
Still, the fact that
the ASMFC would even consider eliminating the
requirement to rebuild an overfished striped bass stock is extremely troubling.
The ASMFC has not
lived up to such obligations, even under current management plans. If it
chooses to blatantly abandon its responsibility to rebuild an overfished
striped bass population, it will be time for the public to intervene, and
compel the ASMFC to get the job done.
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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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