2022: A REASONABLY GOOD YEAR FOR MARINE FISH CONSERVATION

 

Ever since 2014, when this blog first appeared, I’ve taken a look back on the year just past, and the successes and failures of the various fishery management bodies.  Taken as a whole, the fish didn’t fare badly in 2022.

There were a few clear wins, although none were monumental, and at least one significant loss.  Inshore, fishery management actions were a mixed bag; offshore, the direction was generally positive.

INSHORE:  The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission adopts Amendment 7 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass

Amendment 7 was one of the most high-profile management actions of the year.  Although the version finally adopted by the ASMFC wasn’t perfect—it fell a little short on reining in the use of conservation equivalency, did nothing to hold anglers accountable for overfishing, and allowed managers to delay taking action under certain circumstances—over all, the document represents a solid step forward in striped bass management.

The final result was particularly notable given where the process began.  When Amendment 7 was initiated late in 2019, at least some of its proponents viewed it as a vehicle that they could use to relax regulations, increase harvest and—although it wasn’t their intent—to place the long-term health of the stock in considerable jeopardy.  But thanks to the efforts of a few thousand concerned anglers, who cared enough to come out to two rounds of public hearings and to submit written comments on both the initial Public Information Document and the Draft Amendment 7, and thanks to a majority of Management Board members who listened to such anglers’ concerns, we ended up with a document that did not change the biomass or fishing mortality reference points, kept the existing triggers for management action intact, and added a new trigger that requires management action when recruitment flags.  The new amendment even addresses the contentious issue of conservation equivalency; although it still allows states too much freedom to act in that regard, it nonetheless places real sideboards around the use of conservation-equivalent measures, and completely prohibits new conservation equivalency measures when the stock is overfished.

It represents a real win.

Unfortunately, anyone who has dedicated much time to striped bass management issues knows all too well, wins can be transient, and there is always more work to do.  The Management Board’s release of the Draft Addendum I to Amendment 7 to the Atlantic Striped Bass Interstate Fishery Management Plan last November, and what appears to be a sharp increase in 2022 recreational striped bass landings, still threaten the stock’s recovery, and are issues that must be addressed in the upcoming year.

INSHORE:  The Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council and ASMFC Interstate Fishery Management Policy Board adopt “Harvest Control Rule”

For many years, the recreational fishing industry and affiliated “anglers’ rights” organizations have been working to undercut the conservation and management provisions of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act.  Much of their initial, unsuccessful efforts were focused on summer flounder in the mid-Atlantic and red snapper in the Gulf of Mexico.

Then, in 2014, the nation’s largest industry and anglers’ rights groups initiated a nationwide effort to weaken federal fishery managers’ ability to regulate recreational fisheries.  Their efforts culminated in 2018, when the Modernizing Recreational Fisheries Management Act was signed into law.  While the bill passed by Congress was far less offensive, and far less of a threat to U.S. fish stocks, than the legislation that was originally introduced, it contained somewhat vague language that gave the regional fishery management councils

“the authority to use fishery management measures in a recreational fishery (or the recreational component of a mixed use fishery) in developing a fishery management plan, plan amendment, or proposed regulation, such as extraction rates, fishing mortality targets, harvest control rules, or traditional or cultural practices of native communities in such fishery or fishery component.”

At the time, it wasn’t quite clear what such provision accomplished, as there was nothing in the law that prevented such measures from being employed even before the new law was enacted, provided that such measures prevented overfishing and, in necessary, allowed the timely rebuilding of overfished stocks.  However, provided with such clear mandate, a coalition of industry-connected organizations approached the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council, urging it to consider what was being called a “harvest control rule” to manage bluefish, summer flounder, scup, and black sea bass.

Such “control rule” would replace the previous management approach of comparing past landings with projected future harvest, and using the results of such comparison to set management measures.  Such approach was imperfect; it led to frequent changes in recreational management measures and frequently failed to constrain anglers’ landings to the recreational harvest limit.  It also constrained recreational landings of very abundant stocks, which supposedly harmed the angling industry.

On March 17, 2020, six industry-related organizations sent a letter to the Mid-Atlantic Council which said, in part, that

“we strongly support NOAA Fisheries using management approaches for our sector other than poundage-based quotas, which are best suited for commercial fisheries…

“That’s why we fully supported the Modern Fish Act (Public Law 115-405) signed by President Donald J. Trump on December 31, 2018.  Section 102 of the Modern Fish Act authorized the regional fishery management councils to use additional management tools more appropriate for recreational fishing…

“Over many decades, states have proven the ability to balance conservation and access by managing America’s millions of saltwater anglers through these approaches in state waters…”

 What such industry groups left unsaid was the repeatedly demonstrated truth that when state (or federal) fishery managers compromise the conservation needs of a fish stock in order to increase “access”—that is, to increase recreational landings—the fish stock rarely fares well in the long term. 

There is also a question of whether such management approach, which neither constrains recreational landings to the annual recreational catch limit nor provides any assurance that overall landings will remain below the acceptable biological catch, meet the legal mandates of Magnuson-Stevens.

Nonetheless, the Council and ASMFC went forward with the so-called “harvest control rule” (which, Council scientists made very clear, was not truly a control rule at all), ignored the concerns of some members of the Council’s Scientific and Statistical Committee, one of whom, Dr. Lee Anderson, observed

“I’m very concerned that if this [Harvest Control Rule] goes out, it is going to give the impression that there is science involved,”

and, despite the reservations of Mid-Atlantic staff, ultimately approved that management approach at their joint meeting last June.

The control rule was used to set 2023 recreational management measures for summer flounder, scup, and black sea bass, even though proposed regulations addressing such management approach, much less a final rule authorizing its use, had not been issued at the time.

The Council’s and ASMFC’s use of the so-called “Harvest Control Rule,” despite its dubious scientific merit, represents a clear loss to fisheries conservation.

Having said that, the comment period on the proposed regulations will remain open through January 17, 2023, so there is still a chance that, depending on the comments received, NMFS might still reverse the ill-advised management action.

INSHORE:  South Atlantic Fishery Management Council takes a small step toward little tunny (a/k/a “false albacore”) management

False albacore are one of those species that are loved by a lot of people, but suffer from a lack of biological information.

The American Saltwater Guides Association is trying shed a little light on the species’ movements in a groundbreaking tagging program that kicked off last summer, and is already providing new and previously unknown information.  What may ultimately prove even more significant, but has received less publicity, is that the Guides Association also requested that the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council begin to manage the little tunny resource, which is currently unmanaged throughout its range.

While we’re probably many years away from a little tunny management plan, the South Atlantic Council did, at its December 2022 meeting, agree to produce Fishery Performance Reports for the species at three-year intervals, and collect additional, related data that would hopefully allow managers to intervene should a threat to the species arise.

Such action represents a small yet very real win for an under-managed and data-poor species.

INSHORE:  Court rejects regulation banning midwater herring trawls in inshore waters

Amendment 8 to the Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Herring, adopted on January 11, 2021, created an inshore buffer zone that extended from the Canadian border to the western border of Rhode Island, within which large, midwater trawls were not allowed to operate.  Such buffer was created at the request of fishermen, whale watch tour operators, and others who complained that the use of midwater trawls led to the localized depletion of Atlantic herring, and so a dearth of herring predators essential to such complainants’ businesses.

The regulatory action was supported by testimony of such fishermen, whale watch operators, and others, who provided anecdotal evidence.  However, it was not supported by hard, objectively collected data.  As a result, on March 29, 2022, a U.S. District Court judge ruled that the regulation was not supported by the best available science, so violated Magnuson-Stevens’ National Standard 2, and was thus invalid.  NMFS ultimately decided not to appeal the judge’s decision, which strongly suggests that the rulemaking did, in fact, lack legal justification.

Whether or not the regulation was legally justified, forage fish are one of the pillars that support inshore ecosystems; the court’s decision allowing such forage species to be targeted by large-scale, industrial fisheries represented a conservation loss.

OFFSHORE:  NMFS calibrates states’ Gulf of Mexico red snapper data

For many years, various angling industry and anglers’ rights groups have objected to federal management of red snapper in the Gulf of Mexico, arguing that the regulations imposed by federal managers are overly restrictive.  In response, the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council adopted Amendment 50A-F to the Fishery Management Plan for the Reef Fish Resources of the Gulf of Mexico, which required NMFS to set the overall recreational harvest target and allocate a portion of such target to each of the five Gulf states, but allowed such states, each of which developed its own recreational data program, to set seasons and, within limited parameters, bag and size limits intended to keep recreational landings within each state’s quota.

The system seemed to work for a while, and was hailed by representatives of the various organizations, but then ran into a hitch after NMFS pointed out that the data compiled by each state’s program was compatible with neither the data compiled by the federal Marine Recreational Information Program nor the data compiled by the other Gulf states.  To fix the problem, NMFS would calibrate each state’s data into a “common currency” that would be interchangeable with the data used by the other jurisdictions.

When such calibration was done, it became clear that anglers in at least two of the states, Alabama and Mississippi, were exceeding their state allocations by a substantial amount, and that landings would have to be cut by 50% or more to bring them down to sustainable levels.  As is typically the case, the call for reductions led to substantial pushback from the recreational sector, which called on its allies on the recreationally-dominated Gulf Council to prevent, or at least delay, regulations that reflected such calibration.  

While such efforts paid off for a couple of years, on December 2, NMFS published final regulations in the Federal Register, which will finally put calibration into effect for the 2023 season.

Such regulations represent a win for red snapper conservation in the Gulf of Mexico.

Although there is still a chance that such regulations might be derailed by litigation or legislation, the likelihood of that happening is fairly low.  The window for bringing a legal action challenging the rule—30 days after publication—is closing quickly, while a divided Congress makes it very unlikely that legislation overturning the rule will be adopted by both houses; the legislators most opposed to current red snapper management are almost all Republicans, which means that even if a bill made it through the House of Representatives, it would face a tough slog in the more conservation-oriented and Democrat-controlled Senate, where it would have to receive 60 of 100 votes to be assured of passage.

OFFSHORE:  NMFS and the ASMFC prohibit the harvest of shortfin mako sharks in the Atlantic

There’s not too much to say on this management action.

The North Atlantic stock of shortfin mako sharks has been in sharp decline, a decline primarily attributable to bycatch of sharks in the pelagic longline fishery.  I have been an active participant in the recreational shark fishery off New York and southern New England since the late 1970s, and have observed a startling decline in shortfin mako numbers over the past decade.

Late in 2021, the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas agreed that shortfin mako harvest should be prohibited in the North Atlantic, unless fishing mortality was reduced to a very low, sustainable level.  The United States, as a member of ICCAT, was required to adopt conforming regulations.  NMFS did so on July 1 of this year; the federal action triggered a complimentary prohibition on the retention of makos in state waters, which was adopted by the ASMFC’s Coastal Sharks Management Board in May.

Such prohibition on landing a large pelagic shark, which is slow to mature and reproduces very slowly, is certainly a conservation win.

OFFSHORE:  The use of large-mesh drift gillnets to end in five years

In what might be the last conservation win of 2022, the Driftnet Modernization and Bycatch Reduction Act, which had been incorporated into a far larger federal spending bill, was signed into law on December 29.

Drift gillnets more than 2.5 kilometers long have already been outlawed by Magnuson-Stevens.  The new bill provides for the five-year phase-out of drift gillnets with mesh of 14 inches or larger, regardless of length.

Elimination of such large-mesh gillnets will substantially reduce the bycatch, and the discard mortality, of a host of sharks, sea turtles, and marine mammals.

It can only be seen as a conservation win.

OFFSHORE:  CITES lists 60 shark species on Appendix II

On November 25, the 19^th Conference on the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna, usually referred to as “CITIES,” listed 54 species of requiem sharks and 6 species of hammerhead on CITES’ Appendix II.

Appendix II species are those that are not necessarily threatened at this time, but which may become threatened, or even endangered, if international trade is not adequately controlled.  Once a species is listed on Appendix II, it may not be traded internationally unless the nation where they are captured certifies that such species is sustainably managed and is not endangered.  The CITES listing is significant because it includes about 90% of shark species that comprise the international trade in shark meat and, perhaps more importantly, shark fins.  Prior to the November action, only about 20% of such species were listed.

While hammerhead sharks, as a group, are easily recognizable, requiem sharks make up the largest collection of species.  The group includes such superficially similar species as the dusky and sandbar (brown) sharks caught off the U.S. East Coast, blacktips and spinners, and sharks often seen by divers in tropic waters, such as the Galapagos, Caribbean reef, silky, and whitetip reef sharks. 

Thus, the broad-based CITES action represents a win that will be felt throughout the world’s oceans.

Overall, the fish won more than they lost in 2022.  But 2023 is quickly approaching.  On Sunday, I’ll provide a quick overview, along with a few predictions, of the challenges we’ll face in the new year.