At its May 2023 meeting, the Atlantic States Marine
Fisheries Commission’s (ASMFC’s) Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board
(Management Board) learned that recreational striped bass landings had nearly
doubled in 2022 and that, unless fishing mortality was reduced, there was little chance that
the striped bass stock would be rebuilt by the 2029 deadline established in
the striped bass management
plan.
In response, the Management Board took emergency action,
establishing a 31-inch maximum size limit for the recreational fishery
(Emergency Action). It also unanimously adopted a motion which read
Move to initiate an Addendum to implement commercial and
recreational measures for the ocean and Chesapeake Bay fisheries in 2024 that
in aggregate are projected to achieve F-target from the 2022 stock assessment
update (F=0.17). Potential measures for the ocean recreational fishery should
include modifications to the Addendum VI standard slot limit of 28-35″ with
harvest season closures as a secondary non-preferred option. Potential measures
for Chesapeake Bay recreational fisheries, as well as ocean and bay commercial
fisheries should include maximum size limits. The addendum will include an
option for a provision enabling the Board to respond via Board action to the
results of the upcoming stock assessment updates (e.g. currently scheduled for
2024 and 2026) if the stock is not projected to rebuild by 2029 with a
probability greater than or equal to 50%.
Since then, the ASMFC’s Atlantic Striped Bass Technical
Committee (TC) and Atlantic Striped Bass Plan Development Team (PDT) have been
collaborating on a draft Addendum II to Amendment
7 to the Atlantic Striped Bass Interstate Fishery Management Plan (Addendum
II), which the Management Board will consider when it meets on the afternoon of
August 1, 2023.
The draft Addendum II generally reflects the Management
Board’s motion. It contains options that, if ultimately adopted by the
Management Board, will increase the likelihood that the striped bass stock will
rebuild by the 2029 deadline. The final shape of Amendment II will depend, in
large part, on whether a majority of the Management Board remains committed to
stock rebuilding in the face of the inevitable stakeholder opposition, and
whether the public turns out to the hearings in large enough numbers to support
rebuilding measures.
Recreational Options
When the TC and PDT began to consider recreational
management measures, it quickly became clear that a slot limit alone would not
be enough to reduce fishing mortality to the target level; closed seasons, when
no striped bass harvest would be permitted, will also be required. Draft
Addendum II thus includes what is probably an overly-complicated matrix of
possible size and bag limits for recreational fisheries in the ocean and in the
Chesapeake Bay.
In the ocean, stakeholders are presented with three
possible slot size limits, including the 28- to 31-inch limit set by the
Emergency Action, a slightly wider 28- to 32-inch slot, or a 30- to 33-inch
slot that would satisfy some anglers’ preference to take home larger fish.
While that preference is understandable, the primary goal of the
Emergency Action was to reduce the harvest of bass belonging to
the large 2015 year class, which are needed to rebuild the spawning
stock. Draft Addendum II states that
“the age-9 2015 year-class in 2024 has an estimated average length of about
34″,” so a 30- to 33-inch slot limit would extend less protection to the 2015s
than the other two options, and would seemingly contradict the Emergency
Action’s intent.
Although an average-sized, 9-year-old striped bass might be
34 inches long, individual fish can vary significantly from such average
length; that’s why, although the average member of the 2015 year class is 31.6 inches long in 2023,
the Emergency Action’s 31-inch maximum size is only expected to protect “over 50%,” and
not all, of that year class from recreational harvest. In 2024, a 30- to
33-inch slot limit would expose a significant minority of the 2015 year class
to recreational harvest. Maintaining the Emergency Action’s 28- to 31-inch slot
would minimize such exposure.
Whatever slot limit is ultimately chosen (and the
Management Board will probably leave more than one option, and perhaps all
three, in the draft addendum that is sent out for public comment), it will have
to be matched with an appropriate closed season, although such seasons present
their own problems. Fishing doesn’t peak in every state at the same time, and a
closure that has a real impact in Maine might be ineffective in Maryland; while
a coastwide season is included among the options for the 28- to 31-inch slot,
it would be a poor choice for the Management Board.
Draft Addendum II’s solution is to break the coast into two
or three regions, setting a different season for each. Some of those seasons
would require states in southern New England and the upper mid-Atlantic to
close their seasons at some point during November and December, when the bass’
southbound migration is already well underway, and so might not be as effective
as earlier closures. Otherwise, picking the right season will be more a matter
of stakeholder preference than of efficacy.
Options for the Chesapeake Bay’s recreational fisheries
face somewhat different issues. Although the bay is a relatively small area,
none of its four jurisdictions maintain the same striped bass regulations; each
has its own combination of bag limits, size limits, and seasons.
To address that situation, draft Addendum II includes two
options which leave the current minimum size and bag limits intact, add
additional season closures to the closures already in place, and lower the
maximum size to either 23 or 24 inches; four which would establish a 20-inch
minimum size, set a maximum size somewhere between 24 and 28 inches, and adopt
additional season closures, while leaving current bag limits intact; and two
others which would set a 1-fish bag limit, a 19- or 20-inch minimum size, and a
23- or 26-inch maximum size bay-wide, but would leave each jurisdiction’s
current season intact.
While all of the bay options would probably achieve the
target reductions, adopting more consistent regulations across all bay
jurisdictions would certainly help the TC when it came time to evaluate the new
regulations’ impacts on the spawning stock, help keep anglers from becoming
confused when they cross jurisdictional boundaries, and make it more likely
that recreational fishermen would comply with the new rules.
Beyond that, the only other concern, which applies to all
of the recreational options, both for the ocean and the Chesapeake Bay, is that
they put the onus of striped bass rebuilding squarely on anglers’ shoulders,
while asking little of the commercial sector. As draft Addendum II
notes, “The proposed commercial fishery options consider maximum
size limits. Depending on the option selected by the Board, quota reductions
may or may not be implemented with these size limit changes…a reduction in
commercial removals could not be assumed, and so is assumed to be 0%.
Consequently, to achieve the required overall reduction, the recreational
sector must take a 16.1% reduction.”
There is little question that, if the striped bass stock is
rebuilt, the commercial sector will benefit. That being the case, that sector
should also bear some of the responsibility for stock rebuilding. Requiring one
sector to take a substantial harvest reduction while the other sector takes no
reduction at all not only reeks of inequity, but risks alienating anglers from
the fishery management process.
Commercial Options
As draft Addendum II points
out, the commercial options would place a maximum size on striped
bass landed by commercial fishermen, “to protect the largest, mature female
striped bass contributing to the spawning stock biomass.” Currently, of all the
ocean states with commercial fisheries, only New York has such a maximum size;
in the Chesapeake Bay, the use of such maximum sizes is more widely accepted.
Draft Addendum II proposes maximum sizes of 38, 40, or 42
inches for the ocean, and a 36-inch maximum in the Chesapeake Bay, although for
the bay fishery, there is also an option which would reduce the maximum size to
28 inches between January 1 and May 31 to protect female bass that enter the
bay to spawn.
Yet, as beneficial as a maximum size may appear, it
generates additional complications. If a maximum size is adopted, the bass
harvested by commercial fishermen will, in most states, average smaller than
those currently landed. Because the states’ commercial quotas are denoted in
pounds, and not in numbers of fish, that would result in more striped bass
being harvested each year, an outcome seemingly contrary to Addendum II’s
conservation goals.
To prevent that from occurring, draft Addendum II includes
an option which would adjust current quotas, based on spawning potential
analysis, to account for the new size limit. Such analysis would probably
result in most states receiving smaller quotas although, in some cases, small
state quota increases could occur.
Should the Management Board decide to adjust the state
quotas, it would also have to decide how to do so. It could either calculate
the new quotas based on those that were in place in 2022, which reflected the
various size limits adopted, over time, by the states, or it could base its
calculations on the original quotas established twenty years ago, which all
assumed a 28-inch minimum size. The latter approach would place all states on
an equal footing, but many states might well prefer whichever calculation gave
them the largest quota in 2024.
A final issue, which has not been resolved in draft
Addendum II, is how to deal with the higher levels of dead discards that will
probably result if a maximum size is imposed on the commercial fishery. Many
states allow commercial fishermen to employ gear that is not size-selective; at
one joint meeting of the TC and PDT, a representative from Delaware admitted
that because the fixed gill nets used by his state’s fishermen were
particularly “dirty,” a maximum size limit would likely lead to substantial
discard mortality. It is a topic that states, and perhaps the Management Board,
will eventually need to address.
Future Management
Actions
Draft Addendum II is not expected to survive much past the
end of 2024, since a new stock assessment is scheduled for October 2024, and
there is a very good chance that such update will reveal that additional
management actions will be needed to rebuild the striped bass stock by the 2029
deadline.
That could present a problem for, as draft Addendum II
recognizes, “Based on assessment timing and the typical addendum
development and implementation process, new measures would likely not be
implemented until two years following the assessment…If the Board initiates an
addendum in October 2024, approves it for public comment in February 2025, and
then selects final measures in May 2025, the earliest implementation would
likely be late 2025 or early 2026.”
Thus, draft Addendum II contains a final option which would
allow the Management Board to fast-track any additional rebuilding measures,
without going through the formal addendum process. Instead, such measures could
be adopted through a simple Management Board vote. Public comment would be
provided through oral comments at the Management Board meeting and/or through
written comments addressed to the Management Board prior to the meeting date,
without the need for a public hearing process.
Next Steps
When the Management Board holds its August 2023 meeting, it
will not adopt new management measures. Instead, it will refine the language of
the draft addendum, perhaps removing some options, perhaps adding options that
were not there before. Then, it will release the revised Draft Addendum II for
public comment, and hold public hearings on the draft during August and early
September, in most or all of the states between Maine and North Carolina.
The comments received from stakeholders at the hearings, as
well as written comments sent in during the public comment period, may well
decide the fate of Addendum II. Many members of the for-hire
fleet were dismayed by the Emergency Action, believing that it
will harm their businesses, and they will probably take a firm stand against
further restrictions on landings.
Yet, as draft Addendum II
observed, “Assuming the narrow slot limit implemented through the
2023 emergency action and the narrow slot options considered for 2024 will
support the rebuilding of the striped bass population, it will likely ensure
the quality of the recreational fishing experience for the sector in the long
term.” Despite some short-term economic discomfort, it would be in everyone’s
interest to put the needed management measures in place.
The Management Board is expected to approve the final
version of Addendum II at its October 2023 meeting, so that all management
measures included in such addendum may be adopted by the states in time for the
2024 season.
-----
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/
No comments:
Post a Comment