STRIPED BASS: WILL ADDENDUM II BE STALLED

 

Anglers promoting striped bass conservation were pleased last May, after the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Atlantic StripedBass Management Board, in a unanimous vote, agreed to initiate a new addendumto the striped bass management plan, which would reduce fishing mortality to itstarget level in the 2024 season.

It was nice to see all of the Management Board members agree on the need to conserve and rebuild the striped bass stock, even if New Jersey later dissented and cast the sole vote against emergency measures intended to reduce fishing mortality in 2023.

However, it now appears that at least some Management Board members are no longer committed to the rebuilding effort, and want to delay sending a draft Addendum II to Amendment 7 to the Atlantic Striped Bass Interstate Management Plan out for public comment.

The plan was flying under the radar, but when you write a blog like this one, when you have contacts all along the striper coast, and when you know and have worked with other conservation advocates not only on the East Coast, but on every coast in the nation, not too much escapes your attention.  Thus, I recently became aware of the plot to undermine striped bass rebuilding, thanks to friends who have long fished the waters of Chesapeake Bay.

The American Saltwater Guides Association learned of the plot before I did.  Friday, it published a blog post titled “This Is Low.  Even for Maryland:  Striper Update.”  Which gives you a pretty good idea of where the cabal originated.  In that post, ASGA noted,

“With information gathered over the last couple of days, we’ve come to the realization that a new dance from the mid-Atlantic is in the process of being choreographed.  The playbook for Maryland, New Jersey, and Delaware for the meeting on August 1^st can be summarized in a single statement:  ‘Kick the can down the road…

“…their plan for the August meeting is to wait for the stock assessment update in 2024 to make changes and buy themselves another year to protect special interests over the resource.”

The information provided to me merely mentioned “several states,” without naming New Jersey or Delaware—Maryland, on the other hand, was clearly implicated as the ringleader of the effort—but there is a reason that I have previously referred to all three states as the “Axis of Evil” with respect to striped bass conservation, and I would expect both Delaware and New Jersey to take advantage of any opportunity to undercut more restrictive management measures.

In the end, it doesn’t matter which states are involved.  Stalling Addendum II would place the striped bass stock at additional risk, and do a real disservice to striped bass fishermen, who expect the Management Board to maintain the striped bass stock at sustainable levels, and to rebuild the stock should abundance fall too far.  The fact that the stock has become overfished once again is already a serious stain on the Board’s reputation.

And things can easily become much, much worse.

People who look at the current abundance of bass may be fooled into thinking that all is well.  However, few young fish have been recruiting into the population.  Generally, we focus on the Maryland young-of-the-year numbers, which have been poor since 2019; in fact, the average juvenile abundance index for the years 2019-2022 is the lowest four-year average in the entire 65-year history of the Maryland survey.  We won’t know for certain what the 2023 spawn looked like until October, but low water last spring suggests that the numbers won’t be good.  Maryland’s fishery managers have also been unusually tight-lipped about the results of their early surveys this year, which some read as an ominous omen. 

It’s hard not to compare the unusually warm and snowless winter of 2022-2023 with the similar winter of 2011-2012, which led to the lowest Maryland juvenile abundance index in history, so it’s probably safe to predict that this year’s JAI will not be good.

That’s bad enough, but the recently released Review of the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass (Morone saxatilis) 2022 Fishing Year also reports that

“New Jersey’s JAI (Delaware River) was below its trigger level (1.07) in 2021 and 2022 with values of 0.67 and 0.77, respectively.  A 2020 JAI value for New Jersey is not available due to COVID-19 restrictions.  Virginia’s JAI was above its trigger level (8.22) in 2020 with a value of 13.89, but fell below the trigger level in 2021 and 2022 with values of 6.3 and 7.95, respectively.”

In all cases, the “trigger level” was the 25^th percentile of the juvenile abundance time series, so seeing so many different spawning areas producing juvenile abundance indexes that low does not bode well for the future.

Thus, we’re looking at a striped bass stock with at least a four—and probably a five—year hole in its age structure, based on what we know today.  Those missing year classes are going to have a big impact on both the fishery and on the spawning stock as the fish begin to mature around 2026 or 2027.

And there is no way to know whether 2024 will bring better spawning success, or just more of the same.

Under such circumstances, it would be nothing less than an extreme dereliction of the Management Board’s duty to stakeholders and to the striped bass if it deferred action on Addendum II.

Yet, beyond that, it’s particularly disturbing that it is Maryland which seems to be driving any effort to delay further management action.

Maryland is, after all, the steward of the most important striped bass spawning area on the East Coast.  As such, it owes a duty to stakeholders and to the resource to responsibly exercise its stewardship, and do its best to assure that the striped bass stock is rebuilt and maintained at a level that is sustainable in the long term.

To date, Maryland has failed in its stewardship duties.

Its modern failures began in 2014, after a benchmark stock assessment found that fishing mortality had risen too high, and female spawning stock biomass had fallen too low.  Although such assessment did not find the stock to be overfished or experiencing overfishing, it did indicate that additional management measures were needed to reduce fishing mortality and rebuild the stock, and to comply with the provisions of the then-current management plan.

The ASMFC’s Atlantic Striped Bass Technical Committee eventually determined that fishing mortality would have to be cut by 25% in order to reduce such mortality to the target level, but when such cuts were debated at the October 2014 meeting of the Management Board, Maryland argued against the Technical Committee’s advice.  It first tried to have the reduction phased in over three years, even though the management plan clearly required that

“If the Management Board determines that the fishing mortality target is exceeded in two consecutive years and the female spawning stock biomass falls below the target within either of those years, the Management Board must adjust the striped bass management program to reduce the fishing mortality rate to a level that is at or below the target within one year.  [emphasis added]”

The majority of the Management Board was responsible enough to reject that effort, but it was willing to agree to a compromise that allowed the Chesapeake Bay jurisdictions to only reduce their fishing mortality rate by 20.5%.

Yet even after receiving that concession, Maryland failed to hold up its end of the deal. 

Addendum IV to Amendment 6 to the Atlantic Striped Bass Interstate Fishery Management Plan required the 20.5% reduction be made, compared to 2013 fishing mortality levels.  In 2013, Maryland’s recreational fishermen landed an estimated 1,185,123 striped bass.  To achieve a 20.5% reduction, and comply with the clear mandate of Addendum IV, Maryland was obligated to craft regulations that would reduce such landings to just 942,173 fish beginning in 2015, and continuing throughout the life of Addendum VI.

That didn’t happen. 

Instead, Maryland anglers landed 1,111,502 bass in 2015, 1,545,586 bass in 2016, 1,091,614 bass in 2017, and 993,304 bass in 2018.  When Maryland’s recreational landings finally fell below the Addendum IV target in 2019, such drop was due to decline in striped bass abundance, and not to any effort on Maryland’s part.

The state’s fishery managers could, perhaps, be forgiven for the overage in 2015, as crafting new regulations can be almost as much art as science; unpredictable factors such as weather, the availability of other species, and angler activity, all of which can affect striped bass landings, are nearly impossible to predict in advance.  What was unforgivable was Maryland’s refusal to take any action in subsequent years, along with its refusal to accept any accountability for its failure to constrain recreational landings.

Instead, at the October 2016 Management Board meeting, Maryland fisheries manager, Michael Luisi, aggressively defended the state’s performance, saying

“When we see numbers, an increase in harvest of 58.4 percent in the Chesapeake Bay, it kind of leads I think, board members to believe that Maryland and Virginia, Potomac River [Fisheries Commission] may not have contributed to the successful management.  I stress the word success.  Now, I do understand that success in my mind is understood through an evaluation of fishing mortality…

“The actual written report that we have in our briefing materials speaks to the emergence of the 2011 year class.  It reads that ‘the harvest in the Bay in 2015 was undoubtedly lower than it would have been, had regulations remained status quo.’  I just wanted to make that comment, because I believe it strengthens what was reported as a kind of likely reduction.”

His point was that overall 2015 fishing mortality was successfully constrained below the fishing mortality target.  That such successful reduction was due solely to the coastal states reducing their landings by more than the required 25%--in fact, by enough to achieve the required reduction even given Maryland’s overages—seemed irrelevant to the Maryland manager.  Maryland could continue to ignore its required reduction, so long as there were other states around to take up the slack.

According to his logic, people shouldn’t complain that Maryland increased its landings, rather than achieving the required 20.5% increase, because even if its management response was inadequate, if the state had done nothing, its recreational landings would have been even higher.

So shut up and leave the heavy lifting to the folks on the coast.

Ignore the fact that the fish being killed down in Maryland were, for the most part, not yet mature, and would never enter what was an already declining spawning stock.

More than that, the fishing mortality rate in 2015 was 0.16, a statistically indistinguishable 0.02 below the 0.18 target, so Luisi suggested that not only should the Management Board ignore Maryland’s recreational overage, but it should also consider a new addendum that would increase fishing mortality (and increase Maryland’s recreational landings even more) because

“if we were to move from 0.16 to 0.18, it would be a small tick, maybe a 5 to 8 percent liberalization, in terms of numbers.  Maybe that’s what it would be.  I don’t have the number to refer to in front of me.  But what I’m thinking about and what I’m looking at, is the fact that perhaps just that very small change could be something that saves a few of the fishermen in my state.

“A half inch in minimum size could mean a lot to our fleets, our charterboat and recreational fleet; more so the charterboat community.  I’ve been thinking about this and thinking about what we could do as a next step…”

What he was thinking about was, again, increasing Maryland’s kill of what were, for the most part, immature fish.  Fortunately, the majority of the Management Board thought differently.

A few years later, the 2018 benchmark stock assessment revealed that the striped bass stock was both overfished and experiencing overfishing. 

Again, action was required.

Again, Maryland demurred.

At the February 2019 Management Board meeting, Luisi questioned the assessment’s findings that the stock was in trouble, questioning whether the addition of revised recreational catch and landings numbers should be relied on to reach such conclusions—even though the panel of disinterested international experts who had already peer reviewed the assessment had expressed no such concerns.

The February meeting also saw the emergence of what would become one of Luisi’s favorite themes:  That instead of rebuilding the striped bass stock, the Management Board should revise the reference points used to evaluate its health—in other words, move the goal posts instead of the ball—to allow a higher level of harvest.

That theme continued into the April 2019 meeting, when Luisi argued that

“We’ve had some concerns over the reference points for quite some time.  In our mind they’re a bit too high.  I think they provide for an unrealistic expectation to the public that we’re going to be able to achieve that level. 

“You know, currently the threshold reference point is 91,000 metric tons and 125 percent of that puts us at the target value, and when you look at the estimates of spawning stock biomass that came out of the benchmark.  We have never achieved the target in all of that time as we’re evaluating that. [a statement that was proven to be untrue in the 2022 stock assessment update]”

Of course, Luisi failed to note that the Management Board had also never constrained fishing mortality to the target rate for any extended period, which is a prerequisite for achieving the target biomass.  Of course, if you’re fixated on killing more fish, that’s an understandable omission. 

So long as the goal posts get moved…

Maryland made one more attempt to make that happen in the runup to the new Amendment 7 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass.  Once again, Luisi tried to shift the reference points in order to permit a bigger kill.  However, public sentiment overwhelmingly opposed doing so, with well over 95% of the public comments supporting the existing reference points.  Still, when other Management Board members suggested leaving the reference point issue out of the draft Amendment, Luisi tried one last time, arguing

“I have been in this field now for 20 years, and I do find that sometimes there is a lack of what the consequence is, to what is being recommended.  It is hard when you start an amendment, and you have as many elements in that amendment that are being suggested, to understand how they all incorporate together, and how they all bind together for managers to make those decisions at the end.

“I guess what I’m saying is, I would prefer at this time, based on the comment, that we understand a little bit more about the consequences to commercial and recreational and charterboat fishing, based on the issues being discussed before we start to peel away the different alternatives.  I know that it is a little more taxing on staff.  There is a little more work that has to be done, and I know we have a timeline that we’re trying to get things done, like in the next year, or maybe a little bit more than a year.

“It’s just my comment, Mr. Chairman, and I’ll leave it there.  I feel like there is still some development that needs to happen under some of these alternatives, so that the stakeholders can understand the consequences of their comments…”

It was, in one way, a very arrogant position to take, assuming as it does that stakeholders who support greater striped bass abundance didn’t understand that such abundance would require more restrictive regulations and lower striped bass landings, when the language of the comments made it clear that they understood such things quite well.  

On the other hand, Luisi’s comments reflected something not to far removed from severe confirmation bias, as he just couldn’t understand that stakeholders could take an informed stance that valued the long-term health of the stock far more than regulations that would allow them to kill a few extra fish.  Maryland, as personified in Luisi’s comments, loves their dead bass so much that it seems its representatives just couldn’t comprehend how the vast majority of the stakeholders who commented valued live striped bass even more.

However, most of the rest of the Management Board understood the stakeholders’ sentiments very well, and made it clear that Amendment 7 would leave the management goalposts exactly where they were before.

In that context, it makes perfect sense that Maryland would try to stall Addendum II, and maintain its current landings levels through at least 2024.

But maybe there’s something else that really doesn’t make sense.

Right now, commercial fishermen in the Chesapeake Bay, including those governed by Maryland, Virginia, and the Potomac River Fisheries Commission, are granted a 2,588,603 pound striped bass quota, which is divided among the three jurisdictions.  Maybe that’s fine when the striped bass stock is hovering somewhere around its target level, and recruitment remains close to its long-term average.

But both Maryland and Virginia allow their commercial fishermen to kill bass just 18 inches long, when the fish are still immature.  

While that, too, might be fine when the stock is healthy and recruitment is strong, removing over 2 ½ million pounds of fish from the Bay at a time when recruitment is chronically low seems to border on the irresponsible; if managers are to rebuild the striped bass stock, and maintain it at sustainable levels, the entire East Coast might be better served if Chesapeake bass were allowed to enter the spawning stock before a significant percentage of a small year class is removed from the population; in the alternative, if killing small fish remains legal, it would probably benefit the bass and the entire striper coast if the quota was substantially reduced during periods of exceptionally low recruitment.

Yet, if the information that I’ve received is true (and, given the source, I have to believe that it is) Maryland seems ready to defend its landings, and seek ways to maintain its kill for at least one more year, the public and the striped bass be damned.

We can only hope that it loses the fight once again.