STRIPED BASS SECTOR SEPARATION: AN EXERCISE IN FUTILITY

 

At this point, anyone at all familiar with the Atlantic striped bass, except perhaps for a select group of science-deniers, knows that the stock is not doing well.  The stock is overfished, fishing mortality exceeds the target, and poor recruitment in three of the four major spawning areas bodes ill for the future.

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board is setting the stage for remedial measures, although whether such measures will be strong enough, or put in place soon enough, to prevent a severe decline in abundance is something that we cannot yet know.

If spawning conditions in the natal rivers, particularly those draining into the Maryland portion of Chesapeake Bay, remain unfavorably for a few more seasons, it is possible that nothing the Management Board can do will prevent a collapse of the stock.

It’s clear that everyone engaging in the striped bass fishery, whether on the commercial or recreational side of the ledger, is going to have to make some sacrifices to prevent the current situation from getting much worse.  Thus, the Management Board has released Draft Addendum II to Amendment 7 to the Interstate Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass out for public comment.

Addendum II, if adopted in its most restrictive form, would perpetuate the current 28- to 31-inch slot limit in the ocean recreational fishery, impose meaningful reductions in landings and fishing mortality in the Chesapeake Bay recreational fishery, and cut commercial quotas by 14.5%.  If it accomplishes all those things, Addendum II might, just barely, have a 50-50 chance of reducing fishing mortality to the target level and rebuilding the striped bass stock by 2029.

Unfortunately, Addendum II won’t necessarily require sacrifice from everyone.  Although commercial fishermen, and recreational fishermen who fish from their own boats or from shore, will be required to pitch in to aid the striper’s recovery, some of the options contained in the Draft Addendum would actually let one group—those fishing from for-hire vessels—to not only escape any sacrifice, but kill more striped bass than they did in 2022.

Among the five options proposed for the ocean recreational fishery, the two designated as Options C and E would expand the current 28- to 31-inch slot limit that applies to all ocean anglers to 28 to 33 inches—but only for those who fish from for-hire boats.

Supposedly, the owners and operators of for-hire vessels need such a slot to attract enough customers to keep their businesses alive.

I’ve written about the issue before.

I’ve argued that such special treatment discriminates not only against the great majority of anglers who, even though not guided by knowledgeable and experienced captains, will have to try to find a fish that fits within the narrower slot if they desire to take a bass home.  I’ve argued that such a “sector separation” provision also discriminates against businesses such as tackle shops, fuel docks, marinas, and such which, no less than the for-hires, are at risk of losing business if anglers find it too hard to take a bass home.  And I have argued that it is just bad public policy to prop up any business that refuses to modify its operations to adapt to changing times.

But there is another, and perhaps a far better, reason to reject sector separation:  Any effort to maintain higher for-hire landings is doomed to fail, because given the poor recruitment over the past five years, recruitment that may or may not improve in the near future, by 2026 or 2027, there will be few slot-size bass left to catch, even if the Management Board decides to adopt a 28- to 33-inch slot for the for-hire fleet.

Right now, the catch-and-keep fishery in the ocean is being driven by the 2015 year class, even though such fish currently average about 31 ½ inches in length, and so will soon grow out of even the proposed 28- to 33-inch slot.

The 2017 and 2018 year classes, although only half the size of the 2015 (and the 2017s didn’t show strong recruitment at Age 1), will provide some half-decent fishing for a couple of years.  The first 2017s will have crossed the 28-inch mark this season; in 2024, most will fit within the slot, whether that slot is 28 to 31 inches or 28 to 33, so anglers, including those on the for-hire boats, will still be able to take some fish home, even though the 2015s will have largely grown too large.  But, assuming that the bass of the 2017 and 2018 year classes grow at the same rate as the 2015s, the majority of the 2018s will be over 33 inches long, and so out of even the proposed 28- to 33-inch for-hire slot, by 2027.

Beginning in 2027, and continuing through at least 2031—and perhaps much longer, depending on when, and if, another strong year class emerges—the supply of slot-sized fish will dry up, and landings, including for-hire landings, will crash.

The crash is inevitable, because we know that striped bass recruitment for the years 2019 through 2023 was dismal, and it’s impossible to land bass that have never been spawned.

Many anglers probably don’t understand just how bad recent recruitment has been.

Somewhere between 70% and 90% of all of the migratory striped bass population on the Atlantic coast is spawned in the Chesapeake Bay, and about two-thirds of the Chesapeake production comes from the Maryland portion of the Bay.  The Maryland juvenile abundance index is considered the best single indicator of future striped bass abundance.

The long-term average of the Maryland juvenile abundance index is 11.1.  Even during the depths of the stock collapse in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the lowest five-year average of the Maryland JAI was 3.45.

The average for the five years between 2019 and 2023 was 2.74, more than 20% worse than any five-year average ever recorded.  So in a few years, we’re going to see a very real shortage of striped bass that fit into the slot, and there is absolutely nothing that the Management Board can do about it, for that die has already been cast.

Which brings us back to sector separation.

The Management Board could adopt sector separation when it finalizes Addendum II, and if it does, it will buy a few of years of higher landings for the for-hire fleet.  But if they do so, they are only delaying the inevitable, because in just a few years, there will be very few bass available that fall into even the proposed 28- to 33-inch for-hire slot limit.

In fact, there will be fewer bass of that size available than there were in 1980, or ’81, or ’84, and if you were living and fishing for striped bass back then, you already know just how bad things were in those years. 

If you’re a little younger, and didn’t experience the collapse, trust me when I say that it’s the sort of experience that you should do your best to avoid.

Which means that managers are going to have to make a hard choice to do one of two things.

If they’re set and determined to keep for-hire landings high, they can create a special, moving for-hire slot that tracks the growth of the last healthy year classes of bass, allowing the for-hire anglers to keep chipping away at the remains of the spawning stock while the great majority of recreational fishermen languish in a striped bass desert defined by some smaller slot.

Or, they can finally admit that there are limits to their ability to prop up an industry determined to remain dependent upon killing fish, let for-hire landings fall to wherever the absence of suitably-sized bass might take them, and leave the industry to try to figure out how to survive.

If they take the former course, they might make the for-hire fleet, and for-hire anglers, fairly happy, but they will certainly alienate the shore and private boat anglers who, in 2022, accounted for more than 98% of all striped bass trips.  That would seem like a politically difficult thing to do.

But if they take the latter course, and ultimately leave the for-hire fleet to figure out how to run a business that doesn’t depend upon bringing home limits of dead fish, there is no reason why they would need to adopt sector separation at all, and by doing so, hold out the false hope that current landings levels might be sustained, when they know that recent poor recruitment will eventually make that impossible.

For in the end, reality will prevail, and the reality is that there is no way to both protect the remaining large year classes of striped bass while also maintaining current landings levels, whether for the for-hires or for everyone else. 

The bass drought is coming.  It is going to last for at least five years.  It is inevitable.

Sector separation won’t save the for-hires from its effects.

That being the case, the Management Board would be well advised to admit the truth now, and reject sector separation when the finalize Addendum II.

The alternative is to provide false hope, that will only lead to greater disappointment, and greater disillusionment for those affected, when reality finally sets in.

STRIPED BASS ADDENDUM II: ANGLERS UNITING AROUND ONE SET OF OPTIONS

 

Striped bass anglers have less than a month left to comment on Draft Addendum II to Amendment 7 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass, a document that represents the last remaining hope for rebuilding the striped bass spawning stock biomass by the 2029 deadline.

The bad news is that, so far, anglers have not been showing up at scheduled hearings in the hoped-for numbers, and in some cases are having their voices all but drowned out by those of the for-hire fleet which, even in this time of spawning failure and a threatened stock, is still trying to convince the Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board to grant its customers special privileges not enjoyed by the rest of the recreational fishing community.

The good news is that the angling organizations which have opined on the Addendum II options all seem to be headed in the same direction, and agree on the major issues, and thus are placing the health of the resource ahead of their parochial interests.

So far, four unaffiliated organizations—the American Saltwater Guides Association, Stripers Forever, Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, and Jersey Coast Anglers Association—which have frequently been at odds over other fisheries issues, have published their positions on Addendum II, and there is virtually; no difference between them.  A fifth organization, the American Sportfishing Association, the largest fishing tackle trades association, has released a more limited position addressing only two of the Addendum II issues, but to the extent that it takes a position at all, ASA is also in accord with the general consensus.

I discussed the Addendum II options in detail in an earlier post, along with my own views on their merits, but now that a number of major angling organizations have also provided their views, it’s probably worthwhile to review the options one more time, along with such organizations’ comments.

The first set of options, designated Section 3.1.1 of the Draft Addendum, addresses the ocean recreational fishery which, despite the “ocean” designation, deals with all recreational fisheries except for those in the Chesapeake Bay—and even there, Maryland’s so-called “trophy fishery” is governed by the ocean fishery rules.  The key choice to be made is whether Addendum II should perpetuate the current 28- to 31-inch “emergency” slot that the Management Board adopted last May, or whether it should instead adopt a larger, 30- to 33-inch slot with would make some portion of the big 2015 year class—the same year class the emergency measure was adopted to protect—vulnerable to recreational landings.

All four organizations that took a position on the issue agree that the Management Board should adopt Option B, which would keep the current 28- to 31-inch slot limit in place, and minimize the number of 2015s that are landed by anglers.  The American Saltwater Guides Association explained its position, saying that

“ASGA supported the Emergency Action measure, and we still do.  It is critical that managers continue efforts to protect the 2015 year class and maintaining the 28-31” slot achieves that goal, while providing some consistency for anglers and the stock assessment scientists.”

Section 3.1.1 also addresses the contentious issue of “sector separation,” that is, allowing one sector—in this case, anglers patronizing the for-hire fleet—to enjoy special privileges not extended to any other anglers.  With respect to such proposals it’s probably significant to note that the Guides’ Association—the only one of the organizations created specifically to represent the owners and operators of for-hire vessels along the entire Atlantic coast—has come out in clear opposition to the concept of sector separation, noting

“We do not support mode splits.  The Recreational sector (private and charter/for-hire) should continue to be managed under the same regulations.”

Stripers Forever provided more detailed comments on the issue, saying

“There are three goals here; the greatest overall reduction, protecting the 2015 year class and making sure it’s done in a fair and equitable way…Option C and D [sic] introduce mode splits.  Essentially, recreational anglers are split into ‘private vessel/shore’ and ‘for-hire’, it is not the right thing to do now or ever.  Since the inception of Amendment 7, we have heard from the board and law enforcement that no harvest and no target closures would be too difficult to enforce, the same applies here.  All recreational anglers should make an equitable effort to reduce harvest and restore the Striped Bass stock to abundance.”

The Jersey Coast Anglers Association, put an interesting spin on the sector separation question in the set of model comments they released on November 23, suggesting that anglers comment that

“I don’t like options C or E [the sector separation options] as they give a wider ranged slot to the for-hire sector.  I’m adamantly opposed to sector separation but if anything, more lenient regulations should be for shore-based anglers who fish for sustenance and can’t afford to go on a boat.”

If fairness is a consideration, it’s difficult to argue with the JCAA’s position.  Even with today’s narrow slot limit, it’s still far easier to bring home a legal fish from a for-hire vessel than it is to catch one from shore—or, given the relative knowledge and skill of the captains, even from the typical private boat—which casts the equity of the two sector-separation options into serious question.  Even though the American Sportfishing Association’s members sell tackle to both private and for-hire anglers, the ASA stated that

“To rebuild the striped bass population—let alone maintain a rebuilt condition—the entire striped bass fishery must participate in conservation and continued poor recruitment reinforces that point.  ASA urges managers to…set equal limits for all recreational fishing modes as it finalizes Addendum II to the Fishery Management Plan this winter.  [emphasis added]”

The Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership also opposed the concept of sector separation, observing,

“Often called mode split or sector separation, a request for these options was made by participants in the for-hire realm of recreational fisheries and was supported by some managers in various states.  The request for these options is often due to a concern that other regulations being considered would have an impact on certain businesses that are part of the recreational fishing industry.  Unfortunately, these types of splits mean that some portions of recreational fisheries receive a pass on important conservation measures, and others do not, inequitably impacting the recreational fishing economy.”

Section 3.1.2 of the Draft Addendum addresses the options for the recreational Chesapeake Bay fishery.  It is similar to Section 3.1.1, in that it offers alternative size limits and also includes sector separation options, although Section 3.1.2 also addresses the question of whether there should be a uniform set of size and bag limits throughout the Bay, or whether the Bay jurisdictions should each be allowed to adopt unique regulations.  Unfortunately, many of the options provided in this section would not achieve the 14.5% reduction which, when all management measures across all fisheries are considered, is needed to provide even a mere 50% probability that the stock will be rebuilt by the 2029 deadline.

Faced with such choices, the four organizations commenting on the issue agreed that Option B1, which would impose a 1-fish bag limit and a 19- to 23-inch bag limit Bay-wide, and so achieve a theoretical 22.4% reduction with no sector separation provision, was the preferred choice, although the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership also opined that Option B-2, which proposes the same 1-fish bag, but with a 19- to 24-inch slot, and would supposedly achieve a 15.9% slot, would also be acceptable.

In explaining its choice, the Partnership said that

“Options B1 & B2 are the only options estimated to achieve more than the goal of reducing fishery removals by 14.5% or more, and apply reductions over all components of recreational fishery.”

Jersey Coast Anglers Association and Stripers Forever concurred, with the latter stating that

“After 5 years of very poor spawns in the Chesapeake Bay, it is time for some simplification and a narrow slot.  Option B1, with consistent minimum size, maximum size, and bag limit creates more uniform regulations across the bay.  Again, as previously discussed in the ocean recreational options, mode splits are not something we can support in any way.”

Specifically addressing the sector separation question, the American Saltwater Guides Association opined, despite the fact that it represents some Maryland and Virginia charter boat owners, advising anglers that

“Mode splits in the Bay should be fiercely opposed”.

With respect to the other two recreational issues, the four organizations which commented were in complete agreement.  

In the case of Section 3.1.3, all selected Option B which, in the event that a sector separation option was chosen, would nonetheless require the captain and crew of a for-hire vessel to adhere to the regulations imposed on the majority of the angling community, and not to those providing special privileges to their customers.  In the case of Section 3.1.4, Option B was also preferred by all four commenters, which would require that if a striped bass was filleted at sea or at a shoreside location, that the rack be retained by the angler and the skin be left attached to such fillets (which may not number more than two per retained rack) so that enforcement personnel could easily determine both the length and the species of the harvested fish.

Things get both simpler and a little more complicated when the organizations discussed the commercial options, Section 3.2.1.  Simpler, because there are only two options, Option A, status quo, and Option B, reducing the commercial quota by “up to” 14.5%, but more complicated both because the wording of the option, which includes that qualifying “up to,” means that even if Option B is chosen, the commercial quota might be reduced by far less than the needed 14.5%, and also because such reduction is to the quota, and not to actual landings, which means that in some states, a 14.5% quota reduction might mean no reduction in landings at all.

Stripers Forever put it this way:

“First off, it is important to understand that the reduction is to the allowable total harvest number, not to the actual harvest.  So, states that do not max out their quota may not see any actual reduction in mortality.  Let’s say a state only harvests 80% of its total allowable quota.  In that case a 14.5% reduction in quota would not save a single fish.  For example, in the past we have reported on Massachusetts struggling to fill its commercial quota.  To us its [sic] a clear sign that there are just not enough fish around but the troubling part is that if history repeats itself, then the best case scenario of a 14.5% reduction could mean no actual change in commercial harvest.  As we have always said, to rebuild this stock we need equitable reductions in mortality.  We all need to give something to get something in return.”

The Theordore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership offered a similar explanation:

“The Board is considering reducing the quota by between 0% and 14.5%...Option B includes a range from 0-14.5% reductions.  Unfortunately, a reduction in a state’s commercial quota may not reduce the actual number of fish landed next year by the desired percentage, because quotas vary from actual harvest numbers.

“For example, the Chesapeake Bay commercial fisheries, which account for approximately 80% of all coastwide commercial striped bass catch, when considering the number of fish caught, landed approximately 15% less than their quotas allowed in 2022.  This indicates that a reduction in quota in 2024 will not guarantee increased fish survival.”

Yet, even though Option B is flawed, all five organizations commenting on the issue recognized that it offered a better option than the status quo, and most of those organizations explicitly stated that quotas should be cut by the full 14.5%.

Finally, the four organizations providing a full set of comments addressed Section 3.3, which considered giving the Management Board authority to fast-track management measures that they deemed to be needed if future stock assessments and assessment updates, including the update scheduled for October 2024, indicate that such action is needed to achieve rebuilding by the 2029 deadline.  All four organizations supported Option B, which would grant such authority to the Management Board.  As noted by Stripers Forever,

“As we mentioned in our summary of this past ASMFC board meeting, there is a really good chance that Addendum II will only be in effect for a one year period.  The next stock assessment results are expected in the fall of 2024.  Given the 5 years of very poor recruitment in the Chesapeake, there is a good chance that stronger management changes will be needed to ensure a greater than 50% chance of rebuilding by 2029.  If the board is required to do so via another Addendum, that process could take close to a year to finalize.  The Striped Bass stock does not have that kind of time right now.  Option B would allow the board to react by voting by a simple majority.  While we prefer to have a public comment period, it just becomes a cumbersome and time consuming process which puts us further behind in terms of rebuilding.  This is unfortunate, the writing has been on the wall for years and as you are probably already aware, Stripers Forever has been calling for the most conservative measures since the beginning of the Amendment 7 process.”

When all of the angling organizations focused on the striped bass issue are in lockstep with respect to what must be done, and individual anglers largely support the same options, it is very difficult for the Management Board to endorse a very different course of action.

The organizations have already spoken, but as noted at the beginning of this post, angler comments still lag.  It is critical to the success of Addendum II that anglers turn out in numbers to state their preferences.  If too many remain silent, the for-hire fleet and commercial fishery will drown out the calls of those who do choose to speak, and the striped bass will suffer as a result, perhaps for more than a decade.

Anglers have until December 22 to make their voices heard.  Comments may be emailed to comments@asmfc.org, with a subject line that reads “Striped Bass Draft Addendum II,” or snail-mailed to Emilie Franke, Fishery Management Plan Coordinator, Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, 1050 N. Highland St., Suite 200 A-N, Arlington, VA 22201.

Since the Amendment 7 process began, those who support striped bass conservation have turned out in numbers to make their opinions heard, and the Management Board has, on the whole, responded well.  With 2029 just a few years away, and rebuilding still possible, it would be a shame if conservation advocates gave up the fight now.

ICCAT TURNS ITS ATTENTION TO BLUE SHARKS

 

Everyone seems to take blue sharks for granted.

Anglers love the swift, high-flying mako, and fight dogged battles with thresher sharks.  Producers of televised nature shows, along with the folks who watch such productions, seem obsessed with white sharks, whether they’re feeding on seals off Cape Cod or cruising through azure Mexican waters.  Bull sharks have a reputation for gnawing swimmers off southern beaches, while blacktips off Florida’s Volusia County take a few nuisance nips out of surfers each year.  Greenland sharks make the news just by living slowly and sticking around, perhaps for three or four centuries, and earning acclaim as the longest-lived vertebrate in the world.

But blue sharks?  They are largely ignored.

And maybe that’s not too surprising.  The blue shark’s soft-textured, often ammonia-tainted meat isn’t valued as food, and rarely, if ever, shows up in markets.  While quite a few are caught by anglers each year, their fight is usually unremarkable, as blue sharks don’t jump, don’t run very fast, and—at least in the sizes typically caught by recreational fishermen—aren’t particularly strong.  They’re a cool-water fish which, when the ocean is warm, often don’t fight at all; they merely take the bait and allow an angler to bring them straight in to boatside, where they finally might thrash and roll after someone grabs the leader and tries for a stress-free release.

And still, I have a soft spot in my heart for the things.

When I started to fish for sharks back in the late 1970s, they were the first sharks that I caught.  And there have been plenty of days since then, mostly in early June, when blue sharks were the only fish that came between me and a good skunking; there have been other June days when the blue sharks were so thick that we’d have a dozen in sight at one time, and baits barely had a chance to sink beneath the surface before they were eaten.  On days like that, when you run out of hooks and bait well before you expected, the sheer quantity of the fish makes up for the quality of their fight, and lets you shake off the cobwebs of winter before the hoped-for mako or thresher arrives.

Most shark fisherman might not admit it, but we’d miss the blue sharks if they disappeared.

Thus, I was pleased to learn that the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas—which, despite its name, also manages sharks, swordfish, and marlin—has recently taken action that should help to maintain a healthy North Atlantic blue shark population.

It’s not that blue sharks are in trouble.  ICCAT scientists released a stock assessment earlier this year, which suggests that the population is right about where it ought to be for the population to produce maximum sustainable yield.  At the same time, the assessment notes that

“The Kobe plot indicates that there is a 49.6% probability that the stock falls currently falls within the yellow quadrant of the Kobe plot [meaning that the stock is overfished, but not experiencing overfishing], a 49.7% probability that the stock falls within the green, and less than a 1% chance that it is in the red or orange quadrants.”

If there is only about a 50-50 chance that the stock is healthy, and about an equal chance that it has become overfished, some sort of regulatory action is probably needed.  Even so, the blue shark is now in a better place than it was a couple decades ago.

Because of its low-quality meat, blue sharks do not support a directed fishery, but are instead caught as bycatch in fisheries targeting swordfish and tuna.  About 99% of all blue shark landings are attributable to the pelagic longline fisheries, primarily those prosecuted by the European Union nations of Portugal and Spain.  Their primary value comes from their fins, which are generally shipped to China and other Asian nations.

North Atlantic blue shark landings remained low through the mid-1980s, when North Atlantic blue shark biomass was about twice the level needed to produce maximum sustainable yield.  However, the fishing mortality rate increased sharply throughout the 1980s, at which point the stock began to experience overfishing, with F sometimes rising to 150% of the fishing mortality threshold.  Overfishing occurred on a regular basis through 2018, after which landings, and the fishing mortality rate, declined.  By the early 2000s, overfishing had driven blue shark abundance down to just 70% of the biomass needed to produce MSY yet, beginning sometime around 2005, biomass started to increase, and the stock regained its ability to produce maximum sustainable about ten years later.

ICCAT scientists, combining the results of two different stock assessment models, have now determined that maximum sustainable yield for North Atlantic blue sharks is 32,689 metric tons, and that landings above 35,000 metric tons, if continued for an extended period of time, would cause the stock to decline to a low level of abundance.

North Atlantic blue shark landings for the period 2019-2021 averaged just about 24,500 metric tons per year.  ICCAT scientists determined that such level of landings, or any level up to 27,500 metric tons, would have a greater than 50% chance to keep blue shark in the so-called “green quadrant” of the Kobe plot—that is, not overfished, and not experiencing overfishing.

Based on that information, the United Kingdon, at this year’s recently concluded ICCAT meeting, submitted a document which noted that the then-current total allowable catch for North Atlantic blue sharks, 39,102 metric tons, had only a 3% chance of preventing the stock from becoming overfished or experiencing overfishing (or both) by 2033, and proposed setting a new TAC of 27,500 metric tons.  Such proposed TAC was well above recent landings levels, and so would not require any nation to reduce its landings, while offering a 60% probability that the stock would be neither overfished nor experience overfishing during the next decade.

It appeared to be a reasonable proposal, but it was aggressively opposed by the European Union, which lands more blue sharks than the rest of the ICCAT nations combined.  As a result, the best that ICCAT could do was agree on a compromise measure, which lowered the total allowable catch to 32,689 metric tons, precisely equal to the maximum sustainable yield, with no provision to account for scientific or management uncertainty.

While it was an improvement over the old TAC and, if followed, has a fair chance to shield the North Atlantic blue shark from overfishing, and while it will have no real impact on either the fish or the fishery unless landings rise from current levels, it certainly wasn’t the ideal outcome.

Some nations, including Spain and Portugal, report very different levels of shark harvest to ICCAT than they report to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, creating substantial management uncertainty as to which data are correct.  Many ICCAT member nations are also very lax about reporting shark discards to the Commission.  Under such circumstances, managing to the TAC, based only on reported landings, could allow overfishing to occur.

Since the primary value of blue sharks lies in their fins, it was also somewhat disconcerting that, for the 15^th consecutive year, a United States proposal that sharks be landed with their fins still naturally attached, which had the support of 25 other nations, was blocked, once again, by Japan.

Despite the proposal’s flaws, Ali Hood, Director of Conservation for the non-governmental organization Shark Trust, noted that ICCAT’s recent actions to manage blue sharks

“do represent steps in the right direction,”

although Hood also admitted that

“we are frustrated with the EU’s dogged prioritization of continued fishing dominance over the need to promote equity and minimize risk to shark populations that are already in a precarious state.”

It was the EU, one must recall, that was the primary roadblock to adopting no-harvest rules for the shortfin mako, at least after U.S. abandoned its objections in 2021, and the EU seems just as determined to scuttle more restrictive blue shark management measures.

On balance, the ICCAT actions, while imperfect, still helped promote a sustainable blue shark fishery.

And while anglers here in the northeast would rather catch threshers or makos, it’s still nice to know that, on those slow, early-season days when the water’s still cold and the makos (which themselves are in some trouble right now) are scarce, there will still be enough blue sharks around to keep us awake and alert until something a little faster and stronger finally decides to swim into our slicks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

DECLINES IN REDFISH ABUNDANCE HURT RECREATIONAL INDUSTRY

 

One of the big debates in sportfish regulation is how more restrictive regulations impact the recreational fishing industry.

Many industry members often oppose regulation, sometimes vehemently, arguing that tightened regulations mean that anglers won’t be able to take as many fish home, and thus discourage anglers from going fishing.  Party boat operators are often the most extreme proponents of that position, sometimes arguing that if anglers can’t bring home enough fish to pay for the trip, many will make an economic decision not to spend money on fishing.

The other side of the argument is that fishing is primarily a recreational activity.  Surveys have shown that, while bringing fish home remains among anglers priorities, intangible values are more important; anglers rank spending time with family and friends, and merely catching fish even if they don’t keep them, far above bringing home fish to eat.  Such surveys also show strong support for marine conservation.  Because fishing is primarily recreational, they argue, regulations that increase the abundance of fish, and allow for a higher number of angler encounters with their chosen quarry, actually benefit the industry, even if they reduce the number of fish that anglers may retain.

It’s a difficult question to resolve, because there are multiple things going on at once.

Yes, anglers might take fewer trips after more restrictive regulations were adopted, but did they fish less because of the new rules, or because of the shortage of fish that caused such rules to be adopted?  Often, one’s answer to that question is driven primarily by underlying beliefs, and not by any available data.  

But recently, down in Louisiana, conditions converged to create a situation that seems to shed real light on the question.

As I’ve written before, the premier Louisiana sportfish, speckled trout (spotted seatrout) and redfish (red drum), which historically have driven most of the state’s for-hire fishing activity, are not doing well.

Speckled trout are badly overfished.  The population, which is badly skewed toward younger fish, has been in a steep decline for well over a decade, but pushback from some quarters, in particular the Coastal Conservation Association’s Louisiana chapter, has made it difficult for state regulators to implement the management measures that they believe will best rebuild the stock.

Redfish, although not overfished, are suffering from overfishing, with the “escapement rate”—that is, the number of fish that survive long enough to grow past the current, 27-inch maximum size and enter the spawning stock, is only about 65% of the rate needed to maintain a healthy and sustainable population.  As a result, current redfish abundance has declined badly, and has now fallen as low as it did during the 1980s.  Once again, some anglers, led by CCA Louisiana, are blocking the management measures that would allow the stock to rebuild within a reasonable amount of time.

Both speckled trout and redfish provide good study subjects, because neither one supports significant commercial fisheries.  Louisiana has outlawed all commercial redfish harvest, while commercial fishing for speckled trout is limited to rod and reel.  As a result, commercial redfish landings are nil while commercial seatrout landings are negligible.  Louisiana's last reported seatrout landings, about 4,000 pounds, occurred in 2018; one has to go back another decade, to 2008, to find landings in excess of 10,000 pounds.

Thus, recreational fishermen bear sole responsibility for the state of both stocks of fish; no one can credibly argue that commercial fishing caused either stock to decline.

In addition, Louisiana regulations for both species have been unchanged for a considerable time.  Louisiana’s red drum regulations haven’t been updated since 2001.  Its speckled trout regulations will become more restrictive this week, but prior to the upcoming change, were last revised in 1988. 

Thus, the Louisiana fisheries provide what may be the best opportunity to determine how recreational overfishing impacts the recreational fishing industry.

A recent report, prepared for the American Saltwater Guides Association by Dr. Ben Meadows, who is an expert in natural resources economics, a professor at the University of Alabama, Birmingham, and the principal of Ben Meadows Consulting LLC, examined the impact of Louisiana’s declining  redfish stock on the state’s recreational fishing industry, and found that it has caused, and will continue to cause, significant harm.

It seems that anglers are more willing to book charters, engage in fishing-related travel, and support fishing-related businesses when there are more fish in the water, and that such businesses suffer when fish stocks decline. 

The report’s analysis was based on fishing trip records and on the market price of charter boat trips in the State of Louisiana.  It used the travel costs of anglers accessing the redfish resource to assess the monetary benefits provided by that resource.  As the report explains,

“it takes the travel costs associated with accessing a resource (here fishing) and charts a demand curve—relating the travel costs (prices) versus the amount of trips taken (quantity).  This affords a researcher to compute the consumer surplus associated with the resource by netting the price (typically $0) off of willingness to pay for the resource.  Core to the analysis are the car/airfare costs, opportunity costs (off work), and entrance costs (guiding fees) associated with, in this case, fishing for redfish.”

The Guides Association provided Dr. Meadows with the results of a survey taken by over 100 anglers who pursue redfish in Louisiana, which the researcher called

“particularly useful, given the specificity in all travel costs.”

Applying an accepted economic approach to his analysis, Dr. Meadows found that the value of a Louisiana redfish trip is $2,074, although he noted that

“Given the fact that many redfish tourists pay flights, rental cars, guide fees, gas, employment off, and hotels (omitted here), this estimate might well be a [sic] average or underestimate of the true value of the resource.”

Applying the per-trip value to charter boat trip data provided through LA Creel, Louisiana’s system for tracking the state’s angler effort, Dr. Meadows found,

“the peak value of the fishery was 2018, at $329.64 million, declining to 2022’s level of $322.95 million (a loss of $17.69 million, or $4.4 million a year).”  A linear trend of this value would show the fishery losing another $22 million of economic value.”

Dr. Meadows also proposed an alternative valuation of the fishery, to provide an idea of the minimum economic loss resulting from the red drum’s decline.  He stated that

“To bin the analysis on a lower point, it’s also possible to leverage the minimum, prevailing charter price ($600) for redfish charters, and rich data from Louisiana Fish and Wildlife (LA Creel Data Query) that displays fishing effort (days fished) and harvest records from 2014-2022…By simply multiplying the market price (which represents the minimum value anglers have for the fishery, otherwise they would not book the trip), and the days fished per year, a general economic value of fishery is established.  To be clear, this represents a lower bound, minimal level of valuation for the fishery, as this represents the willingness-to-pay to fish in Louisiana.  Using this method, values of the fishery peak in 2018 at $95.37 million and decline to 2022 at $90.25 million (a loss of $5.2 million).

 “Overall these two methods present a ‘bandwidth’ of economic values of the redfish fishery in Louisiana.  At best, the guided/charter fishery has lost $5 million of its value during the current stock declines, and more likely, it has lost $17.69 million dollars, with current trends pointing to another $22 million decline over the next 5 years.  [emphasis added, internal references omitted]”

That is not a trivial loss.  However, the Louisiana legislature—more particularly those members of the legislature’s regulatory oversight committee representing the House of Representatives, are willing to inflict such economic loss on the state and on its guides and charter boat operators, in order to appease anglers’ rights organizations such as CCA Louisiana who opposed the Louisiana Department of Fish and Wildlife’s preferred management measures.

It seems a foolish and short-sighted approach to redfish management, that will more than double the time it will take to return the red drum stock to full health and sustainability, and also increases the uncertainty as to whether the stock will reach the intended goal.

But then, focusing on “anglers’ rights,” rather than on the health of the fish stocks, which is essential to maintaining the health of both the recreational fishery and the recreational fishing industry, has always seemed to be a foolish thing to do.

 

 

THE STATE OF FISH STOCKS: DENYING REALITY

 

The 2018 benchmark stock assessment made it perfectly clear that the striped bass stock was overfished, and not much has changed since then.  Addendum VI to Amendment 6 to the AtlanticStriped Bass Interstate Fishery Management Plan, adopted in 2019, did get overfishing under control, but spawning stock biomass remains below the biomass threshold, while poor recruitment in three of the four major spawning areas—theVirginia and Maryland portions of the Chesapeake Bay, as well as the DelawareRiver—bodes ill for the future of the stock.

The stock assessment’s conclusions were based on 13 different fishery-dependent and fishery-independent surveys, which spanned the coast from New England to the Virginia coast and sampled fish ranging from juveniles to big spawning females.  The conclusions were peer-reviewed by a panelof three internationally-recognized experts in fisheries biology, who had noconnection to, and thus no intentional or unintentional biases toward, thestriped bass, who found that the assessment was based on good science and wasappropriate for managing the striped bass resource.

So it should be safe to assume that the striped bass stock is in a bad place, and could benefit from some management attention.

But the other day, when I was explaining that to a friend on a public website, citing some of the data related to the spawning failures in Chesapeake Bay and their impact on the bass population, someone else whom we both knew fairly well jumped into the conversation with a single comment,

“All junk.”

When I took exception to that response, and asked him to provide some support for his assertion, I received a heated response, which read in relevant part,

“The bass do not migrate the way they did 10 years ago.  They do not come inside inlets to find food as after the bunker seining was outlawed in New Jersey and then New York.  They feed offshore as far as the canyons and sampling is worthless and near shore catches are down so everyone screams disaster for the stock.  I see tremendous numbers of large breeding females being caught and keeping the hard hit for hire industry alive even though they all get released…There is no hard data.  You can’t regulate a migratory species precisely.  You are missing all the fish that never come inshore.  It’s junk science based on a moving biomass that you have no idea where it’s headed or where it came from.  A bunch of want to be good so called conservationists with a lost cause because your science is based on junk suppositions.  Make you feel good?  Your time has been wasted on this subject…”

Later on, he went on to note that the data underlying striped bass management was

“Junk science’

but

“Can’t be disproved.”

The possibility that the data underlying striped bass management can’t be disproved because it is, after all, true apparently never entered his mind.

Usually, I’d provide link to the exchange so folks could read it all in its original context, buy I’ve known the person making the comments for close to 35 years.  He’s not a bad guy, and I don’t feel like embarrassing him in an Internet post that, for practical purposes, will remain in the public domain forever.  However, his comments did provide too good an example of a phenomenon we often see in fisheries management—people so set on a their desired outcome that they flat out deny reality and refuse to consider any evidence contrary to their views—for me not to steal a few quotes.

The person who made the above-quoted comments is a long-time charter boat captain, and I believe that he holds a commercial fishing license and some striped bass tags as well—although I might be wrong about the latter—so it’s pretty easy to understand why he wants to believe what he does.  The folks who most adamantly deny even overwhelming scientific evidence usually have some economic motive for doing so, although purely recreational fishermen, who glean no profits from the fishery, can doggedly hang onto some strange notions, too.

But typically, there is some money involved.

Take, for example, a recent op-ed piece that appeared on the web page of The Star Democrat, a Maryland newspaper.  The piece, titled “Time for a better way to walk the talk on the Chesapeake Bay,” was similar to the comments quoted above, in that it lamented the fact that the striped bass’ current demise was being blamed on fishing mortality, and proposed other causes for the fish’s troubles.  It called for

“making the right decisions in the right way to address recent reports that the count of young striped bass in the Chesapeake Bay are at a critical low this year.”

The op-ed went on to say,

“some are jumping to the conclusion that overfishing by watermen and waterwomen is the reason for this reported low count.  Upon closer examination it is clear that there may be other reasons that merit further review and consideration.  These probable causes could be:

“Climate change resulting in warmer water in the Bay which may result in striped bass spawning earlier than they have done between March and mid-April.

“The cumulative negative impact on Bay water quality resulting from decades-long discharges of untreated wastewater from the chronically malfunctioning Back River and Patapsco wastewater treatment plants in Baltimore.

“The cumulative negative impact on Bay water quality resulting from decades-long discharges of water from behind the Conowingo Dam.  Over the past three years alone, the Conowingo has released tremendous amounts of sediment and water during the pre- and post-spawning season, directly affecting hatching and survival of striped bass in the northern Bay.

“Steadily increasing numbers of predators in the Bay that eat striped bass, especially during their grow-out.  Those predators include blue catfish, snakehead fish, cormorants (aka sea birds), cow-nosed rays and an increasing number of dolphins in the northern Bay.  [emphasis added]”

 

Unlike the commenter that was first quoted, the piece in The Star Democrat doesn’t flatly reject the science as “junk,” but gets to the same place by stating that

“Instead of over-regulating striped bass and other species, [Maryland] needs to…ensure the department’s conservation work…is rooted in science and evaluated through real-world testing,”

and arguing that

“it simply does not make any sense that the spring survey done by [the Department of Natural Resources] showed large amounts of spawning fish over the past several years,”

suggesting that there is a link between the number of large females present on the spawning grounds and the number of juvenile striped bass produced, which is simply not the case.

The author just can’t admit that Maryland striped bass are experiencing recruitment failure, and that fishing mortality, whether recreational or commercial, must be cut back to maintain striped bass abundance, and perhaps even to prevent a stock collapse.  He tries to find another cause for the striped bass’ distress, while ignoring the fact that, regardless of the cause, reducing commercial and recreational landings is the only tool that fishery managers have to ease the stress on the striped bass population.

Although the author of The Star Democrat piece was a commercial fisherman, recreational fishermen are subject to similar delusions.  The fishing columnist for the Cape Gazette, a Delaware paper, responded to the news of another poor spawn in the Chesapeake by writing,

“I still think they need to consider the fact that there have been more female striped bass in the Hudson River complex over the past few years than ever before.  Those fish did not just drop out of the sky.  They had to come from somewhere, and it’s just possible that they came from the Chesapeake Bay.  As global warming increased water temperatures, these big fish have moved north and now spawn in the Hudson River complex, and not in the Chesapeake Bay.”

I’ve heard others say the same thing, but there is no support for the theory.  Information provided by New York’s Department of Environmental Conservation shows that the Hudson’s juvenile index has, over time, exhibited a slight downward trend, with most, and most of the largest, of the above-average spawns occurring between 1987 and 2003.  However, the second-largest year class on record was produced in 2007, and it is not unreasonable to believe that such year class is responsible for many of the 40-pound-class fish being taken in and around the New York Bight this year.

In addition, spawning striped bass are not fungible; fish that spawn in the Chesapeake Bay and in the Hudson River are not the same.  A few years ago, the Massachusetts Divisionof Marine Fisheries spearheaded a study that found clear genetic differencesbetween the Chesapeake and Hudson spawning stocks, each of which has presumably evolved slight genetic variations to best adapt to conditions on their spawning grounds.

Thus, the data doesn't support the idea of a supposed northward migration of bass accounting for the decline of the Chesapeake spawning stock.

At the same time, it’s only human to believe what one wants to believe.  Confirmation bias, defined as

“the tendency to search out, interpret, favor, and recall information in a way that confirms or supports one’s prior beliefs and values,”

is very real and may even provide some social advantages.

Even if confirmation bias provides no advantage at all, under many circumstances, it does little harm to let people believe what they choose to believe, so long as they don’t force those beliefs, or the consequences of such beliefs, on others.

But when fishermen deny the science underlying fishery management decisions, and try to force their beliefs on the management process, they can adversely impact that process, and cause real harm to fish stocks.

It is the job of fisheries managers, and of fisheries advocates, to recognize such denial for what it is, and prevent such misapprehension from impacting management decisions that, in the end, will affect us all.

 

NORTH CAROLINA'S STRIPED BASS: A TASTE OF BIGGER THINGS TO COME?

 

North Carolina’s striped bass are not doing well.  More particularly, what is known as the Albemarle-Roanoke stock—fish originating in the Albemarle Sound and Roanoke River—seem to be in real trouble.  The have experienced spawning failure in every year between 2017 and 2022, with 2023 likely to add another failure to the list.  Spawning stock biomass has crashed, and fishing mortality is far above the threshold level.

Yet fishing isn’t the only threat to the stock.  River flows have often been too high during the spawning period, scattering eggs into backwaters and flood plains where the chances of survival are close to nil.  And blue catfish may also be impacting recruitment, either through predation or, perhaps, competition for resources.

State fishery managers are trying to figure out how to turn the situation around; they have already resorted to releasing hatchery-raised fish into the affected waters, although they would prefer to see a recovery based on naturally spawned striped bass.

The question that we may want to ask is whether the current state of the Albemarle-Roanoke stock foretells the fate of striped bass along the greater Atlantic seaboard.

While the Albemarle-Roanoke stock falls within the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass, it is managed separately from the coastal migratory stock; the ASMFC has ceded management of the Albemarle-Roanoke fish to North Carolina.  The relationship between the Albemarle-Roanoke bass and the migratory fish is similarly ambiguous, with the 2018 benchmark stock assessment noting that

“Historically, tagging data indicated very little mixing between the Albemarle Sound/Roanoke River stock and the coastal population…However, recent tagging work indicates that most large [Albemarle-Roanoke] striped bass (<800 mm [total length]) are indeed migratory.”

Still, the contribution of that stock to the coastal population is so small, when compared to that of the Chesapeake Bay and the Hudson and Delaware rivers, that its impact on the health of the coastal stock is negligible.  Even so, it is possible that the trajectory of the Albemarle-Roanoke stock may provide managers with a foretaste of the coastal stock’s future.

Much like the coastal stock, the Albemarle-Roanoke bass experienced poor juvenile abundance from the late 1970s through the 1980s.  Like the coastal stock, the Albemarle-Roanoke population also saw juvenile abundance spike between the mid-1990s and mid-2000s.  And like the coastal stock, the Albemarle-Roanoke stockh as seen juvenile abundance crash again in the past few years.

The peaks and the nadirs of juvenile abundance for the two stocks don’t correspond precisely.  In the Albemarle-Roanoke region, the dearth of juveniles extended much farther into the 1980s.  A big year class was produced in 2005, as opposed to 2003 on the coast.  Both stocks saw strong year classes produced in 2011 and 2015, but spawning began to fail in 2017 for the North Carolina fish, as opposed to 2019 in the Maryland portion of the Chesapeake Bay.

There are also notable differences in the two stocks’ declines.  In the Chesapeake Bay, poor spawns are associated with low water flows, resulting from warm winters and warm, dry springs.  In the Albemarle-Roanoke region, spawning failures have been attributed to flooding rivers although some recent years,  despite very favorable conditions in the rivers, spawning failure nonetheless occurred, a fact that is troubling North Carolina fishery managers.

Overfishing also remains a real issue for the Albemarle-Roanoke stock; it has occurred in 19 out of the last 21 years, with only 2003 and 2008 seeing fishing mortality fall below the threshold level.  The fishing mortality rate exceeded 1.00 in 2020 and was about 0.75 in 2021; both figures were very far above the overfishing threshold of F=0.20.  On the coast, overfishing persisted for all but two years between 2002 and 2019, but ended with the implementation of Addendum VI to Amendment 6 to the Atlantic Striped Bass Interstate Fishery Management Plan in 2020; even when such overfishing was at its worst, the fishing mortality rate never rose above 0.40, and so was nowhere near as severe as what is currently being experienced by the Albemarle-Roanoke stock.

Thus, the status of the Albemarle-Roanoke stock, and the problems which beset it, do not perfectly parallel that of the coastal striped bass population.  The current condition of the Albemarle-Roanoke bass is far more dire.

Responses by North Carolina fishery managers have been correspondingly severe.

The total allowable landings for the Albemarle-Roanoke stock had slowly ramped up from 156,800 pounds during most of the 1990s to a high of 550,000 pounds from 2003 through 2014, tracking an increase in striped bass abundance.  However, as stock status deteriorated, that trend was reversed, with the TAL cut in half, to 275,000 pounds, for the period 2015-2020, then slashed again, to 51,216 pounds, where it stands today.  Beginning next year, the TAL will fall to a mere 8,349 pounds, an amount so small that landings cannot be effectively regulated.  For that reason, the North Carolina Division of Marine Fisheries, in accord with its striped bass management plan, will institute a moratorium on harvest, beginning in 2024.

The Division of Marine Fisheries has also initiated a striped bass stocking program, in an effort to halt, and hopefully reverse, the decline in the spawning stock.

Could the coastal stock find itself in a similar situation?

It’s not impossible, although the coastal stock still enjoys some advantages not enjoyed by the Albemarle-Roanoke fish.  Perhaps most important, the coastal stock is not experiencing overfishing, so fishing mortality alone should not cause a stock decline.  Also, the coastal stock enjoys the benefits of three discrete spawning areas—the Hudson River the Delaware River, and the Chesapeake Bay—which means that even if spawning conditions are unfavorable in one region, they may be better elsewhere.  We are seeing that situation play out with spawning failure in the Maryland portion of the Chesapeake Bay, and poor spawning success in the Delaware River and the Virginia portion of the Chesapeake Bay in both 2021 and 2022, while the Hudson River produced a strong year class in 2020 and reasonably successful spawns in 2021 and 2022.

Even so, unless the Maryland juvenile abundance index begins to show some improvement, the Hudson River will not be able to support the entire coastal stock on its own.  The average Maryland JAI for the past five years is only 2.74, the lowest 5-year average in the history of the Maryland juvenile abundance survey.  Even during the heart of the last stock collapse, no five-year average ever fell below 3.45.  If that trend continues, the coastal stock could well collapse again, and drastically reduced landings—perhaps even a harvest moratorium—might be needed in order to rebuild the stock.

So, if the state of the Albemarle-Roanoke stock might serve as a warning of where the coastal stock could be headed if low recruitment and high fishing mortality combine to deplete population, the decisive action taken by the North Carolina Division of Marine Fisheries stands as an example of how the Management Board must act should the coastal stock approach a collapse.

Hopefully, the Management Board will prove just as resolute, for hesitation, half-measures, and indecisive action can, no less than overfishing and poor recruitment, lead to a collapse of the stock.

SAME STORY, DIFFERENT FISH: IN LOUISIANA, POLITICAL INFLUENCE AGAIN TRUMPS FISHERIES SCIENCE

 

Since 2016, I’ve been telling the story of Louisiana’s overfished speckled trout, and how the efforts of Louisiana’s professional fishery managers to rebuild that stock have been frustrated.

It was a story that pitted trained scientists, whose sole objective was rebuilding a badly overfished speckled trout stock, against a charter boat association focused solely on short-term returns and a well-financed and well-connected “anglers’ rights” group that claimed to support conservation at the same time that it was mobilizing its members and spinning up its lobbying efforts in an attempt to stymie speckled trout rebuilding.

In the end, an oversight committee organized by Louisiana’s legislature listened to the lobbyists rather than to the scientists, and vetoed the regulations that the managers wanted to put in place.

In that case, the trout didn't suffer a total loss.

The Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, realizing that their original proposal, which would have raised the minimum size from 12 to 13 ½ inches and decreased the bag limit from 25 to 15, had no chance of being enacted, went back to work and decided that a new set of rules, which would establish a 15-fish bag, create a new 13- to 20-inch slot limit (but allow two over-slot fish to be retained each day), and prohibited professional captains and crew of a vessel carrying passengers for hire to keep any trout at all, would reduce landings by about 19% and could rebuild the stock in roughly six years.

Those new rules made it past the oversight committee, but remain controversial.

Patrick Banks, Louisiana’s chief marine fisheries manager, believes that the poor age structure of the stock, which contains very few older, larger fish, makes such additional restrictions necessary.  He noted that

“What we’ve seen over the past couple of decades is our proportion of older fish in the population is going down and down and down.  If you were to look at the human population and all you saw were eight, nine, and 10-year-old people out there, and there were very few 20-something and above people, well, that’s not good for a population to be skewed to any one side of an age distribution.”

At the same time, many Louisiana charter boats, like many charter boats elsewhere on the coast, are still stuck in the increasingly archaic paradigm of filling their clients’ coolers with dead fish, and can’t imagine any other way to conduct their business.  Some worry that the 13-inch size limit will prevent their customers from taking home enough fish to make chartering their boats worthwhile.

The website nola.com recently interviewed one captain, Dudley Vandenborre, who was less concerned about the minimum size than he was about the 20-inch maximum, as his clients often sought larger speckled trout.  Capt. Vandenborre also worried that the rule prohibiting captains from retaining a limit of fish, which clients, rather than the captain, typically ended up taking home, could be a deal-breaker for many former customers.  Like many charter boat operators, in Louisiana and elsewhere, he questioned the science underlying the rules, and is even considering joining with other guides to challenge the new regulations in court.

Despite such controversy, the new regulations will go into effect on November 20.  How long they will remain in effect is another question, which is not easy to answer.  The regulations are currently scheduled to “sunset” on January 1, 2028, although the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries will be required to prepare a speckled trout stock assessment before then, which they must present at the April meeting of the state’s Wildlife and Fisheries Commission, so that the Commission can propose any new regulations required to manage the fishery.

Yet there is no guarantee that the regulations will make it to 2028.  In January, Louisiana will inaugurate a new governor, Jeff Landry, who may well appoint new members to the Wildlife and Fisheries Commission, members who may be predisposed to reversing or amending the speckled trout regulations.

Thus, one of the basic truths of state-level fisheries management again becomes clear:  Even when scientists manage to put a reasonably effective management measure in place, politics will always hang over the process like the Sword of Damocles, and may, at any time, descend to kill such management measure and replace it with something that is far less effective, but far more palatable to the folks who make the donations that grease the wheels of the electoral process.

This time, red drum—the South’s iconic “redfish”—are the victims.

Right now, Louisiana’s red drum are not doing well, largely due to recreational overfishing (there is no legal commercial redfish fishery in Louisiana, and hasn’t been for decades, so commercial fishing, anglers’ traditional scapegoat/bogeyman, cannot be blamed for the stock’s decline).  

Currently, Louisiana may retain five red drum per day, which must fall within an 18- to 27-inch slot limit, although each day, one of the five fish may be above the slot size.  However, such regulations have only allowed about 20% of the red drum to grow larger than 27 inches and so “escape” the recreational fishery; the best available science suggests that a 30% escapement rate is needed to maintain a healthy stock.  The Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries Commission has proposed new rules that would reduce the bag limit to three fish, narrow the slot size to 18 to 24 inches, and prohibit the retention of over-slot fish.

Such regulations would have reduced red drum landings by 55% and so would have restored the population to health by sometime around 2034—that is, in only about 10 years.

Such proposed regulations were supported by the majority of the public comments made before the Commission.  They were also supported by the majority of the comments made when the regulations were reviewed by the legislator’s oversight committee, with one guide, Steven Cratty of St. Bernard’s Parish, telling the politicians that

“I’m worried about my future.  The rate of decline of the redfish population…in the short period of five years in the state of Louisiana is truly terrifying.”

Jason Adriance, a state fisheries biologist, bluntly told the committee that

“We’re depleting the stock faster than it can maintain itself.”

Some guides told the committee that the decline in redfish abundance was already hurting their businesses, and leading to cancelled trips, although others disagreed, saying that the redfish stock was perfectly healthy, and that it was still possible for them to book 200 trips per year.

David Cresson, executive director of the Coastal Conservation Association’s Louisiana chapter, also opposed the proposed rules, saying

“The majority of our members believe that the [Notice of Intent] passed in July goes a step too far,”

which was not at all surprising, given that CCA Louisiana dons the mantle of conservation the way the wolves in the Sermon on the Mount would don a flayed sheep’s skin to hide their true and ravenous nature. 

Unfortunately, neither science nor the majority of the testimony carried much weight with the legislators on the oversight committee.  Instead, as CCA Louisiana likely knew going into the meeting, they decided in favor of the politically connected.  By a vote of 8-2, they rejected the state biologist’s advice and the proposal brought forth by the Commission, and instead supported a weaker set of management measures which would only reduce the bag limit to four fish, and keep the current 18- to 27-inch minimum size, while prohibiting the retention of any over-slot fish.

Such measures would supposedly reduce landings by nearly 37%, while dragging out the red drum’s recovery to 2050, 16 years longer than it would take under the Commission’s proposed rules.  The Commission, and the state managers, must now decide whether to concede the issue, or try to craft another measure that strikes some middle ground.

As in the case of speckled trout, CCA Louisiana managed to leverage its political influence, to successfully defeat science-based management measures and, in doing so, put more dead fish in its members’ coolers.

Which is just what any "anglers rights" organization would try to do.

Once again, CCA’s Louisiana chapter demonstrated why it, like the entire national organization, wants fishery management to be performed at the state level.  

Because that's the best place to set science aside, and let politics dictate fisheries policy.