CATCHABILITY

 

Fishermen and fishery managers often disagree about the health of fish populations.

A while ago, I reported on a recentstudy that tried to explain just why that is so, and why fishermen andfisheries scientists can look at the same fishery and come away with completelydifferent conclusions.  But in today’s edition of One Angler’s Voyage, I want to spend a little more time on one particular source of conflicting perceptions, the question of “catchability.”

Fishermen often, and understandably, tend to gauge the health of fish stocks by what they are catching.  If they’re not catching fish, the stock must be in trouble.  On the other hand, if they’re catching well, the stock must be healthy, and when biologists suggest otherwise, they’re labeled as office-based pencil pushers who “don’t spend time on the water;” if the comment comes from within the fishing community, it’s quickly dismissed as coming from someone who isn’t a “real fisherman,” who knows what’s actually going on.

Yet those making such superficial and simplistic comments rarely take the time to try to understand why other people’s perceptions vary so far from their own.

The answer is often “catchability,” which the International Seafood Sustainability Foundation desfines as

“The extent to which a stock is susceptible to fishing; quantitatively, the fraction of a fish stock that is caught by a defined unit of the fishing effort.”

In other words, sometimes fish can be relatively easy to catch, even though the stock is depleted, while at other times, even fish that are part of a healthy stock can be dismayingly hard to find.

The recent history of the striped bass fishery in the New York Bight provides a good look at the catchability issue.

There is no doubt that the striped bass stock is overfished.  The most recent benchmark stock assessment found that bass have been overfished since 2009, while the latest stock assessment update revealed that, while the spawning stock biomass is slowly increasing, it remains below the threshold level that defines an overfished stock.

Yet New Jersey’s spring striped bass catch data seems to tell an entirely different story.

For the years when the stripedbass spawning stock biomass was at its peak—let’s say, for the sake of this discussion, the five years between 2002 and 2006—the number of striped bass caught in all of New Jersey during March and April averaged a little under 550,000 fish.

For the next 14 years, as the spawning stock biomass declined and the stock became overfished, the number of striped bass caught off New Jersey in March and April actually increased, averaging about 665,000 fish for the years 2007 through 2020.

But then something remarkable happened.  In 2021, New Jersey’s recreational fishermen caught slightly over 4 million striped bass, most of those fish coming from the vicinity of Raritan Bay.  That number dropped to about 1.7 million bass in 2022 and 2023, but was still well above any year prior to 2021.  Not all of those fish were caught in or around Raritan Bay, but there is little doubt that the Bay’s sharp increase in striped bass abundance was responsible for most of the spike.

Raritan Bay began to develop a reputation as the new promised land for striped bass anglers.  In an April 2023 article in Salt Water Sportsman, the author declared,

“Montauk has long been known as ‘Mecca’ for striped bass fishing, but I think that’s about to change.  New York’s famed location is going to have to give up the title to its little brother, New Jersey.”

But he may have spoken too soon.  During March/April 2024, New Jersey anglers only caught a little over 1 million striped bass, less than they caught in 2005, 2007, or 2009, strong years that occurred during a 21-year period when catches were relatively low.

Something similar occurred in the fall.

During the period of peak striped bass abundance, 2002-2006, New Jersey’s striped bass catch during November and December averaged around 1.8 million fish.  For the 14 years between 2007 and 2020, that average declined, to around 1.65 million bass per year, with annual catch generally tracking the size of the spawning stock biomass.

But beginning in 2021, catch spiked to levels never recorded in this century, reaching nearly 3.2 million fish in 2021, about 4 million in 2022, and 6.1 million in the last two months of 2023.  Again, much of that catch occurred in the New York Bight, although the majority of it happened in the ocean, and not in Raritan Bay.

There was such a disconnect between what the stock assessments were saying and what the fishermen in the New York Bight were catching that some anglers, and many members of the for-hire fishing fleet, refused to admit that the striped bass stock was not in good health.

Some comments submitted to the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board, prior to its consideration of Addendum II to Amendment 7 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass, reflected such anglers’ and captains' disbelief that fishing in New York Bight could be so good if the stock was not in good shape.  The commenters said things like

“in the New York Bight area we now have some of the best striper fishing I have ever seen in my life.  This is due to the fact that the Hudson River stock is in great shape.  However, we are denied access to them because of the declining Chesapeake Bay stock.  I believe that as the population of the Hudson River stock increases so does their range.  They are heading further North, South and East providing great sport in areas where they never used to travel to.”

And,

“I am absolutely sure that there are many more Stripers in the population today than at any time in my life time.  As a matter of fact even as I am writing this there is fantastic striper fishing going on from Long Island, New York to Virginia Beach.”

As well as,

“The fishing this Fall in New York and New Jersey is unbelievable.  I read where, on an average trip, every patron on a 65 foot head boats [sic] lands at least five fish a trip in the 40 to 50 pound range.  The fishing continued for weeks.  Where did these fish come from?  It is my believe [sic] that your data collection system has missed large schools of large fish.”

And finally,

“New Jersey has the most exciting, and one can argue the healthiest, Striped Bass fishery in many generations.  Conservation is an important measure to ensure a sustainable future for this amazing fishery for a generation to come—no one doubts that—but with such a great fishery unique to this area, it begs the question of whether we need to come to terms with a truth, backed by data—not all waters governed by ASMFC are created equal.

“The 2023 Emergency Action was a commendable action to preserve the Chesapeake Bay stock—which isn’t healthy—but data shows the Hudson River stock continues to outperform its average and there is an abundance of bass in all size ranges.  In addition to scientific evidence, anecdotal reports from party boat and charter boat captains will tell you that they haven’t seen the type of Striped Bass migrations in the Spring and Fall that we experience today…

“The 2023 Emergency Action’s application in New Jersey is not backed by science, data or any educated fisherperson’s POV in the area.  It’s an unnecessary protection that creates unnecessary barriers of entry to this sport…costing the for-hire fleet and those that it supports (bait shops and other businesses supported by fisherman [sic]) dearly.”

In each case, the commenter was willing to advance a position that has no scientific support (“the population of the Hudson River stock increases,” “there are many more Stripers in the population today than at any time in my  life time,” “your data collection system has missed large schools of large fish,” “the Hudson River stock continues to outperform its average.”) than to consider the possibility that there may be a reason that they are catching more bass in recent years, despite the depleted stock.

And there is a reason:  The recent abundance of menhaden in the New York Bight.

The author of the Salt Water Sportsman article alluded to that fact when he wrote,

“Jersey politicians did one thing right: Getting the Omega 3 bunker boats out of state waters.  That has allowed a vast biomass throughout the year in Jersey waters.  This draws behemoth bass into the bays, river systems and alongshore to fatten up on omnipresent adult bunker.”

For it was the presence of the bunker—Atlantic menhaden—in Raritan Bay and the New York Bight, in far greater numbers than in past years, that drove the striped bass fishery.  The big bass bunched up under the bunker schools, making them far easier to find and far easier to catch, than they were before 2021.  The striped bass did not suddenly become more abundant—given the size of the fish being caught, if it was really a matter of abundance; if it were, that abundance would have been seen in earlier years’ catch data, as even larger numbers of younger fish passed through the fishery.

The Hudson River did not suddenly begin turning out large numbers bass that could somehow, miraculously, grow from egg to 40 or 50 pounds over the course of a single year.

But the menhaden could concentrate the available striped bass in a relatively small area and make them easier for anglers to find and to hook—that is, the bunker made the bass for more catchable.

It's no coincidence that in the spring of 2024, when menhaden abundance in Raritan Bay was lower than it had been in the three preceding years, New Jersey anglers started catching fewer striped bass.  Those that found and fished over menhaden schools still managed to catch a lot of fish, but with schools harder to find, the overall number of striped bass caught plummeted.

And that's not a bad thing.

While increased catchability might prove a temporary boon for anglers, it doesn’t do much good for the fish, as it leads to an unexpectedly high number of bass being removed from the population, as either landings or release mortality, and because it makes anglers doubt the science behind fisheries management, and reduces their willingness to work with the management system.

The difference between catchability and abundance is very real.

So when a fisherman, whether recreational or commercial, starts catching a big load of fish, their first reaction ought not to be “There are plenty of fish in the ocean; the science has to be wrong,” but rather “With fish this easy to catch, we’d better not take home too many,” because further depleting an already depleted stock is never a good idea.

WHAT'S HAPPENING WITH BLACK SEA BASS?

 

New York’s black sea bass season opens today, and I’m curious what it will look like.

Family obligations, along with an unfriendly ocean, are going to keep me ashore, although I hope to be able to get out next week and sit on a wreck or two; black sea bass have long been one of my favorite local food fish, and the start of the season is usually the best time to take a few home.

I’m not sure how many black sea bass—or, at least, how many legal black sea bass—anglers will be taking home this year, for while the fish became very abundant over the past 15 years or so, before tapering off a little recently, there has been a noticeable drop-off in the size of those caught.  That’s true here in New York, and I’ve recently also heard of anglers complaining that Massachusetts black sea bass are also declining in size.

The black sea bass stock was overfished as recently as 2007, then staged a spectacular recovery.  Spawning stock biomass peaked at about 240 percent of its target level in 2014, before slowly declining to its current level of about 180 percent of the SSB target.  It appears that mild overfishing might have occurred in 2021, the terminal year of the most recent research track stock assessment; a management track assessment, scheduled for release later this summer, will provide anglers and fishery managers with a more up-to-date picture of where the stock stands right now.

However, regardless of abundance—and the management-track assessment will gauge stock health strictly in terms of spawning stock biomass, and not the size of the individual fish—the seeming decline in the number of larger black sea bass, if it is occurring over a wide swath of the fish’s range, and not merely off the South Shore of Long Island, ought to give managers cause for concern.

Fifteen or so years ago, the black sea bass stock was much smaller than it is today, but it also drew far fewer recreational fishermen.  In 2010, New England anglers made a little over 190,000 trips primarily targeting black sea bass.  By 2015, that number had almost doubled, to nearly 350,000 trips; by 2021, the number of trips doubled again, to more than 785,000.  Neighboring New York saw a somewhat less pronounced increase in angling effort, with directed black sea bass trips increasing from about 175,000 in 2010 to 650,00 trips in 2015, before falling back to about 320,000 in 2021.

Such increase was unquestionably due to the increase in black sea bass availability, but anglers switching effort from a declining summer flounder population onto abundant black sea bass also played a role.  New England anglers’ directed summer flounder trips dropped from about 630,000 in 2010 to about 430,000 in 2021, even though there was a slight increase, to roughly 775,000 trips in 2015 as anglers responded to the strong showing of legal fluke from the 2008 and 2009 year classes.  New York anglers showed a similar trend, with effort dropping from about 2.8 million trips in 2010 to a little under 2.0 million in 2021, with a spike to about 4.2 million trips in 2015 as anglers responded to temporarily increased summer flounder abundance.

Fishery managers never really got a handle on the increasing effort in the black sea bass fishery; their inability to predict the changes in angler behavior was a textbook case of management uncertainty, and cried out for the establishment of an annual catch target in the recreational fishery, which might have been set below the sector’s annual catch limit and would have provided a buffer for the uncertainties created by changes in angling effort.  The National Standard Guidelines issued by the National Marine Fisheries Service call for such a response, saying

“[Annual catch targets], or the functional equivalent, are recommended in the system of [accountability measures] so the [annual catch limit] is not exceeded.  An [annual catch target] is an amount of annual catch of a stock or stock complex that is the management target of the fishery, and accounts for management uncertainty in controlling the catch at or below the [annual catch limit]…”

However, neither NMFS nor the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council chose to follow such Guidelines which, unfortunately, do not have the force of law, and the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Summer Flounder, Scup, and Black Sea Bass Management Board, which is not legally bound to any performance standard, did not consider the issue.  Thus, recreational fishermen chronically exceeded their sector’s annual catch limit; eventually, spurred by pressure from a recreational fishing industry that is always seeking new ways to maintain or increase anglers’ kill, the Council, NMFS, and the Management Board adopted a new management strategy, the so-called “Percent Change Approach,” which makes it even more likely that anglers will exceed their ACL.

Even so, anglers continue to kill more black sea bass than any established limit supposedly allows, and do so with near-complete impunity.  Chronic overages supposedly triggered mandatory accountability measures for the 2024 fishing season, but the accountability measures contained in the management plan are so toothless that anglers were subject to no real accountability at all.

Ultimately, actions have consequences, and we now might be seeing the consequences of managers’ failure to adequately constrain recreational black sea bass landings.

In 2010, the black sea bass bag limit was high (I think it was 15 fish), the size limit was something around 13 inches and the season was long, but because effort was relatively low, I could still run out to a well-known and easy-to-find wreck on the Fourth of July, find few other boats competing for space on the piece, and limit out easily, with a fair number of fish over 3 pounds, some over 3 ½, and none so small that they required measuring.

Five years later, the fish weren’t as big as they had been, the bag limit was smaller, the season was shorter, and the size limit a bit larger, but as the included photo shows, there were still plenty of quality fish to go around, and it didn’t take long to catch them (the two fish in the photo weighed a combined 7 pounds, 14 ounces, with the larger weighing 4 pounds 2, although by 2015, the average size began to shrink quickly once the season got underway.

Today, it can take a couple of hours—maybe more—to land just three fish over the 16 ½-inch minimum, even on the day that the season begins.  The fishing club that I belong to runs a year-long contest for a number of different species, including black sea bass, awarding first, second, and third place to the largest weighed in.  Although the club has 90 members, plus spouses and minor children, only two black sea bass were weighed in last year, and both weighed less than three pounds.

Granted, most of the bottom off Long Island’s South Shore is sand and gravel, with little structure other than wrecks and artificial reefs to hold black sea bass in any numbers.  Anglers can pick the quality fish off those pieces quickly, particularly when the party boats are active.  Fishing is better on the rock bottoms that prevail to the north and east.

Still, when a fishery loses most of its big fish, and becomes dependent on only a few, recently produced year classes, it is not a good sign.

Right now, there’s no reason to panic, because the spawning stock is still very large and recruitment of new fish into the population has been strong.  Although abundance has been trending downward for the last decade or so, it remains well above target and even a significantly smaller spawning stock biomass, which varies a little above and below target over the years, constitutes a management success story.  Anything more than that is a bonus.

However, should spawning stock biomass fall below 150 percent of its target level—something that probably hasn’t happened yet—the management regime under the Percent Change Approach will become a little bit more restrictive.  That could easily happen a few years from now if managers don’t get recreational overages under control.

We should also remember that the National Marine Fisheries Service may have overestimated recreational effort, catch, and landings.  

While that may seem like a good thing, because it means that anglers killed fewer fish than managers believe, it can actually be a curse in disguise.  That’s because the stock assessment includes recreational landings as part of the data used to calculate the size of the black sea bass stock.  If those landings estimates are too high, then the estimate of stock size are too large as well, and the annual catch limits based on the stock size estimate—for both the recreational and the commercial sectors—are too high, and could well lead to overfishing, and a further decline in abundance, if the stock is smaller than managers believed.

The good news is that black sea bass abundance remains high enough that, even under something approaching a worst-case scenario, it’s unlikely that any long-lasting harm will be done.

The bad news is that if managers keep taking black sea bass for granted, and assuming that high abundance will continue to offset anglers killing too many fish, they might eventually face a reckoning that will probably be harder on managers, and the fishermen who followed their advice, than on the species itself.

As is so often the case with so many species, while the stock remains healthy, a little bit of precaution ought to be exercised to keep things on track.

 

AT LEAST FOR NOW, THERE'S NO SHORTAGE OF FORAGE IN THE CHESAPEAKE BAY

 

I’ve written about it before, but still become dismayed when fishery managers attempting to address a real problem seek public comment, and the public comes back with responses that neither answer the questions the managers ask nor reflect reality. 

Many of the comments received by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission with respect to Addendum II to Amendment 7 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass, finalized earlier this year, fall into that category.

The Draft Addendum II sent out for public comment was a relatively simple document.  It explained that the striped bass stock remained overfished, that the stock was unlikely to rebuild by the 2029 deadline under the current management program, and proposed some options for additional, interim restrictions for the recreational and commercial fisheries that should help put rebuilding back on track until a stock assessment update scheduled for release in October provides more definitive guidance on needed management measures.  

The public was asked to comment on the various forms that such additional restrictions might take.  Nothing else was on the table.

Yet it was remarkable how many comments ignored the proposed management measures and instead said things like

“Banning highly technology- assisted [sic] commercial menhaden fishing, as it is currently practiced out of Reedville [Virginia], is the only route to [striped bass] recovery…,”

“I would like to know why there is no reference to the Menhaden Fishery in the bay as a contributing factor to the health of the striped bass fishery,”

and

“Why is the ASMFC refusing to acknowledge the effect of the menhaden reduction fishery on the ability of the striped bass population to rebound?  I don’t even target striped bass anymore where I live in Virginia Beach so you could enact a total moratorium for all I care.  Even a moratorium on recreational/commercial harvest won’t make a difference though, the fish need forage to rebound and their forage is being removed.  It’s really not that difficult to understand but it is an inconvenient truth for those that have been bought by Omega and its subsidiaries, and that’s why we are where we are.  Until there is a meaningful change there won’t be a meaningful recovery, either.”

What is most remarkable about such comments and the other 90 or so similar missives scattered among the more substantive comments addressing the issues described in Draft Addendum II—aside from their complete failure to respond to the questions asked in the Draft Addendum and their seeming attempt to convince the Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board to regulate Atlantic Menhaden, something that it has absolutely no power to do—is the authors’ failure to provide any factual support for their allegations that a lack of menhaden is the, or at least one of the, primary reasons for the decline of the striped bass population, despite their absolute conviction that such is the case.

The simplest explanation for such lack of supporting data is probably that the claims of a menhaden shortage are just not true.

After all, the most recent stock assessment update for Atlantic menhaden found that

“The fishing mortality rate for the terminal year of 2021 was below the [Ecological Reference Point] target and threshold and the fecundity [which is used as a proxy for spawning stock biomass] was above the ERP target and threshold.  Therefore, overfishing is not occurring and the stock is not considered overfished.”

That is particularly relevant to the debate over the health of the striped bass stock, because the Ecological Reference Points used to evaluate the Atlantic menhaden population are directly related to the menhaden’s role as a forage fish, and its ability to support a fully-recovered striped bass population, for as an overview of the Atlantic menhaden stock assessment notes, the

“ERP target was defined as the maximum [fishing mortality rate] on Atlantic menhaden that would sustain striped bass populations at their biomass target when striped bass were fished at their [fishing mortality rate] target.”

If the fishing mortality rate for Atlantic menhaden is below the target rate, as is the case, and if the fecundity of the Atlantic menhaden stock is above the fecundity target, as is also the case, then there is, by definition, an adequate supply of menhaden to support a fully-recovered striped bass population, much less today’s overfished stock.

Thus, claims that there are too few menhaden to supply the striped bass population, and that a lack of menhaden has led to a striped bass decline, are patently false.

However, that evaluation is made on a coastwide basis.  The question of whether menhaden can be locally depleted, and whether intensive fishing in a single location might cause ecosystem harm, remains.  That is a recurring question in the Virginia portion of the Chesapeake Bay, the only such inland waters where the industrial-level harvest of Atlantic menhaden is still allowed.

Thus, a recent op-ed in the Daily Press, a Virginia news outlet, included statements such as,

“Cooke Seafood of Brunswick Canada, and its wholly owned subsidiary Omega Protein of Reedsville take up to 110 million pounds on indiscriminately harvested menhaden every year from the Chesapeake Bay…This practice depletes the Bay of one of the most important fish of the sea—menhaden—a forage fish striped bass, ospreys and many other species are dependent upon. [emphasis added]”

Yet, once again, we need to ask the question:  Where is the data supporting such assertion?

Right now, no such data exists.  The Virginia state legislature was thinking about funding a comprehensive study of menhaden in Virginia waters, but for whatever reason—which might well include subtle pressure from the menhaden industry, although that has not been conclusively proven—that funding has been delayed and might never occur.

However, the state of menhaden aside, there doesn’t seem to be any evidence that there is too little bait—the catch-all term anglers often use to refer to forage species—to support the Chesapeake Bay ecosystem.

The Chesapeake Bay Project, a collaboration between state agencies and NOAA’s Chesapeake Bay Office, issued its Forage Status and Trends Report for the Chesapeake Bay last November.  The report was intended to answer an important question,

“How is the Chesapeake Bay forage base changing over time, and is there enough food available for key predators?”

It seems that, while anglers and advocates tend to focus on the large, flashy forage such as menhaden, the fish tend to focus elsewhere, with the humble polychaete worm, and not the much-touted menhaden, being the most important forage in the Bay.  And the worms are doing pretty well.

As the Forage Status and Trends Report notes,

“Overall, forage abundance in the Chesapeake Bay exhibits high interannual variability, although some long-term trends were identified in the time series.  Abundances of young-of-the-year forage fishes have been relatively low since the 2000s compared to historic estimates.  Total benthic invertebrate biomass throughout the Chesapeake Bay appears to be relatively stable, fluctuating around an average, Tand perhaps exhibiting a slight increase over time.  The slight increase is probably driven by polychaetes, whereas mysid [shrimp] biomass appears to have declined over time.  Diet analyses determined that polychaetes were the most important prey taxa for a suite of Chesapeake Bay fish predators, but relative contributions of Atlantic menhaden and bay anchovy to diets have increased over time.  Insects also play a large role in the diet of resident striped bass in the shallow waters of the Bay tributaries.  Total annual consumption by all Chesapeake Bay predators examined (striped bass, summer flounder, Atlantic croaker, white perch, weakfish, spot) decreased substantially since 2004, leveling out around 2011.”

Again, there is no suggestion that there are too few menhaden in the Bay to support the striped bass.  Graphs provided elsewhere in the report illustrate the fact that, in the early 2000s, when striped bass biomass was reaching its peak, the proportion of Atlantic menhaden consumed by striped bass, as compared to other forage species, was at its lowest point in the time series.  The importance of menhaden, as a fraction of total prey consumed, actually increased as the striped bass declined; today, such importance is at or near its high level at any time in the current century, a fact that seems to rebut some anglers’ and organizations’ claims that the current state of the striped bass was caused by insufficient menhaden availability.

A similar pattern can be seen for an aggregate of all six predator species considered in the Report, with menhaden constituting a fairly low percentage of overall forage consumed for most of the time series, before sharply spiking upward, then declining just as quickly, in the mid-2010s.

So why are menhaden the focus of so much debate, and why does menhaden receive so much attention in the press?  Part of it undoubtedly stems from the fact that their big schools, frequently seen splashing across the surface of the Bay, are a very obvious part of the ecosystem, and draw substantial public attention.  And, because menhaden are such an obvious forage species compared to, for example, the small and rarely noticeable polychaete worms, they draw a lot of funding from the big foundations that finance conservation efforts by a host of non-governmental organizations.

But even if that is true, why do I keep harping on the issue?  After all, menhaden conservation is still a good thing, and increasing menhaden numbers shouldn’t do any harm, either in the Bay or elsewhere along the East Coast.

I do so because all of the hype about menhaden is providing some people and organizations an argument they can use in their efforts to thwart needed conservation measures for other, truly troubled species.

Going back to the comments to Draft Addendum II to the striped bass management plan, we find those of the Hi-Mar Striper Club of Middletown, New Jersey, which informed the ASMFC that

“Our members have seen and experienced the ‘peaks and valleys’ of Striped Bass stocks, and are obviously very concerned regarding the proper management of this fishery for the present and future.  The Hi-Mar Striper Club does not believe that the proposals included in Draft Addendum II will actually help with the management of Striped Bass to attain ASMFC’s projected stock rebuilding by 2029…Striped Bass stocks in Chesapeake Bay have been on the decline for many years due to several factors, including lack of forage fish (specifically, Menhaden due to the mismanagement of this fishery by Virginia and Maryland)… [emphasis added]”

A similar sentiment was expressed by another New Jersey organization, the Jersey Coast Anglers Association, which commented that

“there are more than enough striped bass in the [spawning stock biomass] to produce a very good spawn if we get the right conditions.  Further restricting commercial and recreational fishermen may not do much good.  However, one thing you can do is to eliminate [sic] or reduce the number of menhaden that are netted commercially in the Chesapeake Bay.  Increasing the number of menhaden would be beneficial to stripers of all sizes in the bay…  [emphasis added]”

Thus, the fallacy of a depleted menhaden stock continues to haunt the management process, potentially obstructing meaningful efforts to rebuild the striped bass stock.  As we begin to approach the October meeting of the ASMFC’s Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board, we need to be aware of such red herring, and of the likelihood that some in both the recreational and for-hire fisheries will attempt to use it to thwart needed harvest restrictions.

For that reason alone, it’s important to spread the word that there are plenty of menhaden on the East Coast, and sufficient forage in the Chesapeake Bay, to support the striped bass. 

The answer to rebuilding the spawning stock biomass of striped bass to target levels isn’t increasing menhaden abundance, but reducing fishing mortality.  So it is today, and so it has always been.

It’s something that everyone needs to remember when the time to make decisions draws near.

 

 

WILL ENDANGERED SPECIES PETITION DISRUPT ALASKA'S SALMON FISHERIES?

 

I’ll always remember a couple of days spent fishing for salmon on Alaska’s Kenai River.

It was during July 2004, when my wife, two friends, and I were enjoying some time at a lodge in Soldotna.  The river was out back, the sockeye run was on, and after dinner we’d take a walk down to the water and cap off the day’s action catching larger fish by hooking a few sockeye in the unending light of the sub-Arctic summer.

But we hadn’t come to Alaska for little salmon.  We came for halibut, big lingcod, rockfish and, of course, for that largest of salmon, the Chinook, which the Alaskans refer to as “kings.”

On our first fishing day, we were on the river, back-trolling plugs draped with skeins of salmon eggs.  We had high hopes, because in Alaska, where salmon are part of the culture, the fish are intensively managed, and our first day on the Kenai was on one of those days of the week when it was illegal to deploy gill nets at the river’s mouth, so the Kenai was flush with fresh-run fish.

We caught a lot of salmon that day, but were slow to put any in the fish box.  In order to limit fishing mortality, Alaska requires that, once someone keeps a Kenai king salmon, they must immediately note that fish on their license and stop fishing for the rest of the day.  We were having too good of a time, amid some beautiful country that we had never seen before, to be forced to head in early.

But eventually each of us caught a Chinook worth taking home.  Mine went 43 pounds, our largest of the day, but none were particularly small.  We then spent a couple of days by running out of Lighthouse Point for Cook Inlet halibut, and making a 70-mile run from Seward to the fertile bottom fishing grounds of Montague Island at the edge of Prince William Sound, but on our last outing of the trip, we returned to the Kenai for one more shot at the kings.

The gill nets were back in the river, so we knew that fishing would be slower than it was the first time we went out, but we still had our hopes.  I was in an unreasonably cocky mood, and backed myself into a corner by announcing that I wouldn’t kill a fish smaller than the 43 that I had already put on ice.  I started regretting that comment after an hour or so, when we were yet to hook our first fish, and regretted it all the more when I landed a fish that might have been in the high 20s or maybe low 30s, and was obliged to return it to the river.

Despite the gill nets, we all managed to catch something.  Theresa, my wife, put a 42 in the box, and both of our friends also scored with smaller Chinook, leaving me as the only one in the boat who still had a line in the water.  Finally, I hooked a fish good enough that I worried about losing it, that tore up the river and, as I finally worked it close, came out in a jump that bounced it off the side of the boat and, as the line went slack for a moment, made me think that my worries came true.

But the fish was finally netted and brought aboard.  Back at the launching ramp, when it was finally hung on a scale, it pulled the needle down to 51 pounds.

Just then, a little local girl maybe 10 years old walked over and asked what it weighed.  When told “51” she gave an almost-grown-up scoff before loudly declaring “That’s all?  I had a 72 this morning!” and slowly walking away.

Thus can overinflated egos be popped.

But the Kenai was like that just two decades ago. 

In our two days on the river, we probably landed between 15 and 20 king salmon, keeping our limit of eight and releasing the rest.  There’s no reason to believe that the other boats on the river—and there were a lot of them—weren’t enjoying similar success.  That doesn’t count the fish that were caught in the gill nets downstream, by anglers fishing from shore, and in the subsistence fisheries farther upriver, where Alaskan Natives depend on the salmon for food.  Returning Chinook filled the Kenai back then.

Since then, Chinook numbers have crashed.

So far this year—and admittedly, there is a lot of the year left to go—the sonar used to count salmon entering the river has counted only 271 kings.  Biologists want to see somewhere between 3,900 and 6,600 Chinook salmon escape harvest to ensure a successful spawn.

Some view the Chinook’s situation as dire, so last January, one salmon conservation group, the Wild Fish Conservancy, presented the National Marine Fisheries Service with a petition to list

“all Chinook populations that entered the marine environment of the Gulf of Alaska”

as either threatened or endangered pursuant to the federal Endangered Species Act.  That is a somewhat ambiguous request, so NMFS has

“interpret[ed] the petitioner’s request as asking NMFS to consider populations of Chinook salmon on the southern side of the Alaska Peninsula, including Kodiak Island, Cook Inlet, Prince William Sound, and the [Gulf of Alaska] coastline and inside waters of Southeast Alaska to the United States/Canada border at approximately 54^o 45’ N latitude.”

The description of the area covered by the petition was not the petition’s only flaw.  Given the significance of the action requested, to both the salmon and to the many Alaskans who are connected to the commercial, recreational, and subsistence salmon fisheries, the petition was apparently a sloppy and poorly-researched effort.  NMFS has noted that

“We have reviewed the petition, the literature cited in the petition, and other literature and information available in our files.  We identified numerous factual errors, omissions, incomplete references, and unsupported assertions and conclusions within the petition.”

Yet, notwithstanding such flaws, on May 24, 2024, NMFS issued a so-called “90-day finding” which stated that

“the petition, viewed in the context of information readily available in our files, presents substantial scientific or commercial information indicating that the petitioned action may be warranted.”

More particularly, NMFS stated in the 90-day finding that

“we find that some of the information in the petition, in particular the missed escapement goals in recent years for many stocks in the petitioned area, and evidence of decreasing size and age at maturity, would lead a reasonable person to believe that the petitioned action may be warranted.”

Now, NMFS is soliciting scientific and commercial information from any interested party, which it will consider when making its final decision on whether to list Gulf of Alaska chinook.

It is far from certain that such listing will occur.  In its 90-day finding, NMFS seemingly expressed some skepticism that information justifying a listing would be received, noting that it made its recent decision

“In light of this uncertainty [about the number and structure of sub-populations of Chinook in the area covered by the petition] and the low statutory standard at the 90-day stage,”

thus implying real doubt that the same information leading to the finding would be adequate to meet the more rigorous standards that govern the final decision.

Nonetheless, there is concern that any listing of Chinook salmon would have a severe negative impact on fisheries for other salmon species.  A recent article in the National Fisherman observes that

“the listing could severely curb fisheries directed toward Alaska’s other four species: sockeyes, chums, cohos, and pinks.  This would be an endangering blow to the commercial fishing industry.

“In regimes to protect weaker stocks such as the chinooks, which return en masse with other species, the listing could force managers to close fisheries directed for the harvest of lucrative sockeyes and plentiful pinks at Kodiak, Cook Inlet, the Alaska Peninsula, and Prince William Sound.”

It’s also possible that the impact could spread well beyond the Gulf of Alaska salmon fisheries.  

There has been a long and ongoing debate about the number of Chinook salmon taken as bycatch in mid-water pollock trawls.  Currently, the North Pacific Fishery Management Council has set a hard bycatch cap of 60,000 Chinook salmon each year, which is divided among different sectors; the pollock fleet is effectively governed by a smaller, 47,591 Chinook maximum.  But not all, and probably a minority, of the the Chinook caught by the trawlers come from the Gulf of Alaska, so there are smaller, region-specific caps in effect there, with pollock trawlers limited to a total 24,999 Chinook limit, which is broken down between the Central and Western parts of the Gulf, while trawlers seeking other groundfish may kill another 7,600 Chinook, distributed across three sectors of the fleet.

Should Gulf of Alaska Chinook be listed, some or all of such bycatch would be considered an illegal take, and the relevant fisheries shut down unless and until they could obtain permits that allowed a limited number of Chinook to be taken incidentally.

Given the impacts of a listing, the State of Alaska is not pleased with the conclusions of NMFS’ 90-day finding.  A spokesman for the state declared,

“The petition was clearly drafted by people with little knowledge of Alaska and Alaska salmon stocks.  It was rife with significant factual errors, omits important data that are widely available, and does not accurately describe the status of chinook salmon in Alaska.  It is mind boggling that NMFS could make a positive finding based on cherry-picked data to support a pre-determined viewpoint.”

Alaska argues that the escapement numbers are a poor criteria to use when considering a threatened or engangered listing.

“Simply failing to meet an escapement goal that is calculated to meet maximum sustainable yield does not mean a stock is at risk of extinction,”

an argument that might well be justified provided that fishing mortality can be effectively eliminated, and only the survival of the Chinook is a consideration when determining how many returning fish may be sufficient.

Of course, in March of this year, despite the plight of the Kenai’s Chinook, Alaska’s Board of Fisheries voted to reduce the escapement goals for late-run fish in the river, in order to create more commercial fishing opportunities for other salmon species.  Thus, the state’s views on Chinook escapement probably ought to be read with a big grain of salt.

Still, Roland Maw, a director of the United Cook Inlet Drift Association, a commercial fishing group, also questions using the escapement data as an indication that the Kenai run, in particular, may be endangered.  He notes that the figures emphasize the number of three, four, and five year old fish returning to the river, individuals typically measuring between 32 and 34 inches in length.  He opines that

“It is highly probable that, in the Kenai, the spawning escapement goals are being achieved and possibly exceeded when all age classes of chinook are enumerated.”

Whether that’s true, or whether it is just an argument based on hope, is something that NMFS will ultimately need to figure out.

In the meantime, it’s clear that if at least one run of Chinook in the Gulf of Alaska is found to be either endangered or threatened, however unlikely that finding might appear right now, that decision will have a big impact on people and resources outside of the Chinook fishery.  

Thus, it’s probably appropriate to ask how and why a fishery that seemed to be thriving just twenty years ago has gotten to the point where an endangered species listing is, if not probable, then at least a real possibility.  And it's also appropriate to look back and ask whether there is anything that fishery managers might have done to keep the fishery--and the Chinook population--from falling so far downhill.

For while it is not at all certain that NMFS will list the Chinook under the ESA, the one thing that is certain, beyond any reasonable doubt, is that the Chinook will not be the last species of fish to be subject to a listing position.  For that reason alone, we should try to learn from the Chinook's situation, to better understand how things go wrong, and how mistakes may be averted, to perhaps prevent other species of fish from sharing the Chinook's fate.

 

 

 

 

 

ASMFC SEEKS TO FINE-TUNE COBIA MANAGEMENT

 

Anyone who has spent years on and around the northeastern coast knows that climate change and a warming ocean are having a significant impact on fish stocks.

Such changing conditions, combined with years of overfishing, have certainly contributed to the collapse of winter flounder and Atlantic cod, and may have pushed other once-common species such as pollock and silver hake (“whiting”) farther north and farther offshore.

But the other side of the coin is that we’re seeing some new species move into local waters.  Here in New York, it’s no longer unusual to see a pod of blacktip or spinner sharks ravage a school of menhaden just a few hundred yards off the beach, something that was just about unheard of even a decade ago.  Some warmer-water species that always made sporadic appearances, such as sheepshead, black drum, and croaker, are becoming more abundant.

And one of the most interesting of those newly-arrived species is the cobia which, like drum and sheepshead, were once very occasional catches, but are now becoming abundant enough to target.

Last season, my friend Mike Mucha caught the first cobia ever brought about one of my boats.  It was a small one, close enough to New York’s 37-inch limit that we released it rather than bringing it home (cobia are reportedly excellent food fish).  It wolfed down a whole mackerel hung on an #18/0 circle hook and 15 feet of #14 wire while we were shark fishing around the 20-fathom line.  Many other local anglers, particularly those fishing closer to shore, have caught multiple cobia, with a very few in the 80 and 90 pound class.  Some fish are even being taken in the surf.  Although cobia are not yet a frequent catch here on Long Island, there are enough around for anglers to intentionally target, if they’re willing to put in the time and effort.

However, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Migratory Group Cobia does not really address the species’ northward movement.  That is probably going to change.

The ASMFC has recently released Draft Addendum II to Amendment 1 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Migratory Group Cobia, which would update the management plan to account for the species northward expansion.  

As the Draft Addendum notes,

“the distribution of cobia landings has changed in recent years and is markedly different from the distribution of state landings observed during the initial allocation data timeframe of 2006-2015.  Over the last several years, recreational landings have increased in some Mid-Atlantic states while remaining relatively stable in the southern states, indicating a possible range expansion as opposed to a stock shift.  Additionally, two states have recently declared into the Atlantic cobia fishery (Rhode Island and New York) due to the increasing presence of cobia in state waters.  Updating the allocation data timeframe would account for these recent changes in landings and the extent of the fishery.  If reallocation is not considered, it is likely that some Mid-Atlantic and de minimis states at the northern end of the range will continue to exceed their soft targets resulting in restrictive cobia measures that may not reflect the status of the stock.”

Allocating the cobia resource

The Draft Addendum includes a number of allocation-related and data-related measures.

Section 3.1, Recreational Allocation Framework, asks whether the current state-by-state allocation should be changed. 

Option A, the status quo allocation, is heavily loaded toward the not-too-recent past, with 50% of each state’s allocation based on landings from 2011 to 2015, and 50% based on landings from 2006-2015.  More recent landings are not considered, and the de minimis states, which are currently defined as all states north of Virginia, are allocated just 1% of overall landings, which amounts to 769 fish.

While that might have made sense seven or eight years ago, it no longer reflects the reality of the fishery since, in the six years between 2018 and 2023, those states exceeded their combined allocation on four different occasions; in 2021, they landed a combined 5,334 fish, 694% of their allocation for that year.  The Draft Amendment represents the ASMFC’s efforts to address some of the problems arising out of the status quo.

Option B would also retain the current state allocation system, but would update the allocations with more recent data, and would increase the de minimis states’ allocation to 5% of overall landings.  

Option B is further broken down into two sub-options, Sub-option B1, which would base each state’s allocation on that state’s landings in five years during the period between 2018 and 2023 (2020 landings would be excluded from the calculation because of COVID-related uncertainties in the data), and thus would employ the most recent data available, while Sub-option B2 would only base 50% of a state’s allocation on landings during those years, while looking farther backward and base the other 50% on landings between 2014 and 2023.

Either sub-option would shift the allocation substantially northward compared to the status quo Option A, increasing Virginia’s share of the landings by roughly two-thirds, while cutting North Carolina’s share to about one-third of what it had been before.  South Carolina and Georgia would also see significant reductions.  Of the two sub-options, B1 would shift allocation somewhat more northward than B2.  Such northward allocation shifts should hardly be surprising, since the most recent data shows a steady northward shift in landings, as well.

To that extent, Sub-option B1 probably best reflects current data and trends in cobia landings.

However, Sub-option B1 only makes sense if one believes that cobia should be allocated on a state-by-state basis.  Option C provides for regional allocations.  It is also more complicated than the earlier options, because it offers up two possible regions, and two different ways to calculate allocation.

Sub-option C1 would create two regions, one consisting of all states between Rhode Island and North Carolina, and the other including just South Carolina and Georgia.  As was the case with Sub-option B1, allocation would be based on landings during the years 2018 through 2023, excluding 2020.  Sub-option C2 would create the same two regions, but take Sub-option B2’s backward looking approach of using both 2018-2023 landings and 2014-2023 landings to determine allocations.  

Both options would group the two Mid-Atlantic states with the largest allocations with the northern states with developing fisheries, and leave South Carolina and Georgia, with their small traditional fisheries, on their own.

Sub-option C3 would constitute the two proposed regions somewhat differently, with one region including all of the states with increasing landings or developing fisheries—that is, the states between Rhode Island and Virginia—in one region, and North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia, the states with a decreasing share of the landings, in another.  Like Sub-option C1, C3 would use 2018-2023 (excluding 2020) as the base years for the regional allocations.  Sub-option C4 would establish the same two regions as Sub-option C3, but would take the same backward-looking approach as Sub-option C2.

While the various “C” sub-options might all make sense, depending on what data one might wish to emphasize, it would seem that, of all the regional sub-options, Sub-option C3 might be the right way to go, as it seems to best capture current trends in the fishery, grouping all of the states that seem to be increasing their share of landings—a trend that might well continue into the future—in a single region, while also using the most recent data to calculate the allocations.

Still, local allocations, whether based on states or regions, are not the only way to go.  Option D offers the possibility of coastwide management.  Under Option D, there would be no state or regional allocations, merely a single coastwide harvest target.  Nor would there be local size limits (other than in some de minimis states) or vessel bag limits (cobia are managed with a vessel, rather than individual, bag).  However, states would be allowed to set their own seasons, so long as such seasons adequately constrained landings, in recognition of the fact that the peak cobia season occurs at different times at different places along the coast.

Biologists believe that all cobia between Georgia and Rhode Island belong to the same stock of fish, and it is always a good idea to manage a fish stock as a unified whole, rather than applying different rules along different sections of coast.  The accuracy of recreational catch, landings, and effort data also tends to be most accurate when many samples are gathered over a broad geographic area.  Those factors all militate in favor of Option D.  However, the issue of fairness may be raised by some, who fear that the southern—that is, Georgia, South Carolina, and perhaps North Carolina—share of the fishery may continue to decline as the stock expands northward, and that eventually, even though the stock is healthy and cobia remain abundant in local waters, one or more of those states may be slowly squeezed out of their traditional share of the fishery by states to their north.

It’s not an unreasonable argument, but for those who believe, as I do, that management measures should reflect current abundance, and allow fishermen to land fish where the fish are today, rather than where they used to be, Option D would seem the best choice.

Section 3.2, Updates to State/Regional Recreational Allocations, would become irrelevant if Section 3.1’s Option D was selected, but raises an important question that could arise if any of the other Section 3.1 options are chosen:  What should the procedure for changing allocations be?

Normally, I wouldn’t think about the question too much, because the typical allocation debate sees managers expending much sound and fury to accomplish very little—most of the time, those that have allocation keep all, or almost all, of what they originally had, while those who are allocated little of a particular fishery resource are told to suck it up and stop complaining.the typical allocation debate sees managersexpending much sound and fury to accomplish very little—most of the time, thosethat have allocation keep all, or almost all, of what they originally had,while those who are allocated little of a particular fishery resource are toldto suck it up and stop complaining.  But cobia present a special case.

Cobia are expanding their range northward, into the de minimis states.  Once a state becomes responsible for more than 1% of overall landings, it loses its de minimis status and, if state allocations are still being used to manage the stock, must leave the de minimis pool and get its own state-specific allocation.  So there is a substantial chance that some state allocations will have to be changed, whether the other states want to cede some of their fish or not.

In addition, the data underlying many states’ landing estimates are iffy, because cobia constitute a seldom-encountered species and there is a lot of uncertainty in such states’ landings estimates.  Also, the National Marine Fisheries Service is currently conducting a study to determine whether the Marine Recreational Information Program might be overstating recreational effort, catch, and landingsthe NationalMarine Fisheries Service is currently conducting a study to determine whetherthe Marine Recreational Information Program might be overstating recreational effort, catch, and landings.  If the cobia catch and landings estimates change as result of either of those issues being resolved, it could have an impact on the landings estimates used to set state allocations, which then may have to be revisited.

Option A would ignore the advantages of acting quickly should any of those eventualities occur, and only allow reallocation through the standard ASMFC addendum process, which usually takes close to one year to complete.

Option B would fast-track the reallocation process, but only if 1) a state loses its de minimis status, and must be given its own allocation, or 2) the harvest estimates for the years used to set the allocation are revised.  Under such circumstances the Management Board would be allowed to change the allocations without the red tape associated with developing an addendum.

Given its limitations on management board action, Option B, which would quickly conform the management plan to the current reality, would seem the better choice.

How to best use uncertain data

The next two items in the Draft Addendum turn away from allocation and toward how effort, catch, and landings data ought to be used.  That’s an important question because, as noted above, the relative dearth of cobia catches in some states results in MRIP interviewers contacting too few anglers who caught cobia, and thus very uncertain numbers.

Section 3.3, Data and Uncertainty in Recreational Landings Evaluations, tries to address that issue.

While Option A would maintain the status quo, and compare a three-year rolling average of landings estimates against the landings target (note that if a state’s management measures changed during any three-year period, only the years with the most recent management measures would be considered), Option B would try to smooth out the peaks and valleys in the estimates by using a five-year rolling average instead, again with the proviso that, if management measures changed during the five-year period, only those years with the most recent measures would be included in the average.

It's possible to argue for either option.  Option A’s three-year rolling average would probably be less precise, and might result in unnecessary restrictions on fishermen or unjustified liberalizations in the face of a stable or even a declining stock.  However, it would probably allow managers to respond more quickly to an increase in landings that threatened the health of the stock.  Option B’s five-year average would probably better inform management about the long-term trends in the stock, and avoid unnecessary or unwise changes to management measures, but would also be slower to respond to a spike in landings.

Based on the time it would take for the management board to respond, Option A may be the better option, but it is a very close call.

The next logical question, how to respond if the rolling average shows a harvest target being exceeded, is addressed in Section 3.4, Overall Response to Recreational Landings Evaluation with Rolling Averages.

Option A embodies the current response, which requires a state (or region, should the management board opt for regional management) to shorten its season or reduce its vessel limit in the event that the three- or five-year rolling average of landings exceeds the state’s (or region’s) landings target or, if the state (or region) experienced an underage for two consecutive years, ask for permission to lengthen its season or increase its vessel limit, regardless of what was going on elsewhere on the coast.

Option B would insert some flexibility into the process, and excuse a state from changing its management measures in the event of an overage if 1) another state’s (or region’s) average landings were below target by at least the amount of such overage, or 2) the average coastwide landings for the relevant period were below the coastwide quota.

Again, arguments could be made for each option.

Option A requires states to maintain discipline, and avoids the situation where one state adopts what it suspects are inadequately restrictive measures in the hope that it will be bailed out by either another state’s, or a coastwide, overage.  On the other hand, Option B creates a situation which, for practical purposes, becomes a hybrid between state-by-state or regional management and managing the stock on a coastwide basis.  Either option, if properly enforced, probably protects the stock, and thus from a conservation standpoint, there is probably no real difference between the two.

Setting management measures

Section 3.5, Timeline for Setting Commercial and Recreational Measures, addresses the duration of management measures.  Option A reflects the status quo, in which the management board is empowered to adopt measures setting overall harvest quotas, vessel limits, bag/possession limits, size limits, and grounds for closing the commercial fishery at the end of a three-year period or after each stock assessment.  Option B would extend the life of management measures for up to five years, provided that there is no intervening stock assessment.  Since stock assessments will probably only occur every five or six years, extending the life of management measures would probably not have a detrimental effect on the stock.

What’s next?

The complete Draft Addendum can be found at https://asmfc.org/files/PublicInput/AtlCobiaDraftAddII_PublicComment_May2024.pdf.  It contains a far more detailed discussion about why a new addendum is needed, and the rationale behind the various options. 

The ASMFC is currently accepting public comment on the Draft Addendum.  The comment period will end at 11:59 p.m. on July 8.  Comments may be emailed to comments@asmfc.org (if you take this route, please write “Cobia Draft Addendum II” in the email’s subject line) or mailed to Emilie Frank, Fishery Management Plan Coordinator, Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, 1050 N. Highland St., Suite 200 A-N, Arlington, VA 22201.

It's not often that we can witness the development of an exciting new fishery in local waters.  While anglers between Virginia and Georgia have long fished for cobia, and will certainly be interested in the Draft Addendum, it is also something that anglers in the de minimis states should not ignore, for how the fishery is managed, and how the fish are allocated, may well decide whether states to the north will benefit from cobia’s expansion, or whether they will only be allowed to take the leavings of those who have already been allocated a share.

Personally, I hope to target cobia this summer, right outside my home inlet, and expect that many other anglers in the de minimis states hope to do the same.  Commenting on the Draft Addendum is just a step toward that goal.