AUGUST AT THE MID-ATLANTIC FISHERY MANAGEMENT COUNCIL: SHORT-TERM GAINS, BUT LONG-TERM QUESTIONS

 

The Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council’s August meeting is arguably the most important meeting of the year, for it is the time when the annual specifications—the overfishing limit, acceptable biological catch, annual catch limits, etc.—will be set for the following year.  It’s when the commercial fishery’s rules will be finalized although, with the exception of bluefish, recreational management measures aren’t typically set until the December meeting, after managers have a better idea of how current regulations impacted recreational landings.

For the important recreational species--bluefish, summer flounder, scup, and black sea bass--the Council meets jointly with the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Bluefish and Summer Flounder, Scup, and Black Sea Bass management boards.  The current rules require that both the Council and the appropriate management board agree on management measures for those four species, although nothing prevents an ASMFC management board from going rogue and refusing to cooperate with the Council. 

We saw that last year in the case of black sea bass, whenthe Summer Flounder, Scup, and Black Sea Bass Management Board refused to adoptthe Acceptable Biological Catch set by the Council’s Scientific and StatisticalCommittee, which would have lowered black sea bass landings by approximately 20percent.  The Management Board had the flexibility to do so since it, unlike the Council, is not bound by the provisions of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, which compels the Council to follow the SSC’s harvest advice.

However, such divergences are unusual, and this year, none occurred, perhaps because the SSC recommendations allowed more liberal landings of all four species, something that the management boards, and many Council members, often strive to promote.

The increased landings limits will make fishermen happy in 2026 and, in the case of the recreational fishery, where regulations are maintained for two consecutive years, in 2027 as well.  Whether they will benefit fishermen in the long term is probably up for debate.

In the case of bluefish, which are still in a rebuilding program, the increase in the recreational harvest limit will be substantial, increasing from 15.7 million pounds in 2025 to 22.02 million pounds in 2026 and 22.5 million pounds in 2027.  That will allow the bag limit to be increased from 5 to 7 fish for anglers on for-hire vessels, and from 3 to 5 fish for the now second-class anglers who fish from their own boats or from shore.

Although that’s a big increase, the really big jump was in the acceptable biological catch, which increased from 21.83 million pounds in 2025 to 44.61 million pounds in 2026 and 45.41 million pounds in 2027.  However, the commercial and recreational harvest limits didn’t jump nearly that much, as they were constrained by management uncertainty buffers imposed by the Council and the Bluefish Management Board.  Such uncertainty buffers reduced the commercial annual catch limit, which set at 14 percent of the acceptable biological catch, by 25 percent, and the annual recreational catch limit, set at 86 percent of the ABC, by 30 percent, to allow for management uncertainty.

That is a very big deal, and should be seen as a very welcome move in the right direction.

The guidelines for setting harvest limits, established by the National Marine Fisheries Service, call for reducing the annual catch limit to account for any management uncertainty.  However, in the past, the Council has been very reluctant to do so, as such buffers reduce the amount of fish that could be landed over the course of the year.  But this year, in the case of bluefish, the Council and Board adopted buffers which

“are intended to prevent management volatility and ensure the continued rebuilding of the stock.  Council and Board members also noted that the upcoming changes to the [Marine Recreational Information Program] estimates are a significant source of uncertainty.  [emphasis added]”

(Remember that highlighted language, as we’ll be coming back to it in a while.)

Hopefully, the Council’s and Board’s willingness to finally acknowledge management uncertainty will set a precedent that we will see in future years and with other species, although I’m somewhat skeptical about such a fortunate outcome.

In any event, even with the uncertainty buffers, the 2026 commercial quota will be 50 percent higher than it was in 2025, while the recreational harvest limit will rise by about 40 percent.

It’s going to be interesting to see fishermen’s reactions to the increased harvest limit.  Even at 2025 harvest levels, commercial fishermen needed to be careful that they didn’t land too many bluefish, flood the market, and drive down the price.  So how much they might benefit from more quota is an open question.

On the recreational side, the calculated increase in bluefish spawning stock biomass has had an irregular impact along the cost.  In some places, bluefish have been abundant, and anglers are catching a lot of them.  In other areas, fishing for bluefish has been sporadic at best, with a lot of slow days.  In my own experience, which mostly takes place offshore, I still haven’t had a bluefish—with the exceptions of some 12-inchers in July 2023—in my shark slicks since 2017, even though I often chum in places where bluefish swarmed two decades ago.

Also, now that the recreational bag limit has increased to five fish, it’s somewhat disturbing that the Council and Board have decided to grant for-hire anglers special privileges, and increase their bag limit to seven, thereby arbitrarily creating winners and losers within the recreational fishery.  As noted by Michael Waine, a spokesman for the American Sportfishing Association, the largest fishing tackle industry trade group, in a letter to the Council and Board,

“…ASA recommends increasing the private angler bluefish bag limit to 5 fish, aligning it with the current limit for for-hire anglers.  This change would reunite all anglers under a 5-fish bag limit, ensuring consistent management and equitable access ahead of the joint Sector Separation Amendment, which is expected to address mode management more formally…  [emphasis added]”

Unfortunately, the for-hire sector’s dominance of the management bodies, and particularly of the recreational seats on the Council, assured that such consistent bag limit and equitable access would not occur.

Summer flounder also saw a very large increase in the acceptable biological catch, which jumped by 55 percent from its 2025 level.  Once again, that increase was tempered by a decision to apply a 12 percent buffer for management uncertainty to both the commercial and recreational annual catch limits.

In recommending that buffer, the Summer Flounder, Scup, and Black Sea Bass Monitoring Committee, composed of biologists from NMFS, the ASMFC, and the various states sitting on the Summer Flounder, Scup, and Black Sea Bass Management Board, acknowledged that it was

“concerned about the implications of such a substantial increase, particularly given the volatility of ABCs over the past several years…The Monitoring Committee emphasized the importance of maintaining quota stability and ensuring the specifications process remains responsive to uncertainty and stock dynamics without overcorrecting from one specifications cycle to the next.”

In addition,

“The Monitoring Committee expressed reservations around the stock projections used to inform the ABC.  The [Scientific and Statistical Committee’s] recommendation relied on short-term projections from the most recent management track assessment, which were based on the recruitment stanza from 2011-2024.  The Monitoring Committee noted that while 2023 and 2024 recruitment appear stronger than those in the preceding decade, recruitment in nearly every year since 2010 has remained below the long-term average.  This persistent pattern raised concern about whether the recent increase reflects a meaningful shift in stock productivity or merely a short-term fluctuation, as it appears to have in the past.  The Monitoring Committee emphasized that recruitment has been highly variable over time, and the stock has yet to demonstrate a consistent return to higher recruitment levels…”

Thus, the Monitoring Committee recommended precaution, and the Council and Board agreed.

Even so, the commercial quota will increase from 8.79 million pounds in 2025 to 12.78 million pounds in 2026 and 2027, while the recreational harvest limit will change from 6.35 million pounds to 8.79 million pounds over the same period of time.

Of course, that doesn’t mean that 2026 or 2027 recreational regulations will allow landings that are higher than those predicted for 2025.  That’s because summer flounder spawning stock biomass is currently at 83 percent of the target level, and the so-called “Percent Change Approach” used to set recreational management dictates that, if a stock is at “low” abundance levels—defined as not overfished, but less than 90 percent of the biomass target—even if 2026 and 2027 recreational landings are predicted to be below the recreational harvest limit for those years, no increase in the recreational landings limit will occur.  

However, that doesn’t mean that recreational management measures might not change; if 2026-2027 recreational landings are likely to fall well below the recreational landings limit under the current rules, regulations could be liberalized to make it more likely that landings will approach the landings limit in those years.  At the same time, should 2025 recreational landings be likely to exceed the 2025 landings limit, regulations could become more restrictive.

We won’t know that until the December joint Council and Management Board meeting.

But if the August meeting saw managers take a more precautionary approach with bluefish and summer flounder, it saw them exercise their usual profligacy with black sea bass and scup, undoubtedly because, while the former species are at 89 percent and 83 percent of their target levels, respectively, the two latter species are at levels approaching or exceeding 300 percent of target, which makes it a little easier to recover from management mistakes.

Still, there are warning signs in the data suggesting that the future for both scup and black sea bass might not be quite as favorable as conditions are today, and that a little bit of precaution might also be justified.

In the case of scup, the fish are almost embarrassingly abundant.  The 2025 management track stock assessment calculated the spawning stock biomass to be 235,613 metric tons (519.4 million pounds), which is 323 percent of the SSB target, with fishing mortality low, at only 55 percent of the biomass target.

That allowed the acceptable biological catch to be increased by two percent.  However, that increase was not reflected in the commercial quota, which will decrease from 19.54 million pounds in 2025 to 17.70 million pounds in 2026 and 15.57 million pounds in 2027.  The recreational fishery, on the other hand, will see the recreational harvest limit increase from 12.31 million pounds in 2025 to 13.17 million pounds in 2026, before declining to 11.58 million pounds in 2027.

However, despite all the seemingly good news in the short term, there is some troubling information in the management track assessment, in the form of continued low recruitment.  Scup recruitment peaked in 2015, an exceptionally productive year, when nearly 696 million Age 0 fish entered the population.  But recruitment has been down since then, dropping to about 319 million in 2016, to 160,000 the year after.  Recruitment fell to 88 million in 2019 before rebounding to 153 million in 2021, but then fell to its lowest levels in the last 10 years in 2023 and 2024, at 40 million and 16 million, respectively.

Managers can only hope that recruitment improves to more typical levels.  Even if it does, the last two years are going to be felt once the fish that recruited in those years grow into the minimum size.  Given that, perhaps a little precaution now might have helped moderate the shock when rules need to be tightened again, perhaps for 2028, perhaps not until 2030.

In addition, there is the question of the revised Marine Recreational Information Program estimates of anglers catch, landings, and effort, which we first encountered in the bluefish discussion.  The problem is that in 2023, a pilot study conducted by NMFS suggested that MRIP might be overestimating angler effort, and so recreational catch and landings, by as much as 30 percent.  That created significant management uncertainty, since if the pilot study’s findings were even close to accurate, the true level of recreational catch and landings can not be known with any reasonable degree of precision.

That might seem OK at first glance, since if recreational landings were overestimated, then it’s easy to believe—falsely—that such overestimate built a margin for error into the process of designing recreational management measures.  If the actual recreational removals were less, one might think, then fewer fish were being killed, and no harm was being done.

But that’s not true, because recreational landings aren’t only used to set recreational management measures.  They are also one of the data sets that are used in stock assessments, and contribute to the calculation of things like spawning stock biomass.  So if recreational landings are high, and fishery-independent surveys seem to show that the stock can sustain that level of removals, then biologists assume that the stock must be larger than previously believed, increase their estimates of spawning stock biomass, and also their estimates of things like the spawning stock biomass target, the overfishing limit, the acceptable biological catch, and the annual catch limit for both the recreational and the commercial sectors.

That’s where things start heading downhill, for while the increase in the recreational catch limit doesn’t really matter—the overestimate of recreational landings and the overestimate of stock size more-or-less offset one another—overestimating the biomass also leads to commercial quotas that are set higher than they ought to be, which could be the case with scup.

Yet neither the Monitoring Committee nor the Council and Board chose to adopt a buffer for the management uncertainty that very definitely exists for scup, as they did for bluefish and summer flounder.  One has to suspect that it was the political aspect of reducing landings for a fish of very obvious abundance that stayed their hand.

Black sea bass decisions followed a very similar course to those affecting scup.  With the 2025 management track stock assessment indicating a spawning stock biomass that was 284 percent of the target level, the acceptable biological catch was increased from 16.66 million pounds in 2024-2025 to 21.34 million pounds for 2026-2027.  That led to a 31 percent increase in the commercial quota, from five million to 7.83 million pounds, and a 30 percent increase in the recreational harvest limit, from 6.27 to 8.14 million pounds.

But black sea bass have some of the same threats lurking in the shadows as scup.

The reset of the Marine Recreational Information Program creates the same sort of management uncertainty, and black sea bass recruitment is also headed downhill.  The 2025 management track assessment shows that, over the past ten years, recruitment—which is measured at Age 1—hit its lowest point in 2024, at about 28 million fish, compared to peaks of 62 million in 2016 and 61 million in 2023.  

While the 2024 number could be viewed as merely a one-year anomaly, and thus fairly meaningless, a recent report issued by NMFS informed us that, because of a temporary, southerly jog in the Gulf Stream, cooler, fresher water from northern regions are flowing onto the continental shelf off New England and the upper Mid-Atlantic.  That cooler, fresher water may be present at the edge of the shelf for years. 

That matters for black sea bass, because the strength of a black sea bass year class isn’t determined by the success of the spawn, but by ocean conditions at the edge of the continental shelf during the fish's first winter.  Warm, saline water generally produces large year classes, while cooler, fresher water tends to produce small ones.  Thus, the small 2024 year class may well be the first in a series of low-recruitment years, driven by unfavorable ocean conditions that could persist for as long as a decade.

Another thing that the Monitoring Committee noted was

“comments from several advisors about high numbers of small black sea bass this year.”

Unfortunately, the Monitoring Committee only interpreted those comments to mean that there might be higher levels of release mortality, due to a higher number of undersized fish, and not as a warning that a lack of large black sea bass may be an indication that fishing mortality has risen so high that few fish are surviving long enough to reach larger sizes.  Again, like the cooling water and lower recruitment, the small fish could be a sign that a population decline is on the way.

But despite the uncertainty, as was true in the scup fishery, no buffer was put in place.

And maybe it doesn’t matter.

The best available scientific information for bluefish, summer flounder, scup, and black sea bass all suggested that higher annual catch limits are justified, and at least in the short term, they almost certainly are.

But maybe managers should also take time to read the warning signs that flash around all of the Mid-Atlantic Council-managed recreational fisheries.  They did so for bluefish and summer flounder, but not for scup and black sea bass.  ‘

Maybe they don’t have to.  Maybe with populations as high as they are, managers can intervene later, and still maintain the stock at or near the biomass target.

But still, we have to ask ourselves, is it better to be a little cautious, even if there’s no immediate need, than to wait until a real problem looms, and then try to fix things all at once?

In the case of scup and black sea bass, future events might well answer that question.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

EVERYONE WANTS SCIENCE-BASED FISHERIES MANAGEMENT--JUST NOT FOR MENHADEN

 

Most of the time, nearly everyone agrees that science-based fisheries management is a good thing.

The Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act states that

“It is further declared to be the policy of the Congress in this Act…to assure that the national fishery conservation and management program utilizes, and is based upon, the best scientific information available… [formatting omitted]”

and requires that

“Conservation and management measures shall be based upon the best scientific information available.”

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission expresses a similar sentiment in its Interstate Fisheries Management Program Charter, which states that

“It is the policy of the Commission that its [Interstate Fisheries Management Program] promote the conservation of Atlantic coastal fisheries resources, based on the best scientific information available, and provide adequate opportunity for public participation.”

The bias toward science-based fisheries management is certainly understandable, since hard data and peer-reviewed stock assessments certainly provide a better basis for management decisions than does anecdotal information and fishermen’s assurances that no management measures are needed because “there are plenty of fish out there…somewhere.  They just went away for a while.”

Of course, one would have to be completely naïve to assume that the rise of science-based management led to a new world where biologists determined the optimum management measures, and fishermen—and fisheries managers—meekly complied.  In many ways, the science just changed the focus of the debate.

Now, instead of merely trying to discredit management actions with anecdotal evidence, fishermen challenge the science itself, arguing that they’re catching plenty of fish, and if biologists can’t find them, it’s because they don’t know where the fish are and/or don’t know where to catch them.  Or, as in the case of striped bass, they might argue that the stock is healthy, because they’re spawning in new places where biologists aren’t looking—for example, in Connecticut’s Housatonic River—even though such places might be completely devoid of suitable spawning habitat.

But, whatever the argument, most fishermen aren’t going to give up killing fish without a fight.

Even fishery managers get in on the act, as happened last December, when the ASMFC’s Summer Flounder, Scup, and Black Sea Bass Management Board chose to ignore the stock assessment update for black sea bass, along with the Mid-Atlantic Fisheries Management Council’s Scientific and Statistical Committee’s advice, and leave management measures at status quo, even though the best available scientific information told them that the stock was more than 20 percent smaller than previously believed.

Usually, when the science is questioned, it’s because the data suggests that fishing mortality has gotten too high and landings must be reduced.  And when fishermen, or fishery management bodies, suggest that the science is better ignored, their arguments are usually countered by a host of conservation advocates, who demand that the best available science be used to develop management measures.

That’s why what we’ve been seeing occur with menhaden over the past couple of years, and more particularly over the last half-dozen months, seems more than a little weird. 

And more than a little hypocritical.

There was a time when menhaden conservation advocates believed in good science, too.

The original Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Menhaden, released in 1981, was a truly awful document designed to serve the needs of the menhaden reduction industry, and not the needs of the menhaden resource.  It’s “Specific Management Objectives” were

“To achieve a reliable, productive capability for the Atlantic menhaden so that harvest may be maintained with confidence at or below the level of maximum sustainable yield (MSY);

“To take cognizance of the role of menhaden in the food chain of predatory game fish when determining MSY;

“To maximize yield per recruit consonant with the geographic distribution of the resource and the historic needs of the fishery;

“To encourage maintenance of a stable business climate.”

To achieve those objectives, the initial management plan created the Atlantic Menhaden Management Board, and decreed that such Board

“be composed of the six chief fishery management administrators of states actively participating in the management program, six menhaden industry executives who request membership, and an ex officio member from NMFS…This group will meet a minimum of two times per year to consider recommendations of their Atlantic Menhaden Implementation Subcommittee (AMIS) and take action on the AMIS recommendations and implementation strategy…  [emphasis added]”

The Atlantic Menhaden Implementation Subcommittee

“shall be composed of 3 industry and 3 state administrator members of the [Atlantic Menhaden Management Board] …[and] will provide guidance to the [Atlantic Menhaden Advisory Committee] on specific issues, receive management actions recommendations from the [Advisory Committee], and formulate a strategy for implementation of each recommendation that they approve… [emphasis added]”

Finally, the management plan established an Atlantic Menhaden Advisory Committee that would be

“appointed by the [Atlantic Menhaden Management Board]  and be composed of fishery biologists designated as representatives by the States actively participating in the management program, industry representatives designated by the companies in the purse seine fishery, and a NMFS biologist from the menhaden program who is actively engaged in the research and data base management…  [emphasis added]”

It was a classic case of the fox watching the henhouse which, with the industry representatives at all levels of the management process equal to the number of state biologists present, guaranteed that science would be subordinated to the interests of the menhaden purse seine fleet.

Conservation advocates and members of the recreational fishing community fought for many years to change the system.  I got involved in the fight around 1996, and was a relative latecomer compared to some of the people who had first engaged in the battle years before that.  But, whenever we got involved, we shared a common goal:  Getting the menhaden industry representatives off the management panels, and restructuring the Atlantic Menhaden Management Board, so that it looked like  all of the other ASMFC species management boards, with representatives from every jurisdiction with a declared interest, and no seats reserved for special interest groups. 

The Atlantic Menhaden Implementation Subcommittee would be abolished and replaced by a Plan Development Team and Technical Committee made up of ASMFC staff and scientists from the several states, and not from the menhaden industry, while the Atlantic Menhaden Advisory Committee would be reshaped into an Atlantic Menhaden Advisory Panel, with seats for stakeholders from all the interested states, and again no reserved seats for the industry, although industry members could apply for seats on the panel, subject to their state’s and the Management Board’s approval.

It took many years to get to that point, but in July 2001, the ASMFC adopted Amendment 1 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Menhaden, which removed the industry seats from the Management Board and related bodies, and created a management structure no different from that used to manage other species within the ASMFC’s jurisdiction.  As part of the process, Amendment 1 deleted the old “Specific Management Objectives” and replaced them with a new set of objectives, one of which was to

“Base regulatory measures upon the best available scientific information and coordinate management efforts among the various political entities having jurisdiction over the fisheries.”

Science-based menhaden management had just taken a big step forward.  However, the debate over what constituted a “healthy” menhaden stock continued. 

Were the current biomass and fishing mortality reference points correct?  And, perhaps more important, should menhaden be managed pursuant to a traditional, single-species model that only considered the fish’s ability to maintain spawning stock biomass at or near the target level, or should the menhaden’s role as a forage fish, and thus its importance to the marine ecosystem, be considered as well?

At its March 2011 meeting, the Management Board initiated an addendum to investigate both of those issues, and so began what would become a long effort to manage the menhaden resource through so-called “ecological,” rather than “single-species,” reference points.

That concept was very new.  No other ASMFC-managed species, and probably no other marine species managed anywhere in the United States, was managed primarily to preserve its role in the ecosystem.  Thus, it was clear that the process of defining, much less adopting, ecosystem reference points would take a while.  Even so, Amendment 2 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Menhaden, adopted in December 2012, explicitly stated that the single-species biological reference points contained in that amendment were merely interim standards put in place until ecological reference points could be established.

The breakthrough came in 2019, with the release of the 2019 Atlantic Menhaden Ecological Reference Point Stock Assessment Report, the first menhaden stock assessment based on ecological reference points.  After reviewing the applicable ecosystem-based models, the biologists performing the assessment determined that

“All of the models explored by the [Ecological Reference Points Working Group] agreed on the current status of Atlantic menhaden: in 2017, overfishing was not occurring and the stock was not overfished, even when Atlantic menhaden’s role as a forage fish was taken into consideration.  Current levels of Atlantic menhaden removals were unlikely to cause a decline in predator populations.  [emphasis added]”

Those findings were confirmed in the 2022 Atlantic Menhaden Stock Assessment Update, which revealed that

“The Atlantic Menhaden Management Board (Board) adopted [Ecological Reference Points] in Amendment 3.  Thus, stock status was determined using those benchmarks.  The fishing mortality rate for the terminal year of 2021 is below the ERP threshold and target…, and the fecundity for the terminal year of 2021 is above the ERP threshold and target…Therefore, overfishing is not occurring that the stock is not overfished.

“The uncertainty in the stock status was evaluated through the [Monte Carlo bootstrap] analysis.  The terminal year [fishing mortality rate] was below the ERP threshold for all of the MCB runs and the terminal year fecundity was above the ERP threshold for all of the runs…  [emphasis added, internal references omitted].”

That would seem like good news.  Atlantic menhaden are being managed by a largely unbiased—or, at least as unbiased as a fishery management body ever gets—Management Board, which has agreed to manage menhaden based on its ecosystem role as an important forage fish.  And, even according to that standard, which is presumably more demanding than the use of single-species reference points would have been, the best scientific information available, even after rigorous statistical analysis intended to root out any anomalies, tells us that the Atlantic menhaden stock is very healthy and not threatened by current levels of harvest.

One would think that the menhaden conservation advocates would be happy, because the Atlantic menhaden stock is clearly in good health.

But it seems that the menhaden advocates aren’t happy at all, and they’re trying to stir up a storm of public discontent.  But just why isn’t completely clear.  The only thing that is clear is that their campaign has little to do with science, and a lot to do with emotion.

Consider the group that calls itself “Save Our Menhaden.”  The Save Our Menhaden webpage, once you get through all the initial hype, makes the statement that

“Menhaden evolved on this earth to be eaten by other marine species.  That is their purpose in life.

“Menhaden are the ‘Keystone’ prey fish species in our coastal and bay waters.  Menhaden average less than 12” in length and a pound in weight.  But they pack an enormous amount of Omega rich protein in their bodies, and they congregate in vast schools measured in metric tons.

“Predator and scavenger species on the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts from Humpback Whales and Dolphins, Osprey, Eagles, Pelicans, Gannets, Striped Bass, Tuna, Crabs and countless others depend on Menhaden for their survival.  They are the number one source of prey protein in these ecosystems.”

It’s a nice sounding story, but it’s just not true.

First, and probably a minor point, evolution just doesn’t work that way.  No plant or animal has ever “evolved to be eaten.”   As noted in one paper appearing on nature.com,

“evolution does not progress toward an ultimate or proximate goal.  Evolution is not ‘going somewhere.’  It just describes changes in inherited traits over time.”

So that entire passage begins with a false premise, and it’s accuracy doesn’t get any better as one reads on.  Although menhaden advocates often claim that menhaden are a “Keystone” prey species and “the most important fish in the sea,” that other fish “depend on Menhaden for their survival,” and that “they are the number one source of prey protein in these ecosystems,” a recent study performed in Louisiana pretty well debunks all such blather.  Instead, the study found that

“nearshore predators are generalists using the diverse prey base, and in concordance with previous findings, there is no single Menhaden-dependent predator.”

and that

“Despite its biomass and widespread spatial overlap with many predators, we did not find that Gulf Menhaden constituted large proportions of many predators’ diets…The finding that high trophic level [northern Gulf of Mexico] fishes have a diverse diet aligns with those of [other researchers] who did not identify any predators that they considered to be highly dependent on Gulf Menhaden.  Similarly, [a researcher] showed that Gulf Menhaden contributes to only 2 to 3% of the diets of most predators.  [emphasis added]”

There is little reason to believe that Atlantic menhaden are significantly more important than their Gulf counterparts.

Thus, the best available scientific information doesn’t support the notion of menhaden being a “keystone” prey species, that any fish depends on menhaden for its survival, or that menhaden “are the number one source of prey protein” in marine ecosystems.

And that poses a problem for a number of marine fisheries-oriented consultants, who pay their mortgages and their children’s tuitions with fees earned by advocating for additional restrictions on, or even the complete abolition of, the menhaden reduction fishery.

So at least some have adopted a new approach:  They have completely abandoned the science, and are now asking President Trump to issue an executive order outlawing reduction fishing for menhaden.

It’s an interesting ask.

The best-publicized push for an executive order is being made by a group calling itself “Make America Fish Again,” which appears to have at least some support from anglers, charter boat operators, and commercial fishermen in Virginia, Maryland, Louisiana, and perhaps other coastal states.  Who is managing and financing the effort is not completely clear.  The organization has a website, cynically addressed http://www.oceanherotrump, that features a series of short videos opposing large-scale commercial fishing for menhaden, herring, and other forage fish, but fails to identify any individuals who might be responsible for its content.

It makes one wonder what someone might be trying to hide.

In any event, the executive order that the group is seeking would reportedly take four related actions, 1) banning the use of midwater trawls for forage fish species, 2) ending the reduction fishery for menhaden and other forage fish, 3) directing the National Marine Fisheries Service to manage forage fish for ecosystem health, and 4) setting science-based catch targets (presumably for forage fish) to protect predator species.

Some of those goals might be justifiable, although it’s noteworthy that, when the New England Fishery Management Council attempted to ban midwater trawling for Atlantic herring in a defined area off the coast a few years ago, supposedly to provide more forage for bluefin tuna, whales, and other predators, a court invalidated the resulting regulation, finding that it lacked scientific support.

Any executive order banning midwater trawls might run up against the same legal issue.

Given that menhaden are currently the only fish, at least on the Atlantic coast, that are subject to a reduction fishery, there is also a question of how well that provision would fare.  Generally, executive orders have the force of law unless contravened by an action of Congress, so it might very well survive a court challenge.  At the same time, given that the challenge is to the ultimate use of the menhaden—reduced into fish meal, etc.—and not to the menhaden quota itself, which determines how many fish may be killed, one might reasonably question the motive behind the request for executive action.  If the menhaden currently killed and reduced into fish meal were, instead, killed and used for, say, lobster bait and fertilizer, would the impact on the stock be any different?  Logically, it would seem not, which then raises the question of whether the ban on reduction fishing might be motivated by a philosophical distaste for large-scale fish harvest by corporate entities, rather than any concern that too many fish are removed from the stock.

And when it comes to menhaden harvest, at least, the ASMFC, as noted earlier, already manages the species for its ecological role, and has already adopted science-based catch limits based on the needs of marine predators.  Given that the stock assessment, based on ecological reference points, gives the Atlantic menhaden stock a clean bill of health, it’s hard not to suspect that something other than a concern for the menhaden population is driving this effort.

But whatever that “something other” might be, it’s clear that it has no roots in the best available menhaden science.

All that aside, it’s necessary to look at the potential impact of the executive order itself.  For example, as noted a few paragraphs ago, executive orders generally have the force of law unless contravened by an act of Congress.  So the first question is whether any menhaden-related executive order would have to be consistent with the provisions of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, which governs all fishing in federal waters—perhaps including the provisions that require management actions to be initiated by one of the eight regional fishery management councils.

Whatever the ultimate answer, should the executive order be issued, litigation would certainly ensue.

There would also be the question of whether the President has the authority to restrict fisheries within state waters.  Certainly, Congress would have such authority, as the menhaden fishery has a sizeable impact on interstate and international commerce, and Congress has the authority to regulate both pursuant to Article I, Section 8, Clause 3 of the United States Constitution, which specifies that

“The Congress shall have Power…To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes.”

But does the President, acting on his own initiative, have similar authority?  Nothing in the Constitution says so, and litigation, again, would likely ensue should the White House try to interfere with state water fisheries.

There’s also the possibility that, if the executive order banned the reduction fishery in federal waters, the ASMFC might reallocate Virginia’s unused quota among the various states, and move the entire menhaden harvest into those states’ waters.  While the big purse seiners are banned from the waters of all states save Virginia, nothing would stop inshore fishermen from using trawls, gill nets, pound nets, haul seines and any other legally acceptable gear to catch the entire quota, and ship it by the trailer-truck load (about 40,000 pounds) to the reduction plant in Virginia or to lobstermen in New England, depending on who was willing to pay the best price.

Such a situation would probably ensure that the entire 51 metric ton quota for the Chesapeake Bay would be caught every year, because the reduction fleet wouldn’t be allowed to fish anywhere else, and that the Gulf of Mexico menhaden fishery would be prosecuted only in states’ shallow inshore waters, where the seines would do the most harm.

Unintended consequences can sometimes be ugly.

And then there’s the biggest question, which is why President Trump should want to sign an executive order ending the menhaden reduction fishery in the first place, particularly given the executive order that he signed on April 17.  That executive order, “Restoring America’s Seafood Competitiveness,” sought to end the overregulation of the seafood industry, reduce the seafood trade deficit, support maritime jobs and, above all, promote domestic fishing.

When viewed in the light of that earlier executive order, the menhaden reduction fishery appears to be just the sort of fishery the President would want to promote.  The science assures us that the menhaden stock is healthy, even when assessed in the context of its ecological function, so the harvest causes no harm to the United States.  Most of the product is being shipped overseas, while the revenues from the fishery flow into the United States, helping to reduce the seafood trade deficit while not only supporting many American jobs, but supporting jobs in regions of Virginia and Louisiana where good-paying jobs can be hard to find.

From the perspective of restoring America’s seafood competitiveness, then, shutting down the reduction fishery would seem to be a foolish thing to do.

Yet, there is another perspective to consider.

While the overall menhaden population may be healthy, both along the Atlantic coast and in the Gulf, the question of local depletion remains.  Although localized depletion has never been conclusively established, there is plenty of anecdotal evidence that suggest that it might exist.

That is particularly true in the Chesapeake Bay, where Maryland fisheries officials claim that there are too few menhaden to support the traditional pound net fishery, and some biologists have argued that a lack of menhaden is causing osprey’s nests to fail.

So maybe the folks who are seeking to shut down the reduction fishery are, to use an old expression, putting the cart before the horse.  Maybe what they ought to be doing, instead of ignoring the science and preemptively seeking to shut down fisheries, is trying to develop new science, specific to the localized depletion issue, to determine whether the menhaden fishery is, in fact, doing harm to the Bay, before they attempt to ban it.

At one time, everyone hoped that Virginia would fund such a study, estimated to cost about three million dollars, but the state legislature hasn’t come through with the funds.  So, it might be time to redirect all of the energy, money, and time currently spent attacking the reduction fishery to petitioning Congress, and asking it to fund the needed research.  It’s not unreasonable to hope that a Congress that had no problem allocating 12 million dollars for the so-called Great Red Snapper Count, to determine how many red snapper resided in the Gulf of Mexico, and 3.3 million dollars for another study dubbed the South Atlantic Great Red Snapper Count, might also be willing to cough up another 3 million to determine whether there is localized depletion of menhaden in the Chesapeake Bay.

That way, if the study found localized depletion, there would be a scientific basis for throwing the reduction fleet out of the Bay.

Of course, there is always the chance that such a study would find that no localized depletion takes place.

But, should that happen, the menhaden advocates could just ignore the science one more time, and seek another executive order to shut down the fishery.  At worst, they’d be in the same place where they find themselves now.

 

 

 

 

 

GULF FISHERMEN HAVE SECOND THOUGHTS ABOUT APRIL EXECUTIVE ORDER

 

When President Donald Trump released the Executive Order “Restoring American Seafood Competitiveness” on April 17, commercial fishermen in the Gulf of Mexico were generally pleased.  The order sought to

“unburden our commercial fishermen from costly and inefficient regulations,”

and ordered federal fisheries managers to

“consider suspending, revising, or rescinding regulations that overly burden America’s commercial fishing.”

The Gulf of America Reef Fish Shareholders’ Alliance, one of the largest commercial fishermen’s organizations in the Gulf, put out a release the day after the Executive Order was issued, which said, in part,

“The Gulf of America Reef Fish Shareholders’ Alliance…and commercial fishermen across the Gulf commend President Trump for recognizing the vital role of the American seafood industry in our nation’s economy, food security, and cultural heritage…

“The Shareholders’ Alliance looks forward to our role in the process as this Executive Order is implemented.  We stand ready to work with federal agencies like the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration…and the Gulf Council so that all Gulf commercial fishermen can have a seat at the table…

“We are encouraged by the President’s commitment to shining a national spotlight on the challenges and opportunities faced by commercial fishermen.  His support sends a strong message that American fishing jobs and coastal economies matter.”

The National Fisheries Institute, a national commercial fishing trade organization, sounded a similar note, saying

“…[The National Fisheries Institute] commends the President and his Administration for taking a thoughtful, strategic approach to supporting American seafood production and consumption.  The [Executive Order] outlines key actions to benefit every link in the supply chain—from hardworking fishermen to parents who serve their family this nutritious and sustainable protein at home.

“Importantly, the Order calls for reducing unnecessary regulatory burdens on fishermen and seafood producers while also promoting the many benefits of eating seafood as part of a healthy, balanced diet.

“NFI stands ready to support the Administration in advancing this important policy initiative and improving the lives of all those who depend on the commercial seafood industry.”

However, it didn’t take too long for Gulf fishermen to begin having second thoughts.

An article that appeared last June in the Houston Chronicle was titled

“How Trump’s plans to boost catch limits could hurt Gulf fishermen.”

It noted that even as Gulf fishermen publicly cheered the Executive Order,

“behind the scenes, many were concerned.

“The limits, set up by Congress 50 years ago to manage how much fishermen could catch [Author’s note:  Congress did not actually set up the limits, but instead passed what is now known as the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, which established the framework and process for setting such limits], helped critical species like red snapper in the Gulf of Mexico rebound after overfishing through most of the 20^th century.

“And Trump was proposing to raise them while cutting fisheries staff at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which is charged with conducting the fish counts that determine catch limits, at a time when some fishermen say they’re suddenly seeing less stock in the sea.”

Thus, although the Gulf of America Reef Fish Shareholders’ Alliance offered strong support for the Executive Order when it was first issued, the Houston Chronicle article quotes its deputy director, Eric Brazer Jr., voicing support for fisheries managers who exercise caution.

“We support measured and reasonable increases when the stocks can handle them.  You want there to be enough fish in the ocean to run your business 30, 40 years, so you can pass this business on to your children.  Conserve a few more fish today to have more fish down the road.”

It’s not clear that such sentiments are entirely in tune with the Executive Order which, with the except of a single reference to Magnuson-Stevens, does not mention conservation at all.

Fishermen also find the Administration’s cuts to the National Marine Fisheries Service’s staff, and its scientific staff in particular, very troubling.  Relaxing regulations at the same time that the Administration is reducing the staff needed to evaluate the effect of such regulations can have serious, negative consequences for Gulf fish stocks.  Mr. Brazer has noted that

“Bad data, or no data, or gaps in the data means disruption for commercial fishermen down the road.”

He also observed that good data and adequate regulation are not inconsistent with the Executive Order’s goals, saying

“In order to implement the President’s vision, we need to maintain core services for NOAA.”

He is concerned that, without the good science provided by NMFS, the future of Gulf fisheries could be in doubt.  A May 15 article in Civil Eats notes that

“Brazer…worries that the consequences of cutting or reducing surveys, dockside monitoring, and other data collection activities today won’t show up for years to come—and by then it may be too late to prevent a fishery from crashing.”

Such worries are particularly justified when catch limits are increased at the same time that regulations are being relaxed, increasing the likelihood of overfishing.

Those concerns are not limited to Mr. Brazer and his associates.

The Houston, Texas-based television station, KHOU-11, observed that local fishermen were saying

“’We’re seeing less fish,”

and that

“Galveston fishermen push back on deregulation, warning it could sink industry.”

An article on the station’s website describes one such fisherman’s concerns.

“At Pier 19 in Galveston, it’s business as usual for Buddy Guindon, a veteran Gulf fisherman with more than four decades on the water.  His market, Katie’s Seafood, is the main destination for red snapper caught in the Gulf and a lifeline for the local seafood economy.

“’We were in really bad straits when I started,’ Guindon said.  ‘Fish stocks were depleted, and fishing was pretty tough.’

“That all changed, he said, thanks to federal oversight.  Strict, science-based catch limits helped Gulf fisheries recover.  But with Trump’s executive order rolling back regulations and reducing oversight, Guindon fears the progress may be reversed.

“’We’re highly regulated and we want to be.  We want to be accountable,’ Guindon said.  [emphasis added]”

Certainly, not every fisherman feels that way.  Some would prefer that fisheries returned to the old, “Wild West” days, when fishermen could sell everything that they could catch, and a fisherman’s income depended solely on how hard they worked and how much time they were willing to put in, even if that level of fishing was unsustainable and ultimately left far fewer fish for everyone.

I met Buddy Guindon once, nearly a decade ago, when I was down in Galveston fishing for red snapper with Capt. Scott Hickman, and gathering information for a piece I was writing on Gulf red snapper issues. 

It didn’t take more than a few seconds to realize that Mr. Guindon was one of the new breed of commercial fisherman, who perhaps came of age in the old rough-and-ready days of commercial fishing, when the only thing that mattered was piling fish on the dock, but has since come to recognize that good science, good regulations, and accountability for every participant in the fishery was, in the end, the best way not only to manage commercial—and recreational—fisheries, but also to support viable, profitable and sustainable fishing businesses such as his.

So when Mr. Guindon discusses the state of Gulf fisheries, it probably makes sense to listen.

The Station KHOW-11 article went on to report

“Guindon remembers what the industry looked like before regulation and doesn’t want to return to a time of empty nets and uncertain futures.

“’When I started fishing, there were no limits.  And it wasn’t good.’

“…[S]ince the executive order, the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, has cut nearly 30% of NOAA’s staff, including key scientists who monitor fish stock data, much of which is already years behind.

“’They’ve got fewer people now,’ Guindon says.  ‘There’s a worry there.  A little bit of a worry.’

“…For Guindon, the stakes are personal.

“’To have a business to pass on to your family, you can’t take all the fish out of the ocean this year and expect them to make a living next year,’ says Guindon.  ‘So we want this balance.’”

It seems like a sensible, and sensibly cautious, stance.  But the National Marine Fisheries Service, bound as it is by the Executive Order, apparently disagrees, for it dismissed Mr. Guindon’s concerns in its response, alleging

“The President’s Order Unleashing Seafood Competitiveness has and will continue to make a positive impact on the U.S. seafood economy.  NOAA data is helping us responsibly increase allowable catch, and NOAA fisheries will continue to ensure a healthy balance between managing the marine environment and increasing access to abundant resources for our great American fishermen.”

Maybe.

But with the target biomass in most fisheries already based on maximum sustainable yield, and the acceptable biological catch, and so annual catch limits, in most fisheries also based on MSY, but reduced to account for scientific uncertainty, it’s difficult to understand how that’s going to happen.  

Cuts to NMFS' scientific staff can only lead to a dearth of data needed to manage fish stocks, increasing the uncertainty surrounding heavily-prosecuted fisheries.  With good data harder to come by, increasing the allowable catch will only increase the probability of exceeding maximum sustainable yield, and driving down the abundance of the most heavily fished stocks.

Thus, the Gulf fishermen are wise to worry, because without healthy and abundant stocks, their businesses will suffer, and the Executive Order’s goal of increased U.S. seafood production will never, in the long term, be achieved.

 

 

 

BLUEFIN TUNA: SHOULD HAVE BEEN CAREFUL WHAT YOU ASKED FOR--BECAUSE YOU GOT IT

 

Before I begin getting into this post, let me make one thing completely clear:  There have been a lot of bluefin tuna swimming off the East Coast of the United States over the past few years. 

What that means with respect to the health of the bluefin stock isn’t completely clear, as bluefin tuna are an extremely difficult fish to assess, particularly because there are two recognized stocks, which spawn in the Mediterranean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico, respectively, although but individuals from both stocks regularly cross the Atlantic to feed.

Because of the difficulty of assessing the two stocks, and the fact that the stocks intermingle on the feeding grounds, scientists at the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas no longer manage the two stocks separately.  In 2022, ICCAT adopted a “Management Procedure” which

“links eastern and western Total Allowable Catch (TACs) under one management framework, providing joint management advice, and requires the Executive Summaries for the East and West [bluefin tuna]…to have common or closely related sections.  The [management procedure] frees the assessment process from having to provide annual TAC advice and allows the stock assessment process to return to its traditional strengths which are to provide a determination of relative stock status…”

Thus, the management procedure no longer attempts to determine whether either stock is overfished.  However, it does still seek to determine whether overfishing is occurring.  According to the 2024-2025 ICCAT report, overfishing is not occurring in either the eastern or the western stock.  However, because the stocks are of very different sizes, permitted eastern and western stock landings are very different as well.  Thus, the total allowable catch for the large eastern stock is 40,570 metric tons, while the total allowable catch for the much smaller western stock is just 2,726 metric tons, less than 7 percent of what may be removed from its eastern counterpart.

The International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas, often referred to by the acronym “ICCAT,” is empowered to assign bluefin tuna quotas to each member jurisdiction.  Because the eastern stock is so much larger than the western stock, some of the nations that fish in the eastern Atlantic Ocean and/or the Mediterranean Sea have been assigned quotas that are substantially larger than the entire total allowable catch for the western stock, which western stock quota must be shared among multiple fishing nations.  For example, Spain’s quota is 6,784 metric tons, nearly 2 ½ times the size of the whole western TAC, while France isn’t far behind with a 6,694 metric ton quota, followed by Italy at 5,283 metric tons.

Of the nations that fish on the western stock, the United States receives what is by far the largest quota, 1,316.14 metric tons, roughly twice that received by the nations with the next-largest quotas, Japan (664.52 metric tons) and Canada (543.65 metric tons).  

The United States then breaks its quota down into various categories, with 54 percent assigned to the commercial General Category, which fishes with hook and line or harpoons, 4.5 percent going to the Harpoon Category, 15.9% assigned to the Longline Category, and 0.1 percent to the tiny commercial Trap Category.  The Angling Category receives 22.6 percent, or 297.4 metric tons, of the overall quota, with that further broken down into 134.1 metric tons for the School Bluefin category (27 to 47 inches curved fork length), 154.1 metric tons for the Large School/Small Medium category (47 to 73 inches CFL), and 9.2 metric tons for the Trophy category of over 73 inches.  All of those subcategories are further broken down into regions.  In addition, the National Marine Fisheries Service maintains 2.9 percent, or 38.2 metric tons, of its overall quota as a reserve, to be assigned should any category exceed its quota.

But while all those details are nice, the important thing to remember is that if any nation, including the United States, exceeds its ICCAT-assigned bluefin quota, that nation must pay it back pound-for-pound in the following season.  And if the same nation exceeds its quota for a second consecutive year, then ICCAT can compel that nation to pay back not 100 percent of the excess poundage, but 125 percent, as an incentive to keep landings in line.

The United States went over its ICCAT-assigned bluefin tuna quota last year by nine percent.

Most, but not all, of the categories exceeded their quotas.  In the commercial fishery, the General Category was over by 8 percent, the Harpoon Category by 12.  The Longline Category was under by 33 percent, while the Trap Category didn’t land any bluefin at all.  But the Angling Category clearly had the biggest overages, with the overall category over by 52 percent, School Bluefin over by 14 percent, Large School/Small Medium bluefin over by 83 percent, and the Trophy subcategory over by a startling 102 percent.  

Thus, when the National Marine Fisheries Service has to allocate its pound-for-pound payback among all of the separate categories, which will happen later this year, the Angling Category naturally and deservedly will probably take the greatest percentage reduction, because it also had, by far, the greatest percentage overages in 2024.

But that put NMFS in a quandary because, as everyone agrees, there are a lot of bluefin swimming off the East Coast of the United States.

The agency had to put together a set of recreational regulations that struck a balance between providing anglers with a viable fishery, while at the same time preventing those anglers from exceeding their 2025 quota.

And with that understanding, I’ll get on with the primary point of this post.

When I attended the Highly Migratory Species Advisory Panel meeting last May, NMFS had already announced that it would maintain the so-called “default regulations” that set a one-fish bag limit for all recreational vessels, including charter and head boats, and a size limit of 27 to 73 inches, curved fork length, for the 2025 fishing season.

In theory, those regulations were to stay in effect until the end of the year but, at the Advisory Panel meeting, NMFS’ fisheries managers made it very clear that, with the number of bluefin available, there was no way that the season was going to last that long.  

Based on the previous years’ landings, the managers predicted that the recreational season would probably be closed sometime in late summer, sometime between the very end of July and the beginning of September, depending on how quickly the Angling Category quota was filled, and also depending on how many bluefin had already been landed off the South Atlantic coast, a figure that hadn’t yet been calculated.

As I noted in an earlier post, a lot of people were unhappy with NMFS’ preferred bluefin tuna regulations.  That was particularly true of the charter and party boat operators, who argued that customers wouldn’t book any trips if the one-fish bag limit remained in place.  

That led to the managers asking a very important question:  Was it more important for the for-hire industry to be able to kill a second fish, or to maintain a longer season?

The question didn’t seem to generate much conversation during the Advisory Panel meeting, but maybe NMFS got a lot of comments once the meeting was over, because on June 3, it published a rule in the Federal Register that adjusted the Angling Category retention limits, limiting harvest to School bluefin (27 to 47 inches CFL), and prohibiting the landings of Large School and Small Medium tuna, while maintaining the one-fish bag limit for private vessels, but increasing the bag limit to two School bluefin for vessels in the Charter/Headboat Category.  NMFS clearly explained that it adopted the new rule because

“Given fishery performance in recent years and the high availability of [bluefin tuna] on the fishing grounds, it is very likely that under the default daily retention limits, which allows fishermen to land heavier-weight large school/small medium [bluefin tuna] the recreational fishery could reach the available 2025 Angling category quota and subquotas relatively early in the season resulting in a premature closure of the recreational [bluefin tuna] fisheries.  As such, NMFS believes adjusting the daily retention limits to the levels established in this action, which limits landings to lower-weight school sized [bluefin tuna], would assist in extending the time it takes to harvest the Angling category quota and subquotas…  [emphasis added]”

So, NMFS did what it could to extend the recreational season, while still managing to give the charter and head boats the second fish that they wanted.  And so, of course, the agency was excoriated for trying to do the right thing.

On the Water magazine ran an article that began,

“Is it worth the time—and the fuel bill—to run offshore to the tuna grounds if the most your crew can bring home is one small bluefin tuna?,”

which went on to quote Glenn Hughes, president of the American Sportfishing Association, the biggest tackle industry trade group, who complained,

“We’re disappointed in NOAA’s revised 2025 retention limits for the bluefin tuna Angling category because of its associated economic impacts.  These restrictions threaten revenue, jobs, and fishing opportunities for the sportfishing industry—affecting anglers, charter operators, and coastal businesses.”

Another article, which appeared in the publication Fishing Tackle Retailer, was written by Tom Fucini, the Northeast Sales Representative for the Folsom Corporation, a major fishing tackle importer/wholesaler.  Fucini whined that

“This [regulatory] update brings a major reduction in both the number and size of fish that recreational anglers can harvest,”

observed that

“In many parts of the region the Bluefin bite in recent years has consisted of predominantly 50-70″ class fish—these fish are ineligible for harvest in 2025,”

and warned tackle shop owners that

“Over the past few seasons, Northeast Anglers have seen a “Tuna Boom,” with many new anglers getting into the fishery…These new limits threaten to slow that momentum.”

He called the new bluefin regulations

“a dramatic step backward,”

and after leveling additional criticisms at NMFS, told readers that

“If you’d like to voice your concerns about how these changes will affect retailers, charter boats, and manufacturers in the fishing industry, you can contact NOAA directly, [emphasis omitted]”

Given NMFS’ clear warning that allowing anglers to kill the Large School and Small Medium fish would lead to a “premature closure” of the bluefin fishery “relatively early in the season,” such criticism of NMFS School Bluefin-only rule can only be viewed as the industry effectively saying that

“We would rather have a very short season, and the ability to harvest the larger bluefin, than have a long season but be restricted to only School-sized fish.”

The people writing those articles were certainly sophisticated enough to know and understand the regulations and, more importantly, understand the consequences of their decisions.

 And they must have made some convincing arguments to NMFS, and inspired others to do the same, because on June 12, just 9 days after the School bluefin-only regulations were released, NMFS issued a new rule stating that as of July 1, all recreational vessels, including for-hire boats, will be able to retain one 27 to 73-inch bluefin per day, and boats in the Charter/Headboat category would be able to keep a second, School bluefin as well.

The rule was even more liberal than the default regulations, because of the second for-hire fish, and thus assured that the fishery would be closed that much sooner.

Despite the certain early closure, the angling press embraced the June 12 rule.

The Cranston [Rhode Island] Herald blared that

“Bluefin tuna regs change for the better,”

and made the complimentary comment

“Hats off to Rick Bellavance, President of the RI Party & Charter Boat Association and Chair of the New England Fishery Management Council as well as Mike Pierdinock [President of the Stellwagen Bank Charter Boat Association] for advocating for a larger bluefin size.”

Similar sentiments were voiced by The Fisherman magazine, which announced that

“NOAA (Thankfully) Revises Bluefin Tuna Regs.”

But now that the bill for those revised regulations has come due, in the form of an early closed season, no one is making happy comments any more.

An article in Anglers Journal announced the August 12 closure, and quotes an American Sportfishing Association email that uses the same language it used to oppose the School bluefin-only rules last June:

“This closure threatens revenue, jobs, and fishing opportunities for the sportfishing industry—affecting anglers, charter operators, and coastal businesses.”

Apparently to the ASA, the closure was worth a pro forma whine, but not worth thinking up a new comment.

Salt Water Sportsman was resigned about the closure, but apparently didn’t care enough about the issue to research what was really going on.  It wrote,

“The closure should come as no surprise to anyone keeping up with the fishery.  During a banner 2024 bluefin season off the coast of the Northeast, scads of school-size bluefins (27-47 inches) podded up close to shore, where private anglers and charter captains experienced a blufin [sic] boom and over-ran the quota by at least 50 percent according to NOAA’s estimates.

“In response, NOAA revised retention limits.  For 2025, private vessels with a highly migratory species permit were allowed just one school-sized bluefin tuna; charter boats and headboats were allowed two.  No retention of fish longer than 47 inches was allowed without a commercial license…

“…Apparently reduced retention limits had little effect in deterring anglers from fishing.  The season has been shut down a little more than two months after it began.”

There was no mention of the Large School/Small Medium bluefin that were at the heart of the issue and the overage.  With anglers getting such flawed information from the hook-and-bullet press, it’s not surprising that they’re often confused about how the fishery management process works, and so easily manipulated by those with personal or organizational agendas.

One of the biggest red herrings are angling industry voices who place the blame on the United States’ ICCAT quota, arguing that it represents only a very small percentage of overall bluefin tuna landings.  

What such industry advocates—whether charter boat captains or representatives of the fishing tackle industry—don’t tell recreational fishermen is that when they compare, say, the Tunisian quota of around 3,000 metric tons with the US quota, they’re comparing two very different things.  Tunisia fishes on the eastern stock of bluefin, where a 3,000 metric ton quota represents far less than 10 percent of the total allowable catch, while the United States fishes on the western stock, where the total allowable catch—for every fishing nation—is, at 2,726 metric tons, and the United States' quota of 1,316.14 metric tons is about equal to the combined quotas of the other five nations that fish on that stock.

But somehow, being able to harvest half of the entire western stock is not enough for these folks, and they are holding out hope that the United States is going to go to the next ICCAT meeting and convince Canada, Japan, and/or Mexico to give up some of their fishermen’s quota, just so United States anglers can catch a little more.

The bottom line is that a quota increase just isn’t likely to occur.

About the best we can hope for is that, when a new stock assessment is released in 2026 or 2027, it will suggest that everyone’s quotas can be increased, and that such rising tide will float the United States’ anglers’ boat along with everyone else’s.

Or course, the next stock assessment might just as easily suggest that a reduction in quotas is needed.  We won’t know until the assessment is released.

In the meantime, there’s little doubt that some anglers, for-hire captains, and tackle industry figures will continue to complain about the early bluefin closure, and will blame NMFS, maybe ICCAT, and anyone else they can think of for the fishery being shut down.

But it’s pretty sure that the one group of folks that they won’t blame is themselves, even though they were the ones who insisted that NMFS allow anglers to target and land the Large School and Small Medium bluefin.

They’ll never admit that NMFS did just what they wanted—gave them just what they asked for—and that they failed to consider the implications of their request before they made it.

But when you get what you ask for, and then decide you don’t like it, it’s nobody’s fault but your own.