STRIPED BASS: ADDENDUM III APPROVED FOR PUBLIC COMMENT

 

On Wednesday, August 6, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board approved Draft Addendum III to Amendment 7 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass for public comment.

It’s not an easy document to characterize.

If the assumptions made by the Striped Bass Technical Committee, on which the Draft Addendum is based, are correct, Addendum III has a 50 percent probability rebuilding the spawning stock biomass to its target level by the end of 2029, which in itself is a good thing.  However, there’s no guarantee that those assumptions are right—the one that assumes that recruitment will return to 2008-2023 levels may be particularly suspect—and, even if recovery occurs, spawning stock biomass is likely to decline again unless recruitment stays at 2008-2023 levels going forward.  (It’s probably important to note that recruitment in the years 2008 through 2023 constitutes the “low recruitment scenario,” and not historical striped bass recruitment levels; however, striped bass recruitment has been so poor in every year since 2019 that returning to “low” recruitment levels would be a marked improvement from where we are now.)

So from the striped bass’ perspective, the draft Addendum doesn’t look too bad, although it would have been nice had the Management Board opted for a 60 percent probability of rebuilding.  But that would have involved a larger mortality reduction—18 percent as opposed to 12—and there didn’t seem to be much of an appetite for that in the room.  As Massachusetts fishery manager Nicola Meserve observed, the 12 percent reduction was seen as striking a balance between needed conservation and economic concerns.

From a striped bass fisherman’s perspective, though, the draft Addendum has a few problems, most notably the possibility of closed seasons where even catch-and-release would be outlawed, and options that would give special privileges to the for-hire fleet, and relegate shore-based and private boat anglers to a sort of second-class status.

But even from that fisherman’s perspective, the draft Addendum could have been worse.  The big thing to remember when considering the document is that, at least in the so-called “ocean” recreational fishery, which encompasses the entire recreational striped bass fishery outside of the Chesapeake Bay, managers already have, for practical purposes, gone as far as they can reasonably go with restrictive bag and size limits. 

That means that the entire 12 percent recreational reduction is going to have to be accomplished with some sort of closed season, and closed seasons are a completely different sort of regulation from size and bag limits.  For no matter how restrictive size and bag limits might be, they still allow people to fish, and they at least hold out some hope that an angler who wants to take home a bass might, with luck, be able to do so.  But a closed season completely prohibits any kind of harvest, and a no-target closed season even outlaws catch-and-release fishing.  Such prohibitions can have a much greater impact on angling effort, and so can do much more serious harm to angling-related businesses than mere size and bag limits.  Thus, fishery managers tend to exercise far more caution when putting such closures in place.

 

Such concerns certainly played a role in the Management Board’s decisions, going back at least as far as last December, when managers decided not to adopt any new restrictions for the 2025 season.  To understand how they may have affected yesterday’s Management Board meeting, it is probably best to take a chronological look at events, including some of the motions that shaped the Draft Addendum and some of the comments made in opposition and in support.

The draft Addendum III that the Plan Development Team presented to the Management Board was a big, unwieldy document that just about everyone realized would have to be cut down before it went out to public comment, if the public was to have any chance to understand what the Board was trying to do.

The first action taken on the Draft Addendum, as I already noted, was limiting the probability of timely rebuilding the stock to 50 percent.  It was not a particularly controversial decision, with only Connecticut voting against it and the National Marine Fisheries Service and the United States Fish and Wildlife Service opting to abstain.

The second motion, made by Ms. Meserve and seconded by David Sikorski, Maryland’s Legislative Proxy, inspired more debate.  It was,

“Move to remove in Section 3.4 Option C (0% commercial reduction and -14% recreational reduction)”

In explaining why she wished to remove the option, Ms. Meserve stated that she didn’t believe that recreational fishermen should have to shoulder the entire burden of rebuilding the stock, but that such burden should be shared by everyone participating in the striped bass fishery.  She also noted that she didn’t want the issue of who should be responsible for rebuilding the stock distracting commenters from other, more important issues in the Draft Addendum.

Predictably, Delaware fishery manager John Clark opposed the motion, arguing that while recreational reductions are based on estimates and predictions of future landings levels, which might or might not be accurate,

“Every pound we take away from the commercial fishery is revenue we take away from our commercial fishermen.”

He argued that, since 2014, the commercial quota had been cut by 40 to 50 percent, a comment that brought a response from Ms. Meserve, who noted that the recreational fishermen had also suffered major reductions during that time, going from an ocean limit of two fish per day and a 28-inch minimum size to a 1-fish bag limit and 28- to 31-inch slot size.  Clark answered by saying

“We have very small-scale fisheries in Delaware.  There are guys depending on this income,”

but his response apparently wasn’t convincing enough.  When the vote on the motion was taken, the motion passed, with eight jurisdictions in favor (Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, the District of Columbia, and North Carolina), six opposed (New York, New Jersey, Delaware, the Potomac River Fisheries Commission, Maryland, and Virginia), and the two federal agencies abstaining.

The vote didn’t completely close the door on the commercial fishery taking a smaller cut than the recreational sector.  When the Management Board meets in October, it could, for example, cut the commercial quota by six percent and recreational landings by 12, thus weakening Addendum III and making it slightly less likely that the stock will recover on time.  However, no such option will appear in the Draft Addendum, and we can hope that the Board ultimately sees the fundamental fairness of everyone making an equal contribution toward rebuilding the stock.

At that point, what is arguably the most controversial issue in the Draft Addendum was addressed—so-called “no-target” closed seasons, when even catch and release would be illegal.

Martin Gary, the Director of the New York Department of Environmental Conservation’s Marine Division, opened the discussion by asking whether there were any other available tools for reducing release mortality, and then raised the key issue:  He asked whether no-target restrictions were, as a practical matter, enforceable.  

His question was answered by Lt. Jeff Mercer, of the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management's Division of Law Enforcement, who responded that

“We believe that no-targeting closures would be very difficult to enforce,”

noted that such no-target closures ranked dead last on the Law Enforcement Committee’s list of 27 potential management tools, and observed that, even though no-targeting closures have been in place in federal waters since the mid-1980s, to his knowledge no one has ever been convicted of violating such closure unless they also had a striped bass in their possession.

Mr. Gary noted that he had spoken with New York law enforcement officers who said that, as a practical matter, they can’t write tickets unless an angler had a fish in possession. 

He also made a motion which read,

“Move to remove no-targeting closure options for the Ocean.”

He limited his motion to closures of the ocean fishery because he wanted to respect the previous actions of Chesapeake Bay jurisdictions, which enacted no-target closures specifically to deal with the Bay's extreme summer conditions of hot, hypoxic water, even though, when he was executive director of the Potomac River Fisheries Commission, he advised against the PRFC adopting such closures, which were implemented despite his advice.

Mr. Gary’s motion was seconded by Matt Gates, a Connecticut fisheries manager.

At that point, the debate began.

Opposition to Mr. Gary’s motion came from the usual sources—Board members such as New Jersey fisheries manager Joseph Cimino, New York Governor’s Appointee Emerson Hasbrouck, and Maryland fisheries manager Michael Luisi—individuals who have historically favored the catch-and-kill component of the recreational fishery, and cast jaundiced eyes on catch-and-release anglers.

Mr. Cimino argued that

“This is about winning hearts and minds,”

apparently assuming that anglers can be convinced not to target bass during the closures.  He argued that no-target closures were the only way to reduce release mortality and, demonstrating a remarkable lack of concern for the realities of fisheries management, said that he didn’t like the enforcement—or unenforceability—of no-target closures bearing on the decision of whether such closures should be adopted.  He also expressed the opinion that the no-target closure in federal waters resulted in a substantial decrease in anglers fishing for striped bass there, an opinion that might change should he ever take a trip out of Brielle or Atlantic Highlands late in the fall, and see all of the anglers “fishing for bluefish” more than three miles from shore, and just catching all of those pesky striped bass “by accident.”

Mr. Hasbrouck’s comments were similar.  After first stating that his views on the matter had nothing to do with components of the for-hire fishery—components he always seems to support by voting for sector separation and other proposals that benefit the for-hire industry at the expense of private anglers—he observed that on a substantial majority of recreational striped bass trips, no fish are retained and that half of the recreational fishing mortality is caused by fish that don’t survive release, and so argued that a no-harvest closure would only address half of the problem.  He admitted that no-target closures were not enforceable, but observed that other rules currently in place, such as those requiring circle hooks and banning the use of gaffs, were also virtually impossible to enforce (although why adding to the list of unenforceable management measures would be a good thing, he didn’t explain).  Like Mr. Cimino, he expressed a naïve belief that anglers would obey an unenforceable rule, even if that meant that they had little or nothing else to fish for.

But it was Mr. Luisi who made the most diabolical opposition comment of all, suggesting that there might be room for a compromise, if catch-and-release anglers would be willing to accept a trade-off where, in exchange for the Board abandoning no-target closures, the biological reference points for striped bass would be revised to lower the spawning stock biomass target and threshold (and by so doing, although it wasn’t explicitly stated, allowing more fish to be killed).

There is a reason that I often refer to the New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland delegations as the “Axis of Evil” when it comes to striped bass…

But Mr. Gary’s motion had supporters, too.  William Hyatt, Connecticut’s Governor’s Appointee, noted that no-target closures would likely lead to “gamesmanship” that would adversely impact recreational fisheries data.  He felt that such closures would lead to anglers providing false information on what they were targeting on any given trip, and to fail to report striped bass caught and released during a no-targeting closure.  Doug Grout, New Hampshire’s Governor’s Appointee, noted that release mortality could be reduced by other means, circle hooks being but one example, a point also made by Ms. Meserve, who noted that Massachusetts was currently engaged in research on gear modifications that could lead to better striped bass survival.

At that point, Adam Nowalsky, New Jersey’s Legislative Proxy and a long-time critic of both the catch-and-release fishery and many striped bass conservation efforts, rose to put a motion to amend on the table which read,

“Move to remove no-targeting closure options for the Ocean with the assumption that striped bass only trips are eliminated.”

Probably to no one’s surprise, it was seconded by Mr. Hasbrouck.

It was a terribly worded motion, and a lot of people, both in the audience and on the Board, appeared to have some trouble understanding what it meant, although it was finally made clear that the motion referred to one of the two assumptions that the Plan Development Team made when crafting the no-target options.

In crafting those options, the PDT asked themselves the question, “What will anglers do if they can’t target striped bass?”  One possibility is that they stop fishing until the closure ends; the other is that they switch their angling effort to another species, but might incidentally encounter striped bass as bycatch.  The former assumption would lead to a shorter closure, as no striped bass release mortality would occur; the latter would lead to some release mortality, and so require a longer closure.

Mr. Nowalsky’s motion would eliminate the no-target closure options that were based on the assumption that, if people couldn’t legally target bass, they wouldn’t fish for anything at all.

It wouldn’t solve the enforceability problem, and it wouldn’t do anything to improve angler compliance, but it was presented as a compromise of sorts, and as such had significant support. Nine jurisdictions (Rhode Island, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, the District of Columbia, the Potomac River Fisheries Commission, Virginia and, surprisingly, the National Marine Fisheries Service and the United States Fish and Wildlife Service) voted in favor, six (Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina) voted against, and New York cast a “null vote,” as Mr. Gary and Mr. Hasbrouck cancelled each other out, and there was no Legislative Appointee to cast a deciding vote.

The amended motion then passed with just Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina in opposition, and New York again null.

So at least some no-target options will be in the Draft Addendum for public comment.

After that, the issue of sector separation came to the fore.  No one ever addressed the sector separation options for the ocean recreational fishery, so the Draft Addendum will include both some options that treat all anglers equally, and multiple options that elevate the for-hire fleet above the rest of the sectors.  But with respect to the Chesapeake Bay, Mr. Sikorski made an motion that would have removed all of the sector separation options from the document.  His motion was seconded by Mr. Clark.

That didn’t go over well with Mr. Luisi, a long-time promoter of his state’s for hire fleet, who said that he opposed the motion because he wanted Maryland’s “charter public” to be able to comment on the issue (as if we don’t already know that the charter fleet will say “Yes, we want more liberal rules than everyone else).  

But Ms. Meserve quickly rose to seek a compromise, amending Mr. Sikorski’s motion in a way that would delete only two of the three sector separation options, and leave one in the Draft Addendum.  Her motion was seconded by Mr. Luisi, and met with universal approval, except for the federal agencies, which abstained.  Thus, the Draft Addendum will include one sector separation option, which would provide a 19- to 23-inch size limit for shore-based and private boat anglers, and a 19- to 25-inch size limit for the for-hire fleet. 

Hopefully, Public comment on the option will inform the final decision of the Management Board.

Ms. Meserve then made a motion to conform the Chesapeake Bay no-target options to those applicable to the ocean fishery, by removing the option that assumed that anglers wouldn’t fish for anything else when the striped bass season was closed.  Mr. Grout seconded.

Again, Mr. Luisi opposed, arguing that Ms. Meserve’s motion didn’t capture the reality of Maryland’s Bay fishery, saying that anglers wouldn’t switch targets and

“If striped bass is closed, the trip does not happen.”

Nonetheless, Ms. Meserve’s motion passed on a vote of 12 to 4, with only New York, Maryland, the Potomac River Fisheries Commission, and Virginia in opposition.

And with that, the discussion of how to reduce fishing mortality was done, although the Management Board still had three other matters to discuss.

The first was whether to require commercial fishermen to tag their striped bass at the point of harvest or, at the latest, before their boat returned to shore, rather than at the point of sale, as is currently permitted in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and North Carolina.  Mr. Clark thus made a motion that read,

“Move to add an option for tagging at point of landing in Section 3.2,”

which was seconded by David Borden, Rhode Island’s Governor’s Appointee.

He justified his motion by arguing that, by not tagging bass before the point of first sale, there is an opportunity for fishermen to divert bass into the black market.  A majority of the Law Enforcement Committee agreed with that rationale, although there was a minority who felt that tagging at the point of harvest or landing might actually increase illegal activity, in the form of fishermen using other fishermen’s tags, and would certainly increase the administrative burden.

In the end, no one had a problem with Mr. Clark’s motion, and it passed by unanimous consent.

At that point, Mr. Clark made what might have been the most bizarre motion of the meeting, which read

“Move to add in Section 3.2 the following text:  Option B [requiring tagging at the point of harvest] can be considered an unquantifiable reduction in commercial removals because it strengthens the enforceability of commercial quotas.  The Board has approved unquantifiable reductions in recreational removals in recent years (e.g. gaffing prohibition) to offset the reductions needed through other recreational measures.  If the public and Board decide to pursue an option in Section 3.4 requiring further reductions in striped bass removals, Option B, by providing an unquantifiable reduction in commercial landings, justifies a smaller reduction for the commercial sector.”

Besides being factually inaccurate—the no-gaff provision was not used to “offset” any other recreational measure, but was merely adopted as good management practice—Mr. Clark’s motion was clearly just another way to undercut the commercial quota reduction needed to rebuild the stock.

Fortunately, it died stillborn, with no one willing to provide a second.

The second related issue was a reorganization of Maryland’s recreational seasons, which became a hodgepodge of open seasons, no-harvest closures, and no-target closures that Maryland imposed on the shore-based and private boat recreational fishery in order to provide greater benefits for its commercial and for-hire sectors.  Maryland hopes to provide a more logical season structure that would benefit both its striped bass and its striped bass fishermen, and presented a proposal that would allegedly do just that without increasing recreational fishing mortality.

However, there was substantial uncertainty surrounding the proposal, as it would open a catch-and-release season, and later a catch-and-kill season, at a time in the spring when, previously, no targeting was allowed.  The Technical Committee acknowledged discomfort with Maryland’s claim that the new open seasons wouldn’t increase recreational fishing effort, but it lacked the data needed to predict what any change in effort might be, and thus did not change the Maryland proposal in that regard.  

But the Plan Development Team included two options that called for buffers of 10 and 25 percent, respectively, to account for the uncertainty by increasing the reduction that Maryland would have to achieve with its reorganization effort.

Mr. Sikorsky moved to eliminate the 25 percent buffer option, arguing that, while the management plan called for such buffers in the case of conservation equivalency proposals, what Maryland was doing wasn’t technically conservation equivalency, that the percent standard error in the Maryland data, when taken as a whole, was under 30 (the level which triggered a 25 percent conservation equivalency buffer), and that

“The buffers are almost punitive.”

Ms. Meserve then made a motion to amend, seeking to also remove the option that would allow Maryland to reorganize its recreational seasons without any buffer at all.  Mr. Grout seconded, and Mr. Sikorski objected, again arguing  that the buffers were punitive (a questionable claim given the level of uncertainty acknowledged by the Technical Committee), and that a substantial majority of stakeholders supported what Maryland was attempting to do.

In the end, Ms. Meserve’s motion failed, gaining the support of only New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and North Carolina.

At that point, Robert Brown, a commercial fisherman and a Governor’s Appointee from Maryland, moved that the entire section addressing Maryland’s reorganized recreational seasons be deleted from the Draft Addendum.  His motion failed for want of a second.  The main motion, to remove the 25 percent buffer option, then passed on a vote of 10 in favor, three against, and three abstentions.

The Management Board then moved on to the final issue, a proposal that would require anglers to measure striped bass in a straight line, from the tip of the snout to the end of the tail, with the tail compressed to achieve the greatest possible length, rather than over the curve of the body.  On that issue, there was neither discussion nor dissent.

The Draft Addendum was then approved for public comment, again by unanimous consent.

Where does that leave the bass and the bass fishermen?

There will undoubtedly be opposition to Addendum III, with most probably coming from the commercial and for-hire sectors.  The 12 percent fishing mortality reduction in the Draft Addendum is the bare minimum needed to rebuild the stock by 2029, and leave it in the best possible position to face the future should the current very low recruitment rate continue.  Thus, it is important that anglers comment on the Draft Addendum, in order to better assure that the reduction actually happens.

Beyond that, it makes sense to oppose unenforceable no-target closures, which will almost certainly be less effective than they appear on paper, in favor of clearly quantifiable, but somewhat longer, no-harvest closures—that is, traditional closed seasons.  Such traditional closures will allow anglers to continue to fish, and so allow tackle shops and for-hire boats to do some kind of business, when the season is closed, and so provide the greatest socio-economic benefits from the fishery while also providing the most certain and quantifiable benefits to the bass stock.

It may also make sense to support the mandatory commercial tagging at harvest/before landing, and for an interesting reason.  At this time, Massachusetts may have the only open-access commercial striped bass fishery on the coast, which sees bass caught and sold not only by legitimate commercial fishermen, who depend on the fishery to feed, house, and clothe their families, but also by what have been dubbed “recremercials,” anglers who choose to sell their fish to pay some of the cost of their hobby.  Massachusetts has already publicly stated that if it is forced to go to a tag at harvest/landing, rather than a tag at sale, system, it would be practically unable to provide tags to all of those currently licensed to sell striped bass, and might be required to put some sort of limitations on who can get a commercial striped bass permit.

That could be a good thing.

Also, from a conservation perspective, if the Maryland reorganization is to be supported at all, the option that includes a 10 percent uncertainty buffer should be the only one considered.  We know that uncertainty exists, and the expectation is that effort and landings will, in the end, be higher than Maryland predicts.  Under such circumstances, a buffer is not punitive, it is merely prudent.

Finally, anglers should oppose any sector separation proposal that trades a longer closed season for everyone for a more liberal slot limit for the for-hire fleet.  An angler is an angler, no matter whether they fish from shore, their own boat, or a for-hire vessel, and as a policy matter, it is wrong, and completely unjust, to elevate one small group of anglers above another, and grant them special privileges, particularly when for-hire anglers account for a very small percentage—well under five percent—ofall directed striped bass trips, and so should not be raised above those who make most of the trips and generate most of the economic benefits from the fishery.

And that’s it for now.

Once the schedule of public hearings is out, and the Draft Addendum is released in its final form, I’ll undoubtedly put out another post addressing the specific issues in greater detail.  But for now, you can just take what we know so far, and start steeling yourself for the debate to come.

 

THERE ARE NO "MOST IMPORTANT" FISH IN THE SEA

 

Seventeen years ago, author H. Bruce Franklin published a book.  It was titled The Most Important Fish in the Sea:  Menhaden and America, and it caught the public’s attention.  A blurb advertising the book declares, in part, that

“…Today, one company—Omega Protein—has a monopoly on the menhaden ‘reduction industry.’  Every year, it sweeps billions of fish from the sea, grinds them up, and turns them into animal feed, fertilizer, and oil used in everything from linoleum to health food supplements.

“The massive harvest wouldn’t be such a problem if menhaden were only good for making lipstick and soap.  But they are crucial to the diet of bigger fish and they filter the waters of the Atlantic and Gulf coasts, playing an essential dual role in marine ecology perhaps unmatched anywhere on the planet.  As their numbers have plummeted, fish and birds dependent on them have been decimated, toxic algae have begun to choke our bays and seas.  In Franklin’s vibrant prose, the decline of a once ubiquitous fish becomes an adventure story, an exploration of the U.S. political economy, a groundbreaking history of America’s emerging ecological consciousness, and an inspiring vision of a growing alliance between environmentalists and recreational anglers.”

The book was very well written.  A lot of people read it, and a lot of people believed everything that Franklin wrote, even though he had no scientific background at all.  His academic degree was in English, which he first taught as an assistant professor, later associate professor, at Stanford University.  He was also something of a radical, who helped to set up a European network of deserters from the U.S. military during the Viet Nam war, founded a group that later became the Revolutionary Communist Party, and was ultimately fired from Stamford after inciting students to shut down the school’s computer facility and encouraging them to “resist police efforts.”

Both his lack of scientific training and his radical background arguably colored his book which, in my view, contained a few factual errors and definitely had anti-corporate undertones.  But those flaws seem to have only made some of his readers more fervent, and helped to create what I might deem “The Cult of the Menhaden,” a group of people who truly believe that menhaden really are “the most important fish in the sea,” and who are inclined to blame any decline in fish, bird, or marine mammal populations on a menhaden shortage, and then blame such alleged shortage in the menhaden reduction fishery, even though the last stock assessment, released three years ago, found that the Atlantic menhaden population is above the target reference point, and an October 2024 assessment revealed that the Gulf menhaden stock was also doing well.

Now, a new study recently concluded by The University of Southern Mississippi, which was funded by the Science Center for Marine Fisheries, may finally help at least some of those people place menhaden in their proper ecological context, which is best described in the header of the school’s press release announcing the study's findings:

“What Do Gulf Predators Really Eat?  Groundbreaking Study Finds Menhaden Play a Smaller Role Than Expected.”

That conclusion probably doesn’t come as a surprise to fishermen who’ve spent much time on the water, and realize that predators can’t choose to be picky.  Most are opportunists that will feed on whatever might be around at the time, whether that forage is mullet, river herring, Atlantic herring, pilchards, bay anchovies, various species of shad, shrimp, mackerel, juvenile weakfish or bluefish, menhaden, or anything else. 

Menhaden, with their big, splashy, surface-hugging schools are often the most obvious baitfish, particularly on the inshroe grounds, and fish feeding on menhaden can be extremely easy to catch, but neither of those things has any real bearing on menhaden’s actual importance as forage.

Yet, fueled by “the most important fish in the sea” distortions and the continuing availability of foundation and other grants that support well-publicized anti-menhaden industry campaigns, far too many people have come to believe that menhaden have a disproportionately large impact on coastal ecosystems

The University of Southern Mississippi study will hopefully bring a few more facts—and hopefully a bit of rationality—to what has become an emotion-driven menhaden debate.

What the Mississippi scientists did was take a long look at what fish in the Gulf of Mexico were actually eating.  They employed a two-pronged approach, which combined the analysis of hundreds of stomach-content studies dating back as far as the 1950s with stable isotope analysis of fish’s tissue samples, which provide a definitive look at what fish are eating.

The press release described isotope analysis this way:

“Stable isotopes are heavier forms of elements, like carbon and nitrogen, that are present in all species and at all points in the food web.  Because these isotopes do not decay, they accumulate in predator species in different proportions, depending on the diet of the predator.  By analyzing the levels of stable carbon and nitrogen isotopes in predator species, the study authors are able to determine what types of diet sources the predators generally rely on, as well as what trophic level they predominantly feed on.  This technique offers a much broader view of predator diets than stomach content analysis alone.

“’When an animal eats a prey item, there is a differential uptake in the carbon and the nitrogen,’ said Dr. Kevin Dillon, another author of the study and a Associate Professor at the University of Southern Mississippi’s Gulf Coast Research Laboratory.  ‘So, we can measure those small differences to try to piece this together and look at each organism’s trophic position within that food web.  So, we’re able to tell from a fish’s isotopic signature whether the fish was eating phytoplankton or if it was eating another fish that had eaten phytoplankton.’”

So, what did the study reveal about the importance of menhaden in the Gulf food web?

“’We looked at some 30-plus predator species, many of them exceptionally well-studied.  We did not find any single species where we would say Gulf menhaden were the most important fish in their diet,’ said Dr. Robert Leaf, one of the authors of the study and Director of the School of Ocean Science and Engineering at the University of Southern Mississippi.

“’When you look at the information that we have, what we find is that Gulf menhaden are a prey item—certainly they play a role in the trophic dynamics of predators—but not to the extent of other prey items, which are also very important—in fact, more important,’ Dr. Leaf continued…

“The scientists found that species like red drum, summer [sic] flounder, and spotted sea trout are general, opportunistic feeders that do not rely solely on a single prey species.  Instead, their diets vary depending on factors such as seasons, prey availability, and other climactic conditions.

“Species like Gulf menhaden are important parts of the diet, but there is no single prey species that these predators overwhelmingly rely on.  There is no ‘most important’ prey species in the Gulf.  [emphasis added]”

The Cult of the Menhaden, and particularly its ministers and ecclesiastics—that is, public relations flaks and consultants—who are paid to proselytize and spread the faith, will undoubtedly reject the study’s conclusions, as cults always reject truths that conflict with dogma.

And it is always possible that the study’s conclusions won’t be transferrable to the Atlantic menhaden that inhabit waters off the East Coast; Atlantic coast ecostems and habitats aren’t the same as those in the Gulf, and many East Coast species engage in much longer seasonal migrations than are typical of spotted sea trout or drum.  It’s not inconceivable that menhaden are more important there.

But anyone who has ambushed striped bass in coastal creeks, when the fish follow spring alewife runs; who has fished the August “whitebait” runs at Montauk; who has frozen their hands in the post-Thanksgiving cold, when bass blitzed on Atlantic herring, understand that striped bass, like the predators in the Gulf, are opportunistic predators.  Anyone who has ever cut open a bass, to find a gut filled with flounder, blackfish (tautog), black sea bass, scup, mantis shrimp, squid, mackerel, crabs, or a host of other creatures knows that the fish’s diet extends far beyond menhaden.

And anyone who has gutted a bluefish, weakfish, summer flounder, or just about any other East Coast predator knows that they are also not fussy eaters, but opportunistic predators that will feed on whatever is slow enough to catch and small enough to fit between their jaws.

So, there’s a pretty good chance that the findings of the Gulf study will be relevant to the East Coast as well.

None of this means that the menhaden isn’t important.  To the contrary, the menhaden is unquestionably an important forage fish, one of a number of important forage fish on the Atlantic and Gulf coasts.

None of this means that menhaden can’t, in certain places and at certain times, be the dominant forage species, and that a local decline in menhaden abundance can’t harm local ecosystems, although there remains insufficient evidence to say, with anything approaching certainty, that such harm really occurs.

And none of this means that menhaden shouldn’t be carefully managed, that conservative quotas shouldn’t be imposed, or that scientists shouldn’t expend serious effort looking into the question of localized depletion, and whether it really exists.

All of those things matter, and should be pursued.

But the results of the University of Southern Mississippi menhaden study debunk the notion that menhaden are “the most important fish in the sea,” and sharply undercut the Cult of the Menhaden’s dogma.  And it is more than past time to put such dogma aside and, whether managing menhaden or any other fish, allow good science and good data, rather than myth and emotion, prevail.

 

 

 

 

BACK TO THE BASICS: ANGLERS AND SHARK DEPREDATION

 

Two United States Senators, Rick Scott (R-FL) and Brian Schatz (D-HI), recently announced their introduction of the “Supporting the Health of Aquatic Systems through Research, Knowledge, and Enhanced Dialogue Act”—better known as the SHARKED Act—to address the issue of shark depredation in commercial and recreational fisheries.

Similar legislation, introduced by Rep. Rob Wittman (R-VA), was passed by the House of Representatives last January.

Shark depredation has become a bigger and bigger issue in a number of fisheries, and has given birth to all sorts of hyperbole, most calling for sharks populations to be reduced in order to minimize the competition between fishermen and the big ocean predators, and better suit fishermen’s convenience.  Fishermen complain that sharks “need to be controlled,” that there “is a small imbalance in the shark population,” and otherwise suggest that the shark population is too large.

Given that sort of talk, the purpose of the SHARKED Act, as described in the Tampa Free Press, is laudably moderate, and not immediately threatening to shark populations.  It merely seeks to establish

“a federal task force dedicated to addressing this complex issue.  The task force would bring together key stakeholders including federal agencies, regional fisheries councils, scientists, and various fishing and conservation organizations.  Their collective mission would be to research, manage, and mitigate shark interactions that are negatively affecting fisheries and potentially disrupting marine ecosystems.”

Of course, shark depredation is nothing new.  Sharks have been stealing fish from fishermen for a very long time, just because, like any predator, a feeding shark will always seek an easy kill that allows them to feed while expending a minimum of energy, and there are few easier kills than the fish tethered to an angler’s or commercial fisherman’s line, a fish that, by struggling, is advertising its vulnerability and availability to every and all predators in the vicinity.

For a while, people forgot what shark depredation was like, because shark populations were heavily fished, and populations driven down.  But now that some species are coming back, there aren’t too many people left who remember what a healthy shark population looked like.  One researcher has found that anglers less than 60 years old really can't conceive of the number and size of the sharks that once filled our oceans.  Given that loss of anglers' institutional memory, to many fishermen, a merely healthy shark population seems like a population that;s growing out of control.

So maybe its time that we look backward, to gain an understanding of what anglers did to address depredation before shark stocks declined.  

Ernest Hemingway, for example, understood depredation well.  Back in the 1930s, there was a spectacularly strong run of giant bluefin tuna off Bimini in the Bahamas—almost certainly fish leaving their Gulf of Mexico spawning grounds, and on their way to summer off New England and maritime Canada. 

The offshore anglers of the era repeatedly hooked up with the big fish, but no one ever landed one intact, because there were so many sharks that they would swarm the hooked tuna, and leave it resembling an apple core—an intact head and intact tail, but with everything in between eaten down to the bare backbone.

That changed on May 21, 1935, when Hemingway landed the first Bimini bluefin that had not even been touched by a shark.  He did it by the simple expedient—simple to explain, not necessarily to practice—of minimizing the time that the hooked fish was in the water, which also minimized the time the sharks had to find it.

Hemingway explained it this way:

“We tried to fight them fast, but never rough.  The secret is for the angler never to rest.  Any time he rests, the fish in resting.  That gives the fish a chance to get strong again…You don’t have to kill a horse to break him.  You have to convince him…To do this, you have to be in good condition.”

As explained in an article published in Anglers Journal a few years ago,

“[Hemingway] pioneered the technique of pumping fish—raising and lowering the rod tip and reeling in the slack, using his back and legs to pressure and defeat the fish—which in part gave rise to innovations such as the fighting chair with a footrest and bucket harness…”

which allowed anglers to bring their entire body to bear when fighting a big fish.

Such an active fighting technique contrasted sharply with some of the angling going on in those days when, using 72-thread (roughly 210-pound-test) line and two-handed reels,

“inexperienced anglers fought big fish by paying out yards of heavy line, the weight of which beat down the fish,”

but also gave the sharks plenty of time to claim their meal.

As Hemingway observed,

“There is tackle made now, and there are fishing guides expert in the ways of cheating with it, by which anybody who can walk up three flights of stairs, carrying a quart bottle of milk in each hand, can catch gamefish over 500 pounds without even having to sweat much.”

If we apply Hemingway’s comments and accomplishments to today, when people are again complaining about shark depredation of their hooked bluefin (and other species of) tuna, there are some very distinct parallels.

Fighting chairs, bucket harnesses, and heavy conventional rods and reels are nowhere near as popular today as they were when I first started fishing offshore in the late 1970s, but the need to beat big gamefish quickly, before the sharks show up, hasn’t changed.  So how are anglers fishing today?

A lot of us have gone to heavy “stand-up” rods, tackle that originated, and was perfected, in the California long-range fishing fleet, where anglers fish for triple-digit yellowfin tuna from the decks of what are essentially big party boats, carrying too many anglers, who all fish at once, for them to fight their fish from a chair.  

The problem that the long-ranmge ran into was that the traditional big-game rods—typically, about seven feet long, with a stiff tip and a longish butt section--gave the fish too much mechanical advantage.  The tuna were, pulling on the long end of a lever, and so multiplying the force exerted on the fishermen, who had difficulty staying in the fight.

To solve the problem, long-range fishermen developed the stand-up rod, which was significantly shorter than the “boat rods" used with fighting chairs, and usually measured about 5 ½ feet in length.  The stand-up rod featured a short but, and long foregrips, which allowed anglers to move the fulcrum of the lever closer to the tip, thus cutting down on the advangage enjoyed by the fish.  The rod's tip section tapered quickly, so that the rod bent sharply when a fish was being fought, again cutting down on the fish’s leverage.

When matched with a rod belt and a fighting harness that wrapped around the angler’s waist and lower back, the stand-up rod—while not quite as effective as a fighting chair and bucket harness—allows fishermen to fight a big fish with their entire body, and keeps fighting times short.  Just last week, a young woman fishing from my boat used such gear to beat a 300-pound-class thresher shark in about an hour, even though the fish weighed more than twice as much as she did.

Despite its limitations and specialized gear, stand-up fishing isn’t too different from traditional angling with a bucket harness and chair—except without the chair.  It still kills tuna pretty quickly, and mostly keeps the sharks from stealing a mea

The other recent approach to tuna fishing is “jig ‘n’ pop,” where anglers use (mostly) spinning gear to cast plugs or drop jigs to tuna, some of them well into the “giant” class.  The rods and reels used are technological marvels, with the rods wrought from carbon fibers, and precision-machined reels, loaded with 100-pound-tenst braided lines, that have evolved far beyond the reels used even a dozen years ago.

Such equipment can easily stand up to a big tuna’s abuse.

But the human body that employs such gear hasn't changed much in thousands of years, and from a human mechanics perspective, spinning gear isn’t particularly good for fighting fish.  There are few provisions for a harness, so anglers are forced to fight big tuna with their hands, arms, and shoulders; their backs might get a little play, but their legs are out of the fight.  

To make matters worse, the rods tend to have over-long butts and, in the case of rods intended for casting, very long tips, again giving the tuna a mechanical advantage.  Add 30 or more pounds of drag to match the 100-pound line, and the fight becomes physically daunting.  It takes a strong and conditioned angler to get the job done, and in many—probably most—cases, the initial fisherman breaks down, and multiple anglers end up fighting the same fish over an extended period. 

I know of one bluefin of somewhere over 80 inches—toward the low end of the “giant” category—that recently took multiple anglers roughly three hours to land on spinning gear.  They undoubtedly had a good time, and ended up with a fish untouched by sharks, but anyone fooling around with a bluefin for as long as three hours shouldn’t be surprised if they only get back the head.  A shark can only resist for so long.

The current use of spinning gear to catch big fish is arguably the mirror image of Hemingway’s angler who “who can walk up three flights of stairs, carrying a quart bottle of milk in each hand” beating a big fish “without having to sweat much.  For while catching a big tuna on spinning gear is a physically demanding activity that involves plenty of sweat, from the tuna’s perspective, it has the same end result—an extended fight that often ends in shark depredation.

If anyone wants to have a reasonable chance to beat the sharks while fighting big tuna, they need to bear down from the beginning, maximizing the pressure put on the fish, never relenting, and using adequate gear that allows them to bring the fish to the boat in the shortest possible time.

Do anything else, and the blame for any depredation falls not on the sharks, but on the angler.

And when you come right down to it, the same thing is true with respect to little fish, as well.

Not all that many years ago, if you looked at what the hard-core anglers were using to pull snapper and grouper off Florida reefs, you’d see broomstick-stiff rods and reels like the #6/0 Penn Senator—or maybe the similar-sized, but somewhat less expensive #67 and #68 “Long Beach” reels—loaded with 80-pound line, the sort of gear needed to haul a fish away from the reef and get it to the boat quickly.

Today, very similar to what’s happening with tuna, you see a lot of anglers using “slow-pitch” jigging gear, which employs very soft rods to subtly manipulate the lures, to catch snapper, grouper, amberjack, and other reef fish.  But while such slow-pitch rods may give the jigs a tantalizing action, they’re completely worthless for fighting fish.  They have no backbone at all and a noodly action, and completely collapse under the weight of a fish, forcing the angler to slowly crank their catch to the surface, providing all the opportunity in the world for a shark to come along and claim the prize.

Even anglers who aren’t using slow-pitch gear seem to have forgotten how to get a fish off the bottom and into the boat with any kind of alacrity.  Every now and then, I make the mistake of watching a video of some Internet expert fight a decent grouper, snapper, or amberjack.  More often than not, the video will portray the self-proclaimed “expert” putting his foot on the rail of the boat, so he can rest his rod on his knee while he holds the whole thing by the reel’s sideplate, the way Bubba typically holds a reel meant for cranking in two-pound largemouth bass.  Thus twisted up like a pretzel, tenuously hanging on to his rod, the Internet angler then slowly cranks the reel handle, making appropriate noises all the while.

I’m embarrassed to say that, watching such exhibitions, I’ve been known to yell at the computer, “Fight the goddamned fish!  Stick the rod in your gut, get hold of the foregrip, and pump that thing up to the boat.  Stop jerking around!”

But, of course, the guy in the video can’t hear a word that I’m saying, and wouldn’t care if he could.  Instead, he just goes on slowly cranking.  Sometimes he gets the fish, sometimes a shark wins the race.  And in the latter case, of course, the shark always gets blamed, not the anglers who, through his dawdling, called the shark in.

I’m not going to argue that anglers going back to heavier tackle, and boating their fish more quickly, is going to end all shark depredation.  As I noted at the start, depredation has gone on for a very long time, and has multiple causes.  Maybe the biggest one isn’t more sharks, but more anglers, which often bunch up over the most popular reefs and wrecks, and condition the sharks to associate fishing boats with food.  Combine more anglers with fewer fish on the reefs, and human/shark competition is bound to increase.  And an increasing number of some species of shark will make encounters more likely.

Still, the easiest way to minimize shark depredation is to minimize the time that a hooked fish is in the water and vulnerable.  And the way to do that isn’t much changed from Hemingway’s day.

Use adequate tackle.  Fight the fish hard.  Put the fish in the boat as soon as you can.

Doing so certainly won’t prevent all shark depredation.  But it will help keep it under control.

Without bothering the sharks at all.

 

 

 

 

 

"THERE ARE MORE FISH THAN EVER BEFORE..."

 

When you get involved in the fisheries management process, and attend the meetings and read what’s in the press, it doesn’t take long to realize that, regardless of the species, there are a few common themes:

“The scientists just don’t know where to find the fish, there are plenty of them around.”

“There are lots of fish, they just went somewhere else.”

“The fishermen aren’t the reason that the fish are disappearing, it’s the seals (or the sharks, or the bluefish, or the cormorants, or…)”

And then there is the most common theme of all, used mostly when a stock is in decline and restrictions are needed, but also when folks want to see landings increase: 

“There are more fish than ever before!”

The nice thing about most of those assertions—from the point of view of the person making the claim—is that they pretty well stand on their own, without the need for any supporting facts.  After all, unless you fit a few hundred bluefish with satellite tags—an economically impractical project—you can’t prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that most of the bluefish on the East Coast didn’t suddenly decide to set off across the Atlantic to visit North Africa, as a New York party boat captain suggested at a hearing a few years ago, and that the population wasn’t really overfished, as the stock assessment advised.  It might seem very unlikely, but…

In the same way, fishermen can claim that the loss of winter flounder wasn’t due to overharvest, but from cormorants eating the juvenile fish, while Maryland waterman can argue that the decline in blue crab abundance was due to striped bass, and not to themselves.

But when it comes down to the “more fish than ever before” claims, things get a little trickier, because there are historical records.  But that never stops such claims from being made.

I was reminded of that a few days ago, when I was reading a press release issued by Rep. John H. Rutherford (R-FL), in which Rep. Rutherford stated that

“Every local angler I talk to says that there are more red snapper in the South Atlantic than they’ve ever seen before.”

We can take that statement at face value, and accept that it accurately reflects what anglers are telling Rep. Rutherford.  But beyond that, what does it really mean?  

In the context of the press release, Rep. Rutherford was using it as an argument to liberalize recreational red snapper regulations, and extend what he called the “measly” two-day season.  Yet, even if every angler “says that there are more red snapper…than they’ve ever seen before,” does that mean that the stock is truly healty?

Not according to the last stock assessment, which was released in 2023.  That assessment states that

“the stock remains overfished SSB/SSB_30%=0.44, and…overfishing is occurring F/F_30%=2.20, though at a lower rate than in terminal years of previous red snapper assessments…This assessment estimated that, since 2010, total abundance and spawning stock have been increasing at a relatively rapid rate, showing substantial progress toward rebuilding.  Despite overfishing, this increase in abundance has been stimulated by higher than average recruitment.  [emphasis added]”

Thus, we seem to be faced with two contradictory statements.  On one hand, the stock assessment finds that South Atlantic red snapper remain overfished.  On the other, anglers are “seeing more red snapper…than they’ve ever seen before.”

How can both statements be true?

To answer that question, it’s necessary to look at an earlier stock assessment, completed in 1960, which stated that

“The assessment indicates that the stock has been overfished since 1960,”

and includes a graph depicting a spawning stock that fell to very low levels in the early 1970s, bottomed out in 1980, and remained at or near historic low levels through at least 2006.

The same assessment notes that

“overfishing has been occurring since 1960 at about 14 times the sustainable level, with the 2006 estimate of F/F_40% at 12.021…  [note that the fishing mortality target has changed since the 2008 assessment, and now contemplates F_30%, a higher level of fishing mortality]

”Estimated abundance-at-age shows truncation of the oldest ages from the 1950s into the 1960s; the age structure continues to be in a truncated condition.  Fish of age 10 and above are practically non-existent in the population.

“…Total biomass and spawning biomass show nearly identical trends—sharp decline during the 1950s and 1960s, continued decline during the 1970s, and stable but low levels since 1980.”

Thus, for an angler to have seen—to have fished on and experienced—a South Atlantic red snapper stock that was not overfished, that angler would probably have to be at least 75 years old, old enough to have been catching red snapper in the late 1950s.  And even then, that angler would not be old enough to have fished on a truly healthy red snapper stock, but merely one which was already declining toward overfished levels.

It is very possible that no one fishing today has ever fished on a completely healthy red snapper stock, with both adequate biomass and a wide range of age and size classes.  Instead, most of today’s red snapper anglers probably began fishing after 1980, when spawning stock biomass was at or near its nadir—somewhere around, or below, three percent of an unfished stock. 

To such anglers, the current spawning stock biomass, which has been increasing in recent years, really does represent “more red snapper than they’ve ever seen before,” because their fishing experience only included years when the spawning stock biomass was dismally low.  Now, spawning stock biomass is the highest it’s been since 1980, and there are some older and larger fish being caught.

To a starving man, a burger can seem like a banquet, and that’s what the South Atlantic red snapper fishermen are experiencing today.  They are seeing more red snapper than they’ve ever seen before, and because they never experienced true abundance, they believe that current abundance reflects a healthy stock.

They are wrong.

And that’s why saying that anglers are seeing “more red snapper…than they’ve ever seen before,” is an all but meaningless statement, for it says nothing about how many red snapper the same anglers might see if managers only brought overfishing under control, and fully rebuilt the stock.

Such meaningless comments aren’t limited to South Atlantic red snapper.

Down in North Carolina, where the southern flounder stock has declined to the point that the state’s salt water fisheries managers never opened the recreational season last year, we see an angler still insisting that

“I’ve been fishing for 50 years, so I should know a little about it.  The [flounder fishing this year] was the best I’ve seen.”

And up in New England, after a stock assessment found that cod stocks had crashed, perhaps to just four percent of their potential, fishermen still made comments like

“Cod are everywhere, we can’t avoid them.”

At least in the case of South Atlantic red snapper, some anglers, used to a stock near historically low levels, might be misled by the ongoing recovery of such long-overfished stock, and actually believe that the stock is fully rebuilt.  But in the case of southern flounder and cod—and of other species that I haven’t bothered to include here, including striped bass—the stock is clearly in truly bad shape, yet people still try to play the “most ever” card.

Everyone, including themselves, know that it’s not true, yet they say it all the same.

 

 

 

 

 

SCIENTISTS TAKE A SECOND LOOK AT STRIPED BASS

 

As the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Summer Meeting approaches, a lot of anglers are thinking about the declining striped bass stock, and wondering whether the Commission’s Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board will take any meaningful action to improve the fish’s prospects in the medium and long term.

The debate among anglers has, at times, been hot and heavy, and has not always been fully informed by the facts.  Thus, as the Summer Meeting draws near, we would all probably do well to look at some updated information recently provided by the scientists of the Striped Bass Technical Committee, which will be germane to the upcoming debate.

What happened in 2024?

When the Technical Committee finally had an opportunity to review final 2024 Marine Recreational Information Program data in May, they discovered that 2024 recreational effort was greater than previously thought.  That doesn’t mean that overall effort was high.  In fact, the number of directed striped bass trips taken in 2024 declined by 14 percent compared to the previous year, which is exactly what one would expect to see in a declining fishery that is providing fewer opportunities for anglers to encounter striped bass, since effort in the recreational striped bass fishery has always been driven by abundance.

Most of the increase in the effort estimate came from a revision of the Wave 6 (November/December) estimate for private boat trips in New York.  The preliminary estimate suggested that New York anglers took 442,911 directed striped bass trips during the last two months of 2024, an estimate that seemed surprisingly low, particularly given the good fishing that occurred off western Long Island and New York City during those months.  

The revised MRIP data indicates that the actual number of trips during November and December by New York anglers was closer to 845,711, a figure that seems in accord with observed fishing activity, and also in line with New York’s Wave 6 effort estimates for 2022 and 2023—1,090,000 trips and 867,384 trips, respectively.

The increase in New York’s Wave 6 private boat trips resulted in the landings estimate increasing by 29 percent, or 88,771 fish, and the release estiomate to increase by 34 percent, or 916,579 fish, out of which 82,492—9 percent—would be expected to succumb to release mortality

Despite their continuing complaints about the 1-fish bag limit in the Chesapeake Bay, and their alleged inability to book charters as a result, Maryland’s charter boats also saw an upward revision in their final effort, catch, and landings estimates for 2024. 

The revised effort numbers reveal that Maryland anglers took 48,645 directed for hire striped bass trips during Wave 3 (May/June), 28.4 percent more than originally believed.  That revised Wave 3 figure falls just slightly below the 2019-2023 range of 50,887-72,948 trips.  The final estimate of Maryland’s Wave 4 (July/August) 2024 for-hire trips increased by 64.1 percent over the preliminary number; at 56,560 directed striped bass trips, the revised Wave 4 effort fell well within the range of 47,356-69,316 trips taken during the years 2019-2023.  The same held true for Wave 5 (September/October), which saw the final estimate of directed for-hire striped bass trips increase by 43.3 percent, to 31,564, a number which fell neatly within the 20,900-50,845 trips taken between 2019 and 2023.

Thus, it appears that the charter boat operators’ claim that the 1-fish bag limit is leading to a marked decline in business is not supported by the effort numbers, and seems to be patently untrue.

But what is true is that the Maryland charter boats caught considerably more fish than previously believed, with the final landings estimate higher by 8,288 bass in Wave 3, 10,479 in Wave 4, and 9,480 in Wave 5—a total of 28,247 more dead bass than previously believed, while the final estimate of releases increased by 3,537 in Wave 3, 6,080 in Wave 4, and 11,168 in Wave 5, a total increase of 20,785 striped bass, of which about 1,870 would theoretically be lost to release mortality.

The increase in the New York and Maryland estimates, when combined with smaller (generally, less than 3 percent) revisions to the preliminary estimates in other states, resulted in 2024 striped bass removals being 7 percent greater than originally believed.  That increase in removals had a decided impact on the proposed Addendum III to Amendment 7 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass, which will now have to include measures that will reduce fishing mortality by 12 percent, rather than 7 percent, in order to achieve a 50 percent probability of rebuilding the striped bass stock by 2029, as required by the management plan, or reduce fishing mortality by 18 percent, in order to achieve a 60 percent probability that timely rebuilding takes place.

Less-optimistic scenarios

The analysis which determined the reductions needed to timely rebuild the stock, at both the 50 percent and 60 percent probability levels, relied on assumptions that might or might not reflect future conditions, and ended with the stock probably being rebuilt in 2029, but with little thought to what happens after that.

However, the Management Board also asked the Technical Committee to consider a few other scenarios, even though they aren’t directly reflected in the proposed Addendum III.  Such scenarios include

·        1)  Analyzing what will happen after the 2029 rebuilding deadline, by constructing a stock trajectory going out to 2025;

·        2)  Assuming that future recruitment will resemble the last six years, when recruitment was the lowest on record, rather than merely the “low-recruitment scenario” that employs 2008-2023 recruitment values; and

·        3)  Assuming that fishing mortality for the period 2026-2029 will be somewhat higher than the low mortality of 2024.

The Technical Committee went out of its way to note that the last two scenarios slanted to the pessimistic side, saying that

“The [Technical Committee-Stock Assessment Subcommittee] noted that these Board-requested sensitivity runs are more pessimistic scenarios compared to the base run and do not encompass the possibility of more optimistic future scenarios.”

But that is as it should be.

There is always uncertainty in any stock assessment, rebuilding plan, or similar document, and the greatest risk is always on the downside.  That is, if an already overfished stock’s biomass is smaller than scientists believe, if recruitment is lower, or if fishing (or natural) mortality is higher, and managers set fishery management measures assuming that such factors are more favorable than they actually are, the overly liberal measures can push a depleted stock into future decline. 

It’s easy to argue that is what happened in 2014, when the explicit language of Amendment 6 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass required the Management Board to initiate a 10-year rebuilding plan, yet Michael Waine, then the ASMFC’s Fishery Management Plan coordinator for the species, advised that

“The Board is acting to reduce [fishing mortality].  Through that action we see the projection showing that [spawning stock biomass] will start increasing towards its target, but we’re uncomfortable about projecting out far enough to tell you when it will reach its target because the further on the projections we go the more uncertainty that is involved.  Therefore, I think the trend is to get back towards the target, but we can’t tell you exactly how quickly that will happen.”

Even with the acknowledged uncertainty, the Management Board moved forward with Addendum IV to Amendment 6 to the Atlantic Striped Bass Interstate Fishery Management Plan, a document with slightly less than a 50 percent probability of reducing fishing mortality to target within one year, as required by the management plan.  Even with all of the future uncertainty surrounding rebuilding, the Board seemed comfortable that such less-than-bare-minimum measure would be sufficient to rebuild the spawning stock biomass to target, and so made it unnecessary to develop the required 10-year rebuilding plan.

Of course, we now know to our sorrow that the assumptions underlying Addendum VI were far too optimistic, and that the stock not only failed to rebuild, but declined farther.  

Thus, the argument can be made that inserting a strong dose of pessimism into the assumptions underlying management is a wise thing to do.  At worst, should such pessimism prove unjustified, the bass population should recover more quickly or become more abundant than it technically needs be, which are hardly dire problems.

Some might argue that undue pessimism, leading to unnecessarily strict regulations, might cause unnecessary economic distress to fishing-related businesses, but given the relative economic harm caused by each of the two possible alternatives—a brief decline in earnings caused by unnecessarily harsh regulations that lead to a healthy stock, or the long-term decline in profits caused by an overfished stock, depressed angler satisfaction, and perhaps even a stock collapse—taking a somewhat pessimistic stance would seem the wiser management approach.

At any rate, when the Technical Committee considered the three alternate scenarios, it recognized that they were all intimately interconnected, and so provided its analysis in a paragraph that included all three:

“The general findings of these sensitivity runs remain the same.  In the base run, [spawning stock biomass] continues to increase after 2029.  In the scenarios where recruitment is drawn from the very low recruitment regime, spawning stock biomass (SSB) will begin to decline after 2030 as the 2015 and 2018 year-classes continue to die off due to natural and fishing mortality and are replaced by the weak 2019-2024 year-classes.  In the moderate [fishing mortality] scenario (i.e., slightly increased [fishing mortality] from the base run), the probability of being at or above the SSB target in 2029 decreases, and the trajectory of SSB after 2029 depends on the recruitment scenario, with SSB continuing to increase after 2029 under the 2008-2023 recruitment regime and SSB declining after 2029 in the very low recruitment scenario.”

Thus, it quickly becomes clear that recruitment is the key to the striped bass’ future.  If recruitment improves a little bit, to 2008-2023 levels, the striped bass stock will probably remain at healthy biomass levels for a while.  On the other hand, should recruitment remain at current levels—and even a somewhat higher blip now and then such as, say, a Maryland juvenile abundance index of 6 or 8 every half-dozen years—we can expect the striped bass stock to decline, very possibly to the levels that we last experienced in the early 1980s.

Fishing mortality will probably only be a minor player in the outcome, perhaps delaying rebuilding if fishing mortality sees a modest increase over current levels.  Yet even if that happens, should recruitment improve, the stock will continue to rebuild.  But if very low recruitment remains chronic, higher fishing mortality will only accelerate the eventual crash.

So what should managers make of such advice?

The wisest course would be to embrace caution, and a big dose of pessimism.  The Board shouldn’t assume 2008-2023 recruitment levels until they see recruitment improve to such a “low recruitment” scenario.  Instead, the Board would be well advised to assume that current, very low recruitment levels will continue well into the future, and to change that assumption only after recruitment improves.

To assume anything else, particularly given the revised estimates of 2024 fishing mortality, can only put the bass’ future at risk.