HAS THE ASMFC GIVEN UP ON STRIPED BASS?

 

In Ann Kubler-Ross’ landmark book, On Death and Dying, she outlines what she called The Five Stages of Grief:  Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and then, finally, Acceptance that one’s condition is, in fact, terminal.

Yesterday, as I listened to the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board debate whether or not to adopt a 12% reduction in striped bass removals, in the hope of rebuilding the stock, I began thinking that it had finally reached the fifth stage of griefwith regard to the striped bass’ future.

Early on in the debate, Martin Gary, New York’s saltwater fisheries manager, asked a representative of the ASMFC’s Striped Bass Technical Committee to confirm that any chance the stock has to rebuild, as well as the future of the spawning stock biomass, largely hinges upon the three above-average year classes produced in 2014, 2015, and 2018. 

Apparently the big 2011 year class has been so reduced in size that it is no longer considered, while the next-oldest big year class, produced in 2003, is now more than 20 years old and largely removed from the population.  Given the poor Maryland juvenile abundance indices in the years since, it’s pretty clear that nothing much is coming up to replace the 2014s, 2015s, and 2018s as they yield to attrition from both natural and fishing mortality.

That bodes ill for the fishery, as the 2014s and 2015s have already grown out of the 28- to 31-inch coastal slot limit, while the average size of the 2018s suggest that at least half of them will be above 31 inches next year.

And while there are currently plenty of bass in the fishery to keep anglers’ rods bent for the next few years, and to keep commercial fishermen busy, what is currently a seven-year hole in the population structure, driven by the poorest seven years of striped bass recruitment ever recorded, guarantees that there will be few legal slot fish in the Chesapeake Bay next season, and few legal slot fish on the coast, beginning in 2027 and stretching out until at least 2032—and potentially stretching out indefinitely if recruitment doesn’t improve.

The Management Board was aware of those things when it sat down at the table yesterday morning. 

Mr. Gary observed that the biggest problem facing the Management Board wasn’t whether the stock will rebuild by 2029, but the lack of any strong—or even near-average—year class since 2018.  As he noted,

“The real problem is what lies ahead in the ‘30s.”

Doug Grout, the Governor’s Appointee from New Hampshire and a long-time advocate for striped bass conservation, advised that

“We need to make the public aware that things are going to get worse before they get better…If you think things are bad now, wait until the 2030s.”

And Michael Luisi, a Maryland fisheries manager who has often proved a formidable impediment to conservative striped bass management, spoke to the need of

“Managing the expectations of our fishermen during [this] time…The striped bass fishery may never be what it once was.”

Chris Batsavage, a North Carolina fisheries manager, was a little more vehement, recognizing that

“We’ve seen warning signs with this stock since 2011 or so…Doing nothing now just puts the slow motion train wreck on fast forward,”

a theme continued by Sarah Peake, the Legislative Proxy from Massachusetts, who warned,

“Hope is not a message…The light we’re seeing at the end of the tunnel is a locomotive…If we do nothing and take no action, the economic losses…will be unimaginable.”

So, there is no question that the state fisheries managers, and probably most of the other members of the Management Board, were fully aware of what was at stake when they began to consider what action to take on what would become Addendum III to Amendment 7 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass.

They had the choice of doing nothing, and letting striped bass-dependent businesses make what money they can  before a lack of striped bass brings everything to a crashing halt.  Or, they could impose a 12% reduction on the recreational and commercial fisheries, in the hope of rebuilding the stock and maybe averting bigger problems a decade from now, while knowing full well that, if recruitment stayed low, their best efforts would probably all be futile.

So, as befits someone in the final stage of grief, they seemed to accept the bass’ fate as inevitable, and chose to do nothing at all.

There were certainly arguments made that supported the status quo.

Comments, both from the public and from the Atlantic Striped Bass Advisory Panel, leaned toward the status quo, although the makeup of the Advisory Panel hardly reflected the demographics of the striped bass fishery as a whole, and did not really reflect public opinion.  And if the Marine Recreational Information Program data from March through June 2025, which showed substantially lower than expected catch and landings, was indicative of effort and landings for the rest of the year, and if effort and landings stayed at that level through 2029, it was far more likely than not that spawning stock biomass would actually be rebuilt to the target level by 2029 even without a mandated harvest reduction.

Plenty of Management Board members, many undoubtedly looking for a way to avoid a contentious debate over how and when to impose closed seasons on the recreational fishery, grasped at those facts to argue that a reduction in landings would cause unnecessary economic harm in both the commercial and recreational fisheries. 

John Clark, the Delaware fisheries manager, implicitly questioned the need to adhere to the management plan’s requirement that the stock be rebuilt within ten years, arguing for the status quo by saying,

“Ten years is not a lot of time biologically for the striped bass, they work on their own timeframe,”

then fell back on an old-time fisheries management mantra that, I had hoped, might have become obsolete and forgotten in this supposedly more informed and evolved age,

“Every striped bass that dies of old age is an economic loss to the fishery.”

Apparently, he believed, managers should try to assure that, at some point, fishermen catch them all.

Others were more modest in their comments, but still stressed economic considerations.

Mr. Gary noted that conservation, economics, and social impacts were all a part of fisheries management decisions, which was right as far as it went, but ignored the fact that, without any fish, the economic and social benefits equate to precisely zero.

David Sikorski, the Legislative Proxy for Maryland, made a similar pitch, supporting the position of his employer, the Coastal Conservation Association and saying that

“I don’t think that the biological risk is as great as the economic risk,”

before asking,

“What do we lose economically, what do we lose in our community?”

if the 12% reduction was imposed.

He then went on to note that

“This [striped bass] is the Atlantic Coast’s most important fish,”

apparently without thinking about how long that might remain true, given where the stock is probably heading.

But it was notable how, as the Management Board debated the motion of New Jersey’s Legislative Proxy, Adam Nowalsky, which read simply

“Move to adopt in Section 3.4 Option A Status Quo,”

most of the usual fire seemed drained from its members, who appeared resigned to just playing out their assigned roles until the inevitable end.

Mr. Gary tried to improve the situation somewhat, moving to amend Nowalsky’s motion with one which read,

“Move to amend to add ‘and establish a Work Group to develop a white paper that could inform a future management document.  The Work Group should include representation from all sectors in addition to scientists and managers.  The goal of this Work Group is to consider how to update the [fishery management plan’s] goals, objectives, and management of striped bass beyond 1929, in consideration of severely reduced reproductive success in the Chesapeake Bay.  The Work Group should utilize public comment, including that received during the Addendum III process to inform its research and management recommendations and work with the Benchmark [Stock Assessment Subcommittee] to incorporate ideas and deliver necessary data products.  Work Group discussions should include the following topics:

·        Review [biological reference points] and consider recruitment-sensitive, model-based approaches.

·        Formally review hatchery stocking as both a research tool and a management tool for striped bass w/cost analysis.

·        Evaluate the potential for other river systems to contribute to the coastal stock.

·        Explore drivers of recruitment success/failure in Chesapeake Bay, Delaware, and the Hudson in the light of changing climactic and environmental conditions, including potential impacts from invasive species.

·        Explore the reproductive contribution of large and small female fish and the implications of various size-based management tools.

·        Methods to address the discard mortality in the catch and release fishery.”

His intent seemed to be to make some sort of relevant information available to inform any management action that might be taken after the 2027 benchmark stock assessment is released, and maybe that will matter, but given that the terminal year of that assessment in 2025, and neither the impacts of the most recent year classes on the health of the spawning stock, nor any additional recruitment information, will be included in the assessment, it’s not clear that a majority of the Management Board will be much more inclined to adopt new conservation measures then than they were yesterday, although they might well be willing to liberalize the regulations already in place if they can find an excuse to do so.

Still, a few Management Board members were willing to at least try to take some kind of action at yesterday’s meeting; like a surgeon making every effort to keep her patient alive, Nicola Meserve, a Massachusetts fishery manager, made an impassioned effort to convince the Management Board to at least try to do something that might help the bass.

Saying that the striped bass was the “backbone” of the recreational fishery in the Northeast, admitting that she was “personally pessimistic” about the species’ future, and reminding the Management Board that they had made a commitment to the public in the management plan to recover the striped bass spawning stock biomass within ten years, she pointed to the declining trend in striped bass abundance, which had already fallen to the levels of the 1990s, and the “spotty availability” of bass along the coast. 

Ms. Meserve noted that while others felt more optimistic about the bass’ future, she didn’t share their optimism, and felt that managers would be better prepared for the future if they took action now.  Thus, she made a motion to amend Nowalsky’s main motion, replacing “Option A Status Quo” with language that favored Option B, a 12% reduction in both commercial and recreational removals.

Her motion was seconded by Dr. Jason McNamee, the Rhode Island fishery manager, who had stated earlier that

“Protecting these remaining spawners is becoming really, really important,”

and later, in response to Ms. Meserve’s comments about others’ optimism, observed that

“It is really risky to bank on that optimism and not take action now.”

Others, including Ms. Peake and Mr. Batsavage, also supported Ms. Meserve’s motion, but in the end, it only won the votes of five states—Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and North Carolina—while every other member of the Management Board voted against, assuring that no action will be taken to conserve the striped bass in 2026 and, in all likelihood, in 2027 as well.

The Management Board effectively accepted that the striped bass’ current problems are beyond its control, and that only the whims of nature can influence the fish’s fate.

Mr. Batsavage gave the bass’ eulogy at meeting’s end, declaring that

“We missed an opportunity, again, to slow down what we know is going to happen to this stock in the 2030s.”

And then, on a vote of 13 to one, with only North Carolina voting against, and the Rhode Island delegation unable to agree and so casting a “null” vote, Addendum III, sans any meaningful conservation measures, was officially adopted by the Management Board.

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When I first read On Death and Dying about forty years ago, to help me better understand and cope with the last months of a close family member, I never even impagined that I would use the same work to describe a fisheries management body’s approach to a living marine resource, yet in the case of striped bass, the parallels were too close to ignore.

First came Denial, in November 2011 when, despite a stock assessment update projecting that, regardless of recruitment, the striped bass stock would become overfished by 2017 if no management action was taken, the Management Board decided to stand pat and do nothing, with some saying that striped bass were still “a green light fishery,” and arguing that no action was needed because the management triggers in Amendment 6 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass had not yet been triggered.

Next came Anger, at least among some, after the management triggers in Amendment 6 were finally tripped, but the Management Board failed to do what its own management plan said it “must,” and adopt a ten-year rebuilding plan.  Anger increased when the recreational fishery in the Chesapeake Bay, and particularly in Maryland, not only failed to achieve the 20.5% harvest reduction called for in Addendum IV to Amendment 6 to the Atlantic Striped Bass Interstate Fishery Management Plan called for, but increased its landings by more than 50% and, in response, Maryland’s Luisi nevertheless called the Addendum IV a success, because

“When we see numbers, an increase in harvest of 58.4 percent in the Chesapeake Bay, it kind of leads, I think, board members to believe that Maryland and Virginia, Potomac River [Fisheries Commission] may not have contributed to the successful management.  I stress the word success…”

Some folks in coastal states didn’t like the fact that they were reducing their landings more than was necessary while the Chesapeake jurisdictions were allowed to increase harvest and ride on the coastal states’ coattails.  But none of the coastal states ever got angry enough to propose a measure to fix the problem.

So, after that, came the Bargaining, when several states—but mostly New Jersey and Maryland—used the concept of “conservation equivalency” to get around the most burdensome management measures in both Addendum IV and in Addendum VI to Amendment 6 to the Atlantic Striped Bass Interstate Fishery Management Plan, and thus condition their compliance with the Management Board’s decisions on their ability to adopt measures which allowed their fishermen advantages not enjoyed by fishermen in other states.

Then came Depression, not so much on the part of the Management Board as on the part of anglers who saw the striped bass stock begin to dwindle, while the Management Board lacked the will to take decisive action to turn the decline around.  Some Management Board members expressed the same frustration, but never managed to convince the majority to do what was needed to rebuild the stock.

Through all those four stages, the striped bass stock declined and then became overfished, with only ineffective half-measures proposed to solve its problems.

And now, Acceptance, on the part of the Management Board, and also of myself, at least to the point that I accept that I, who actively fished for striped bass before and then through the last stock collapse, may very well see the stock collapse for a second time; even if collapse is averted, I know and accept that, at my current age, I will never have the opportunity to know and enjoy a healthy striped bass stock again in my lifetime.

Although I accept that, I have to admit that it makes me a bit sad, and more than a bit angry, that the people charged with maintaining stock health have failed the bass, and me, and the rest of the bass fishermen in every state and in every sector, just as they failed us all with their inaction 45 years ago.

It is difficult to watch something that you’ve loved for a very long time as it dies.