BLACK SEA BASS: CUTTING THE BABY IN HALF

 

On the morning of December 17, the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council and the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Summer Flounder, Scup, and Black Sea Bass Management Board agreed to increase 2026 and 2027 recreational black sea bass landings by 20%, adopting a compromise measure in the face of ambiguous scientific advice and substantial uncertainty.

Whether such compromise constituted a prudent, precautionary approach to black sea bass management or an unreasonably risky decision, whether it created any long-term hazard to the black sea bass or the black sea bass fishery, or whether it will still leave anglers fishing under unreasonably restrictive management measures are questions that the members of the Council and Management Board answered based on their own risk tolerance, their own views of the fishery, and their own concern for the long-term impacts of management decisions.

I first wrote about the impending decision about a month ago, in the context of the November 19 meeting of the Summer Flounder, Scup, and Black Sea Bass Advisory Panel meeting, when many Advisory Panel members supported a 39% increase in black sea bass landings, despite the uncertainty involved.  At the time, I characterized their eagerness to see landings spike as “Imprudence,” and I’m tempted to characterize the recent action of the Council and Board in a similar vein, but that wouldn’t be completely honest, as the issue is complicated, and there are arguably justifications for the 20% landings hike.

Having said that, if I was in a decision-making position, I would have voted the other way, both because of the uncertainty and because of some additional factors that, in my opinion, were largely skimmed over in the Council and Board discussions.  But had I done so, I would have been in the distinct minority (the relevant motion passed by a vote of 15 in favor, 3 opposed, and 1 abstaining at the Council, and 8 in favor, 2 opposed, 1 abstention, and 1 null vote at the Board), and I understand what motivated the majority’s views.

Partly, it was the lack of any clear scientific advice.

In the case of black sea bass (as well as summer flounder and scup) the primary scientific advice comes from the Council’s Scientific and Statistical Committee, which sets the annual catch limit, and from a relatively new innovation called the “Recreational Demand Model” which, among other things, predicts what future landings would be based on what past landings were under existing regulations.

That advice is then filtered through Council staff and the Summer Flounder, Scup, and Black Sea Bass Monitoring Committee, composed of scientists from NMFS, the ASMFC, and interested states, which provides the Council and Management Board with firm recommendations on the appropriate management measures.

At least, that’s the way things are supposed to work.  This time, the process didn’t quite function as planned.

There was no one reason for the problems besetting the black sea bass management process; it was more a question of a number of current and potential issues all converging on managers at the same time. 

A new research track stock assessment, completed in 2023, and subsequent management track assessments, relied on something called the Woods Hole Assessment Model (WHAM) instead of the Age Structured Assessment Program (ASAP) that had been used before, which may have resulted in more accurate data, but also increased the uncertainty associated with some aspects of the assessment.

A government shutdown in the fall of 2025 made it impossible for managers to obtain preliminary recreational catch data for July and August, or revised data for the first six months of the year, in time to include it in the Recreational Demand Model; by the time the shutdown ended and the data became available, it was too late to include it in a new run of the RDM, even though the new numbers suggested that landings during the first half of the year were higher than originally thought.  Although Council staff noted that

“it would be preferable to update the model with preliminary wave 4 data and 2025 black sea bass size distribution information, it is necessary to move forward with the model with the information currently available,”

There was just no time to proceed otherwise.

In addition, standard practice is to update the Recreational Demand Model with projections of the size distribution of black sea bass in the upcoming year which, as a November 7 memorandum from Julia Beatty, the Council staff member responsible for black sea bass, to Dr. Chris Moore, the Council’s Executive Director, notes,

“is consistent with past practice and allows the model to estimate catch based on predicted future availability of different sizes of fish.”

But this year, the Scientific and Statistical Committee didn’t base its calculations on such projections, largely because projections of a declining biomass in previous years proved inaccurate, and drew significant criticism at the December 2024 joint meeting of the Council and Management Board.  That created a situation in which the SSC and the Recreational Demand Model analyses were out of synch, with only the latter considering the future availability of different-sized black sea bass, although, at the December meeting, Council staff raised the possibility that such mismatch might not create material issues.

Still, the increased uncertainty in the Recreational Demand Model’s estimate of 2026 recreational black sea bass landings raised a new question. 

Uncertainty in the Recreational Demand Model’s estimates of future landings is measured by something known as a “confidence interval;” the 80% confidence interval that has been used up to now embraces a range of values above and below the point estimate of future landings (in this case, 5.86 million pounds) which, collectively, have an 80% probability of including the actual level of 2026 landings.  The Percent Change Approach used to set future recreational landings targets for black sea bass is supposed to take such confidence interval into consideration.  If a future recreational harvest limit falls below the lower bound of the confidence interval, managers are required to take a specified action, usually the adoption of more restrictive management meaures.  If the future RHL falls within the confidence interval, managers are required to take a different, specified action, while if the future RHL falls above the upper bound of the confidence interval, yet another specified action, typically relaxing the existing rules, is indicated.

Perhaps because the stock assessment employed the WHAM rather than the ASAP model, the 80% confidence interval for the Recreational Demand Model’s calculation of 2026 landings was very wide, ranging between 4.22 and 8.50 million pounds, while the 2026 recreational harvest limit was 8.14 million pounds, just within the confidence interval’s upper boundary.  Pursuant to the Percent Change Approach, 2026 and 2027 recreational black sea bass landings target should remain unchanged from what it was in 2025.

However, the wide 80% confidence interval led to substantial debate at the November 18 Monitoring Committee meeting.

Four of the 11 Committee members present felt that a narrower, 75% confidence interval should be adopted, which would narrow the gap between the confidence interval’s upper and lower bounds to a range similar to that prevailing for summer flounder and scup when the 80% confidence interval was used.  They argued that a 75% confidence interval would allow recreational management measures to be liberalized (the 5.14 million pound recreational harvest limit would fall just above the 5.06 million pound upper bound of the 75% confidence interval), which they viewed as a good thing given the size of the stock.

Three of the 11 Committee members supported continued use of the 80% confidence interval.  One of those three argued that reducing the confidence interval to 75% could be seen as a move intended to create a particular outcome—more liberal regulations—and argued that any change in the confidence interval should be supported by a strong rationale, which seemed to be missing here.  Another felt that changing the confidence interval felt “ad hoc;” that is, that it was being done to achieve a particular purpose (i.e., to justify liberalization).

The remaining four Committee members claimed to be undecided as to the proper confidence interval, and recommended leaving the decision up to the Council and Board, feeling that it was inappropriate to recommend between 75% and 80% given the impact that selecting either one would have on the outcome.  One member suggested that, lacking a strong rationale to support either choice, the determination should be made “as a policy matter” by the Council and Management Board.

Should the 75% confidence interval be selected, five Monitoring Committee members suggested that the Council and Management Board consider a 10% or 20% liberalization, rather than the 39% liberalization that the Percent Change Approach would allow; one member argued that the full 39% liberalization should occur.

Ultimately, when presented with the choice, the Council and Management Board opted not to address the confidence interval issue at all, but instead cut the baby in half, and increased recreational black sea bass landings by 20%.

Was that the right choice?

The majority of the two management bodies thought so, but as noted above, I disagree, and do so for multiple reasons.

My primary reason is because I believe that fisheries managers are focusing too much on the single statistic of spawning stock biomass, and not taking enough time to consider what that spawning stock biomass looks like.

According to the last research track stock assessment,

“across all stratification variables, maturity increased rapidly between ages 1-3 with an age of 50% maturity of approximately 2-years old and a length of 50% maturity of approximately 21 cm [approximately 8.27 inches].”

That’s a very small black sea bass. 

Fortunately, there are a lot of very small black sea bass around.  Recreational Demand Model results, published on October 24, reveal that black sea bass between two and four years old comprise about 20% of the black sea bass population when it measured in numbers of fish north of Hudson Canyon (although, if the upper bounds of the confidence intervals were considered, could theoretically constitute substantially more), with Year-0 and Year-1 fish making up most of the rest; black sea bass aged five or older seem to account for well under 10% of the population.  

That means that the age structure of the black sea bass population, or at least the northern portion of that population, is significantly truncated, with few larger—or, given the regulations in New York and New England, even legal—fish remaining in the spawning stock, which is largely made up of sea bass less than 15 inches long.

So, while the spawning stock biomass may be very high, and capable of maintaining itself over an extended period if conditions are right, due to the truncated age structure, it is also very vulnerable should conditions change.  And conditions might be changing right now.

A 2016 stock assessment noted that

“warm saline conditions improved juvenile survival,”

and then elaborated,

“Age 0 sea bass, which are generally less than 14 cm [5 ½ inches] when they leave coastal regions, tend to be more generally distributed across the [continental] shelf, perhaps due to slower swimming speeds.  Consequently their survival is related to conditions across the shelf.  If warm saline Gulf Stream water moves onto the shelf in winter, survival is high.  When cold conditions are the norm, survival decreases.”

For that reason, University of Connecticut Assistant Professor Hannes Baumann has commented that

“There are winners and losers when it comes to climate change.  Black sea bass are winners.”

However, even though northeastern waters have exhibited a long-term warming trend that is favorable to black sea bass recruitment, that trend can be interrupted by periods of cooling, and it appears that such a cooling period may already be underway.  Earlier this year, a publication released by the National Marine Fisheries Service, titled "2025 State of the Ecosystem, New England,” noted that

“2024 global sea surface and air temperatures exceeded 2023 as the warmest year on record, but colder than average temperatures were observed in the Northeast U.S.   Oceanographic and ecological conditions in the Northwest Atlantic were markedly different in 2024 compared to recent years.

“…Late 2023 and early 2024 observations indicate movement of cooler and fresher water into the Northwest Atlantic, although there are seasonal and local exceptions to this pattern.  Anomalously cold and low salinity conditions were recorded throughout the Northeast Shelf and were widespread across the Slope Sea for much of the year.  These cooler and fresher conditions are linked to the southward movement of the eastern portion of the Gulf Stream and possibly an increased influx of Labrador Slope and Scotian Shelf water into the system.”

A related NMFS press release stated that

“A companion longer-term outlook, also developed by NOAA scientists, suggests that more frequent inflows of cooler deep water may continue to temper warming in the basin for the next several years.”

The NMFS State of the Ecosystem report predicted that

“Long-term oceanographic projections forecast a temporary pause in warming over the next decade due to internal variability in circulation and a southward shift of the Gulf Stream.  [emphasis added]”

If the decade-long spike in black sea bass abundance has been the result of warm, saline water moving over the edge of the continental shelf during the juvenile fish’s first winter, it’s not unlikely that cooler, less saline water moving over the shelf throughout the next decade might lead to poor juvenile survival, and a sharp decline in black sea bass numbers.  The fact that the spawning stock seems to be concentrated in just three year classes of relatively young fish strongly suggests that if recruitment declines sharply, while fishing mortality remains high through 2027, the spawning stock biomass could decline quickly.

While that’s not an inevitable result, the truncated age structure of the spawning stock biomass makes it much more likely that such rapid decline could occur.

Even if that doesn’t happen, increasing the fishing mortality rate will inevitably result in further truncation of the age structure of the stock; absent measures such as slot size limits intended to focus harvest on younger elements of the population, such increases always have the greatest impact on the oldest age classes. 

Thus, James Gilmore, a Council member from New York and the former Director of the New York Department of Environmental Conservation’s Marine Bureau, should have known better than to say that he was supporting the 20% increase in landings because

“I’m getting tired of catching three million little black sea bass because the biomass is so high,”

for by increasing the fishing mortality rate, he only makes it more likely that the larger individuals will be removed from the population, so that the only fish that remain would be the “little black sea bass” that are still protected and will make up nearly entire spawning stock.

A separate consideration militating against increased landings is that NMFS expects to have revised Marine Recreational Information Program data in place by 2026.  Such revised data will correct previous overestimates of recreational fishing effort, and thus recreational catch and landings, and so is expected to result in lower estimates of recreational harvest.  When that data is incorporated into the 2017 management track stock assessment, assuming that NMFS has the funding and the capacity to perform the assessment as currently scheduled, it will likely lead to the estimate of current spawning stock biomass, as well as the biomass target, being reduced from what it is today.

If that is the case, the current annual catch limit and related specifications, including the recreational harvest limit and recreational landings target, will almost certainly have to be revised downward as well.  Should that be the case, we are likely to see the liberalization in management measures put in place for 2026 and 2027 reversed, and replaced by increased restrictions for the 2028 and 2029 seasons, destroying the sort of regulatory stability that the Percent Change Approach was supposed to promote.

Worse, if the spawning stock biomass estimate is reduced as a result of the MRIP revisions, it will mean that the annual catch limit for black sea bass has been too high since 2017 or so, when the MRIP estimates had been adjusted upwards.  While that won’t matter too much on the recreational side, as the overestimate of both spawning stock biomass and recreational landings will more or less offset one another, it will mean that commercial quotas, which are based on the estimate of spawning stock biomass and the resultant annual catch limit, have been too high for a number of years, and will remain too high through at least 2027, raising the possibility that the stock might have experienced overfishing for part or all of a decade.

Liberalizing recreational landings towards the end of that decade could only make the situation worse.

Given all of those factors, which only contribute to the uncertainty surrounding the state and the future of the black sea bass stock, I believe that liberalizing the recreational management measures for the 2026 and 2027 seasons was the wrong thing to do, and was a mistake that may come to haunt the Council and Management Board, perhaps as soon as 2027, when it begins setting the specifications for the 2028 fishing season.

Once again, we saw mangers’ bias toward increasing recreational black sea bass landings, driven solely by the size of the spawning stock biomass, without any critical analysis of how that biomass is structured and without giving much thought to any other contingencies, lead them away from a precautionary approach.

Having said that, it could have been worse.  There was surprisingly little support for the full 39% increase in landings that might have occurred if the Council and Management Board had decided to endorse a 75% confidence interval.  And the scientific staff, whether at NMFS, the Council, or the ASMFC, were informally charged with examining the confidence interval issue in more detail, to perhaps determine whether standards regarding the proper confidence interval to use might be adopted.

Plus, as Ms. Beatty noted at the December 17 meeting, given the 30% increase in the recreational harvest limit for 2026, had the Percent Change Approach not been adopted, and had the old approach of trying to craft regulations likely to result in landings that approach, but not exceed, the recreational harvest limit were still in place, the 2026 landings increase could have been larger than the 20% that was ultimately approved.

So there were certainly arguments that support the Council’s and Management Board’s decision.

It’s just that, when all of the facts and uncertainties were pooled together, it seems that there were far more arguments that supported the status quo.