THE SAME OLD BULL***T ABOUT STRIPED BASS

 

It doesn’t really matter what the fishery is.

Start talking about imposing new regulations to rebuild a stock, or even to halt a stock's decline, and the first thing you know, somebody starts hopping up and down, eager to tell you why the new rules won’t work, why they’re not needed, and/or why the science is out of whack, and how the fish stock in question isn’t just healthy, but it’s so healthy that, for the sake of the ocean, we ought to be killing quite a few more.

If you’re a striped bass fisherman, and if you’ve attended some fisheries meetings, you know the sort of thing that I’m talking about.  

In the face of a stock assessment finding that the stock is both overfished and experiencing overfishing, we saw one set of folks who tried very hard to convince us that the bass stock was still healthy, but the fish had just moved far offshore, a position that immediately falls apart when you stop to realize that bass are an anadromous species that spawn well up coastal rivers, and thus would be picked up by state surveys during the spawning period if such a pool of offshore fish really existed (yes, bass sometimes venture offshore, following or looking for schools of baitfish, but research conducted in Massachusetts demonstrated that they all return inshore pretty quickly).

Then there’s the old “there’s so many striped bass that they’re eating everything else in the water” claim.  I mentioned one example of that in last Sunday’s post; another very typical comment came from Russell Dize, Maryland’s Governor’s Appointee to the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission and its Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board.  At the October 2014 Management Board meeting, in response to efforts to reverse a decline in the spawning stock biomass by reducing fishing mortality by 25%, Mr. Dize said,

“I’ve been a commercial fisherman for 55 years in Maryland.  I’ve watched the striped bass come and go.  At this time, we’ve probably got more striped bass in the bay than I’ve ever seen in my life.  We’ve got so many striped bass that it’s affecting our crab-catching industry.  We are probably down to a low ebb last summer on crabs.

“One of the predators is rockfish, striped bass.  When the charterboats catch the striped bass and they clean them, you can count anywhere from ten to forty small crabs in the belly of a rockfish…”

Thus Mr. Dize checked two of the boxes; despite a peer-reviewed stock assessment that found the spawning stock biomass to be in decline, he was claiming that Chesapeake Bay held “more striped bass than [he’s] ever seen in [his] life.”  And, of course, those super-abundant striped bass were eating all the crabs, and thus should not receive more protection.

We always hear that sort of thing, and it’s pretty much expected.

But ever since the 2018 benchmark stock assessment came out, setting a higher biomass target than any previous assessment, we’re also hearing people start to wonder out loud whether such target was attainable.  The first such source of dissent was probably Maryland fishery manager Michael Luisi, who commented at the April 2019 Management Board meeting that

“currently the threshold reference point is 91,000 metric tons and 125 percent of that puts us at a target value, and when you look at the estimate of spawning stock biomass that came out of the benchmark.  We have never achieved the target in all of that time as we’re evaluating that.”

Mr. Luisi can be excused his comment, for he thought it was true at the time, even though the 2022 stock assessment update revealed that, despite an excessive fishing mortality rate, female spawning stock biomass actually did rise above target for four consecutive years, 2002-2005 and, again despite above-target fishing mortality, managed to fall just short of the target during the years 2008-2010.

It’s much more difficult to excuse those who, despite the information provided in the 2022 assessment update, are still trying to argue that the current biomass target isn’t realistic, justifying their positions by saying things like “it has only been attained” two (or three, or four) times “in the past 40 years.”  

While it would be easy to overlook such comments, and write them off to ignorance, some are being made by folks who are not ignorant at all, but are very familiar with the data and the fishery management process. 

Given where some such comments are coming from, there is very real risk that many anglers will begin to believe them, and start undercutting the ASMFC’s efforts—and the ASMFC’s obligation—to rebuild the stock by 2029.

So to see where such comments go wrong, let’s take a look at them from a few different angles.

The right place to start is probably in the past.

When people say things like “Spawning stock biomass only reached target two [or three, or four] times in the past 40 years, we’re talking about the period 1983-2022.  The striped bass stock collapsed in the late 1970s, and remained in a collapsed state throughout the 1980s, with female spawning stock biomass bottoming out in 1987.  So for the first seven years of that 40-year period, managers were trying to figure out how to deal with—and recover—a collapsed striped bass stock.

To argue that we can’t achieve the target biomass today, because we didn’t achieve it during a period when the stock had actually collapsed, is really no argument at all.

Taking the 1980s out of the picture, because of the stock collapse, cuts the relevant time period down to 33 years.  But even considering that shortened length of time, the arguments against the current biomass target necessarily fail.

After all, once a stock collapses, it has a long, long way to go to get back to its target level.  The 1990s were a time of rebuilding, with the first six years, from 1990 through 1995, seeing the spawning stock biomass raised to the threshold level; at that point striped bass were no longer overfished. 

Of course, rebuilding was only partway done at that point; the stock was still waxing toward its target level.  Thus, it’s not reasonable to consider those six years when trying to decide whether the target is reasonably achievable, for rebuilding was still underway.

That contracts the rebuilding skeptics' 40-year reference period even more, down to just 27 years.  And even then, striped bass abundance, measured in female spawning stock biomass, was still on an upward trend. 

It wasn’t the sharp upward trend demonstrated between 1988 or so and 1995; striped bass recruitment varies a lot from year to year, depending on environmental conditions on the spawning grounds, so after ’96, there was some retrenchment.  But a full rebuilding was achieved by 2002, despite the recreational regulations that prevailed at the time, which allowed anglers on the coast to keep two striped bass at least 28 inches long.  

And despite such rules, which allowed fishing mortality to creep above its target rate, spawning stock biomass remained above target through 2005.  The fact that the stock began experiencing overfishing in 2004, and that such overfishing became more severe through 2007, then forced spawning stock biomass below the target once again.

During the period 2004-2017, the striped bass stock suffered overfishing in all but three years, and in one of those years, the fishing mortality rate was just about equal to the overfishing threshold.  Under such conditions, it’s not reasonable to expect the stock to achieve target biomass.  

It’s far more reasonable to expect the stock to become overfished which, in the real world, is exactly what happened.

History thus teaches that attaining target biomass is not an impossible dream.  To do it, we only need to keep the fishing mortality rate at or below the fishing mortality target.  It’s not all that difficult to do so, although it will require a more dynamic sort of fisheries management than we normally see at the ASMFC.

Typically, the ASMFC has engaged in what might best be described as “plug-and-play” fisheries management.  It waits until a benchmark stock assessment is produced, which usually happens about every five years.  If the fishing mortality rate is too high (historically, the Management Board has been very slow to act if biomass has fallen too low), the Management Board then adopts measures intended to reduce the fishing mortality rate back to its target level.  Such regulations then remain in place until the next benchmark stock assessment, regardless of how the fishery might perform in the meantime.

Such an approach to striped bass management allows the stock to deteriorate for years before any action is taken to correct the problem; over the past decade, it has allowed the stock to become overfished because the Management Board has failed to intervene when the first signs of excessive fishing mortality appeared.

The Management Board has always preferred to address an existing crisis, and has always seemed averse to early intervention, that might head off the crisis before it occurs.

Right now, we know—and, more importantly, the Management Board knows—that fishing mortality is well above the fishing mortality target, although the stock is not yet experiencing overfishing.  To rebuild the stock, the Management Board need only reduce the fishing mortality rate to its target level—or maybe a little below—to have a better than even chance of rebuilding by the 2029 deadline.

That can probably be accomplished merely by narrowing the slot size limit—now, 28 to 35 inches—to something like 28 to 30, or 28 to 32, or whatever other configuration that the Atlantic Striped Bass Technical Committee determines will get the job done.

And once the female spawning stock biomass is rebuilt to target, we can address the other flaw in the “four out of forty years” argument—the assumption that a stock must always remain at or above target to be considered healthy.

In fact, that doesn’t happen. 

While a rebuilding plan is intended to restore the spawning stock biomass to its target level, once that is accomplished, striped bass abundance will naturally fluctuate.  Should conditions favor strong recruitment, spawning stock biomass may well rise above the target, and stay there for a few years.  Should unfavorable conditions prevail, as they have for the past four years (and will probably be the case this year as well), abundance will drop below target for a few years, until spawning conditions improve.

Such fluctuations are contemplated in the ASMFC’s management plan.  A provision in Amendment 7 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass states that

“If female [spawning stock biomass] falls below the target for two consecutive years and the [fishing mortality] rate exceeds the target in either of those years, the striped bass management program must be adjusted to rebuild the biomass to a level that is at or above the target within an established timeframe [not to exceed 10 years].  [emphasis added]”

In the end, the fishing mortality rate is the key to it all. 

Keep it at or below target, and biomass will eventually come close to, and sometimes exceed, its target as well.  If recruitment conditions are poor, spawning stock biomass may well remain below target for a while, but over the long term, so long as fishing mortality is adequately constrained, spawning stock biomass will, in time, reach the biomass target.

That’s what the “just four times in forty years” crowd forgets, or at least forgets to mention.  Constraining fishing mortality is a prerequisite to having abundant striped bass. 

In the 20 years [because, as we’ve illustrated, 40 years is a meaningless measure] since striped bass were fully restored in 2002, striped bass fishing mortality has only been below the fishing mortality threshold four times, in 2006, 2008, 2020, and 2021; for the rest of that time, overfishing has occurred.  Given that, it is hardly surprising that abundance has waned.

But keep fishing mortality below the fishing mortality target—something we’ve successfully done as recently as two years ago—and rebuilding biomass back to its target level becomes a very achievable goal.

 

MID-ALTANTIC HARVEST CONTROL RULE FACES COURT CHALLENGE

 

On Monday, the Natural Resources Defense Council filed a lawsuit in the Federal District Court for the District of Columbia, seeking judicial review of the so-called “Harvest Control Rule” adopted by the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council last June, and approved in a final rule issued by the National Marine Fisheries Service early last month.

Regular readers of this blog will recall that I have frequently questioned whether the management action, which was neither endorsed by members of the Council’s Scientific and Statistical Committee nor supported by Council staff, complies with the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act’s minimum standards for fishery management measures.  A federal district court will now answer those questions.

As is customary in actions of this type, the complaint names the Secretary of Commerce, Gina M.  Raimondo, NOAA Fisheries head Janet Coit, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the National Marine Fisheries Service as defendants.  It

“challenges the unlawful decision of the National Marine Fisheries Service (“NMFS”) to approve the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council’s (“the Council”) Framework Adjustment 17 to the Summer Flounder, Scup, and Black Sea Bass Fishery Management Plan (“Framework 17”), because it fails to comply with the annual catch limit requirement as mandated by the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, 16 U.S.C. [sections] 1801-1891d (“Magnuson-Stevens Act” or “the Act”), and violates the Administrative Procedures Act, 5 U.S.C. [sections] 701-706 (“APA”).”

The thrust of the complaint is that Framework 17, which embodies the Harvest Control Rule, violates sections of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act which require NMFS and the regional fishery management councils to

“develop annual catch limits for each of its managed fisheries that may not exceed the fishing level recommendations of its scientific and statistical committee”

or a peer review process described elsewhere in the Act, and also to

“establish a mechanism for setting annual catch limits in the plan (including a multiyear plan), implementing regulations, or annual specifications, at a level such that overfishing does not occur in the fishery, including measures to ensure accountability.”

Traditionally, NMFS has set recreational harvest limits by first establishing an overall Annual Catch Limit, breaking that limit down into separate sector ACLs, one for the commercial and one for the recreational sector, then deducting predicted dead discards to arrive at the commercial landings quota and recreational harvest limit.  

Under such procedure, recreational catch—a combination of landings and dead discards—should theoretically never exceed the annual recreational catch limit.  However, because of the uncertainties inherent in fisheries management (and because the Council never adopted an Annual Catch Target to buffer against such uncertainties), recreational catch often rose too high, exceeding the recreational ACL.  When that occurred, management measures were modified in an effort to constrain landings to the recreational harvest limit.

Under the Harvest Control Rule, the Council will set a new “harvest target” that is calculated with some reference to both the Annual Catch Limit and Recreational Harvest Limit, but is constrained by neither.  

Instead, depending upon whether the predicted landings over the next two years (including the “confidence interval” that denotes the uncertainty inherent in such predictions, regardless of how large that confidence interval might be) are likely to be above, roughly equal to, or below the recreational harvest limit, and also depending upon the state of the managed stock (over 150% of the biomass target, between 100% and 150% of such target, or between target and threshold), the harvest target will either be increased by a predetermined amount, decreased by a predetermined amount, or remain unchanged.

Pursuant to the Harvest Control Rule, the harvest target for a very abundant species may, under some circumstances, be increased by as much as 40%, even if landings were already well in excess of the annual recreational catch limit.

NMFS will undoubtedly defend Framework 17 by arguing that, pursuant to such framework, the Council will still set an annual catch limit for each managed stock, in the same manner that it used to set such catch limits before Framework 17 was adopted.  We can also expect NMFS to argue, as Michael Pentony, the Regional Director of NMFS’ Greater Atlantic Region Fisheries Office argued in a June 3, 2022 letter to the Chairman of the Mid-Atlantic Council, that

“neither a recreational harvest limit nor a recreational sector-specific ACL are requirements of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act.  While an overall ACL as well as accountability measures are required, these are designated to prevent overfishing at the stock level.”

Both of those arguments seem to fail rational analysis.

With respect to the second point, while Mr. Pentony was correct in stating that Magnuson-Stevens doesn’t require a recreational harvest limit or a sector-specific ACL, such comments ignore the bigger picture—that the commercial and recreational ACLs together constitute the overall ACL, and that allowing either sector to exceed its annual catch limit increases the likelihood that the overall ACL will be exceeded.

The Harvest Control Rule only sets annual specifications for the recreational sector; in doing so, it operates completely independent from the commercial specifications or the performance of the commercial fishery.  As Council staff noted in a memo to Dr. Chris Moore, the Council’s executive director,

“the Council cannot recommend measures that are expected to result in recreational ACL overages unless it is also determined that the commercial sector will not achieve their full ACL.  None of the options in this framework/addenda are meant to impact the ability of the commercial sector to achieve their full ACL.  As such, recreational management measures must aim to prevent recreational ACL overages in order to proactively prevent overfishing and comply with the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act.”

That opinion of Council staff was rejected in Mr. Pentony’s June 3, 2022 letter; however, it is consistent with the arguments made by the Natural Resources Defense Council in the complaint it filed last Monday.

Such argument is also consistent with the views expressed in the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee’s report on the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Reauthorization Act of 2006, which created the annual catch limit requirement.  Such report states that

“The Committee expects that if a sector is likely to exceed its annual catch limit, the Council will restrict that sector’s harvest to ensure the sector stays within its annual catch limit.  [emphasis added]”

Thus, while Mr. Pentony was correct in stating that Magnuson-Stevens does not explicitly require the establishment of sector-specific annual catch limits, the legislative record clearly shows that Congress intended such sector-specific ACLs to be both established and honored. 

Such legislative intent also undercuts NMFS argument that, even with the Harvest Control Rule in place, the Council and NMFS will be in compliance with Magnuson-Stevens if it merely establishes an annual catch limit, even if it later sets a recreational harvest target that might cause such ACL to be exceeded, for it is clear that Congress intended the annual catch limit to not only be established, but observed.  As noted by the late Senator Ted Stevens (R-AK), the primary Senate sponsor of the 2006 Reauthorization Act,

“[T]his bill mandates the use of annual catch limits, which shall not be exceeded.  [emphasis added]”

Yet it is very clear that if the recreational sector is allowed to exceed its annual catch limit, as the Harvest Control Limit will often do, and the commercial sector lands its full quota and produces its predicted level of dead discards, the overall annual catch limit will be exceeded, something that Magnuson-Stevens does not allow.  Even the Environmental Assessment addressingthe final regulation adopting Harvest Control Rule admits and acknowledges thatsuch Control Rule

“cannot be demonstrated to proactively prevent overfishing every year in all circumstances.  The [Recreational Harvest Limit] accounts for the best available scientific information on stock status.  Therefore, even at high biomass levels, [Recreational Harvest Limit] overages can result in overfishing.”

NMFS tries to get around such facts by relying on recent fishery performance, which saw the commercial sector fail to land its entire quota of black sea bass and scup, and on the fact that the Harvest Control Rule will “sunset” no later than December 31, 2025, unless extended by the Council and NMFS.  However, the fact that a regulation might not yield an impermissible result in the short term does not mean that such regulation is valid; circumstances change, and if the Harvest Control Rule could, as written, result in the Council approving commercial and recreational landings levels that exceed the overall annual catch limit, and perhaps even the overfishing limit, in any year, then such Harvest Control Rule does not comply with existing federal fisheries law.

Because the Harvest Control Rule could easily result in a combined recreational harvest target and commercial quota that exceed the ACL, the Natural Resources Defense Council has asked a federal court to determine whether such rule meets the minimum standards of Magnuson-Stevens.

NMFS has 45 days to reply to the NRDC’s complaint.  In the meantime, the parties will agree on the sections of the administrative record that are relevant to the court's review, and might perhaps serve interrogatories or conduct depositions to determine whether other evidence is relevant to plaintiff’s or defendants’ arguments.  

Sometime late this summer or in the fall, the matter will probably be decided after both sides file motions for summary judgment, which argue that the facts of the matter are not in dispute, and request the court to apply the law to those facts and then render its decision. 

It's never a good idea to predict what a court will decide, but the plaintiffs seem to have made good arguments for why the final rule ought to be vacated.

That doesn’t mean that the Council and NMFS shouldn’t continue to look for new and innovative ways to manage robust recreational fisheries, like the current fisheries for scup and black sea bass.  It does mean that any such measures must comply with the law and the spirit of Magnuson-Stevens, be based on good science, and not be adopted simply to avoid taking inconvenient, and perhaps unpopular, management actions.

Personally, I hope that the NRDC will prevail.

 

REBUILDING FISH STOCKS: WHAT DOES THE "TARGET" REALLY MEAN?

 

Over the past few years, there has been a lot of talk about rebuilding the Atlantic striped bass population.

The talk heated up in 2019, after a benchmark stock assessment found bass to be overfished, but it had been going on at more muted levels for quite a few years before that. 

Arguably, the first mention may have occurred at the May 2009 meeting of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board when, in response to some members’ efforts to increase the commercial quota, Ritchie White, the Governor’s Appointee for New Hampshire, observed that

“You have issues in the northern range that are trending down substantially.  Maine and New Hampshire, especially Maine, a good chunk of those anglers didn’t see any striped bass this year.  I guess I don’t see things quite as positively as some, and I think it is time for caution.”

While Mr. White didn’t call for a reduction in landings, he certainly didn’t support an increase, and strongly suggested that the bass might be facing a troubling future.

That suggestion proved prophetic three years later, when a stock assessment update indicated that the striped bass would become overfished by 2017.  However, after briefly discussing measures to halt the stock’s decline, and perhaps begin recovery, the Management Board, at its November 2011 meeting, ultimately opted to eschew any remedial action, since the striped bass stock had not yet declined badly enough to trip any of the so-called “management triggers” in the management plan.

A 2013 benchmark assessment found that the striped bass stock was still waning, and its findings did trip two management triggers, but the Management Board still did not undertake a formal rebuilding plan, probably relying on advice from the ASMFC’s former striped bassa fishery management plan coordinator, who advised that the stock would rebuild at some undetermined point in the future if the fishing mortality rate was reduced to its target level.

That rebuilding never occurred, the stock became overfished, and the Management Board is now hoping that striped bass are on track to rebuild by 2029, although recent calculations by ASMFC’s Striped Bass Technical Committee strongly suggest that’s not going to happen at the current fishing mortality rate.

But all of that begs the question of just what “rebuilding” the striped bass stock means.

Amendment 7 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass states that

“The 1995 estimate of female [spawning stock biomass] is used as the SSB threshold because many stock characteristics, such as expanded age structure, were reached by this year, and this is also the year the stock was declared recovered.  The female SSB target is equal to 125% of the female SSB threshold.”

But that really doesn’t explain very much. 

On one hand, the stock was declared “recovered” in 1995, and had developed many desirable characteristics by that time; based on that, it’s reasonable to ask why the 1995 female spawning stock biomass, rather than 125% of that level, isn’t the standard for a fully rebuilt stock.

On the other hand, for most East Coast fisheries, the threshold defining an overfished stock is 50% of the target level; if that were to hold true for striped bass, then a fully-rebuilt stock should stand at 200%, not merely 125%, of the threshold spawning stock biomass.

Why is 125% the magic number?

The 2018 stock assessment tries to explain it, saying

“[Spawning potential ratio]-based reference points…were associated with unrealistic equilibrium female SSB levels.  For example, fishing at [a fishing mortality rate that would produce a spawning potential equal to 40% of that of an unfished stock] resulted in an equilibrium female SSB approximately two times the highest female SSB estimated in the time series…More reasonable equilibrium female SSB results were associated with lower maximum spawning potential ratios…the fishery has generally operated at or above these levels since approximately 1995.  The [stock assessment subcommittee] was not able to fully explain the dynamics associated with the [spawning potential ratio]-based reference points and therefore only considered empirical reference points associated with female SSB levels.”

To put it more simply, perhaps setting the spawning stock biomass target at 200% of the 1995 level is theoretically correct, but such a target would not be realistically achievable.  On the other hand, setting a lower target would be inconsistent with the spawning stock biomass levels that the bass have consistently achieved for most of the past 30 years.  Thus, instead of trying to use a mathematical model to determine the biological reference points, managers opted for so-called “empirical” reference points that reflect the striped bass stock’s observed performance over the past three decades.

And from a practical standpoint, it works.

Few fishermen would be unhappy if striped bass abundance returned to the levels of the mid-2000s, when fish of all sizes were readily available, and there were plenty of older, larger females in the spawning stock.  At the same time fishermen, and particularly recreational fishermen, were displeased with the lower abundance of bass that they experienced in the mid- to late 2010s, when recruitment was generally below average and many ages and sizes of fish were missing from the population.

So when we talk about a “rebuilt” striped bass population, we are talking about a spawning stock biomass that is large enough, and structured well enough, to support robust, sustainable recreational and commercial fisheries, but not necessarily either a population that meets clear biologically-defined goals nor a population that approaches the abundance exhibited by an unfished stock.

In federal fisheries, the biomass target, and thus the rebuilding target, is much more clearly defined.  It is the biomass—typically measured in terms of spawning stock biomass—that will allow the stock to produce maximum sustainable yield.  Such level is typically determined in a management-track stock assessment, and may be expressed in various ways.  Most common is probably the approach that failed with striped bass—expressing the target in terms of spawning potential, as compared to an unfished stock. 

Thus, the summer flounder target is the spawning stock biomass that will provide 35% of the spawning potential of an unfished stock, the biomass target for Atlantic pollock is based on a 40% spawning potential ratio, etc.  For other species, the biomass target may be based on other criteria; for example, the ASMFC uses fecundity—the number of eggs that can theoretically be produced by the population—to set the target for Atlantic menhaden.

It’s probably important to note that the biomass target represents the minimum level of abundance that will provide optimum benefits from the managed fishery.  Such benefits can be measured in different ways; the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, which governs all federally-managed fisheries, describes “optimum” yield as

“…the amount of fish which will provide the greatest overall benefit to the Nation, particularly with respect to food production and recreational opportunities, while taking into account the protection of marine ecosystems…  [internal formatting omitted],”

while the ASMFC’s Atlantic menhaden management plan defines the [Ecological Reference Point] target as

“the maximum fishing mortality rate (F) on Atlantic menhaden that sustains Atlantic striped bass at their biomass target when striped bass are fished at their F target,”

and the [Ecological Reference Point] fecundity target as

“the long-term equilibrium fecundity that results when the population is fished at the ERP F target.”

However the target is measured, the important thing to note is that it represents a floor, not a cap, on optimized abundance.  People, including too many people who ought to know better, seem to ignore that fact, and treat stocks that rise above their target levels as some sort of problem in need of correction, rather than an added benefit.

Thus, at the August 2008 meeting of the Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board, we saw Pat Augustine, then the Governor’s Appointee for New York, calling for increased striped bass harvest because the stock had exceeded its target level.  In support of his position, Mr. Augustine argued that

“I’ve often asked the question as how many more striped bass do we have to have in the ocean and do the surplus, quote-quote, above the threshold—and there are some folks that are not going to like what I say, but the reality is what kind of damage are those fish doing to the sub-species below them, including the forage fish that other species are feeding on…

“The bottom line is they’re opportunists, whatever is there they’re going to eat, so to speak.  It just seems to me until we make a quantum move to look into ecosystem management for striped bass, bluefish and weakfish together, it just seems to me we’re limited to single-species management.

“The question that still remains open and unanswered is what are the extra fish above and beyond the threshold doing to the other sub-species?  I’m not trying to start a fight with anybody.  I’m just saying it is a question.  Look at what happened to winter flounder.  We blame weather conditions and water conditions, lack of eelgrass, lack of phytoplankton, zooplankton, et cetera, on that end, and yet what is eating them?”

Apparently, the possibility that the correct answer to that last question was “people”—flounder were, after all, badly overfished for decades—never entered the speaker’s mind, as he made the usual arguments for fishing down an abundant stock in the name of protecting other fish populations, rather than seeking to reduce fishing mortality on depleted stocks so that they could return to more sustainable biomass levels.

Leaving aside the obvious problems with that approach—keep it up long enough and we’ll end up with no healthy stocks at all—it’s hard to argue that maintaining a striped bass stock somewhere between 20% and 40% of its unfished level, which is where the stock seems to have been at the time, is going to threaten ocean ecosystems.  When you think about it, maintaining a stock at well below half of its potential abundance doesn’t seem like it’s creating any sort of real “excess” at all. 

Such a misunderstanding of biomass targets might be understandable coming from someone like Mr. Augustine, who is not a professional fisheries manager, but it is far less forgivable when expressed by someone who is.  Yet, in the National Marine Fisheries Service’s comments accompanying the recently adopted “Harvest Control Rule” that will be used to manage the recreational bluefish, summer flounder, scup, and black sea bass fisheries, we see the agency stating

“Scup and black sea bass are stocks in the ‘very high’ bin, meaning the biomass is over 150 percent of their respective biomass targets—the level of biomass associated with maximum sustainable yield.  In plain language, stocks in this bin are at least 1.5 times larger than is ideal for maximizing long-term benefits…  [emphasis added]”

Again, we see a statement missing the obvious point that a biomass producing maximum sustainable yield is the minimum level that will “maximiz[e] long-term benefits.”  Higher levels of biomass will return greater benefits—the same fishing mortality rate will yield larger harvests, and greater recreational opportunities, when applied to a stock at 150% of B_msy than it will at a stock that hovers right at the target level—although, if biomass at maximum sustainable yield was calculated correctly, such greater benefits will only be transient, as the stock should eventually return to its target level.

But the point that needs to be made is that an above-target biomass, far from being a threat or problem of any kind—is something to be celebrated and enjoyed for as long as it lasts.

For biomass targets are, in the end, a practical approach to maintaining sustainable fisheries.

Far from being a theoretical cap on fish populations, they are just what the name suggests—a target for stock rebuilding that, if reached and maintained, should ensure that the managed fish stock will remain healthy and sustainable for the foreseeable future.

Not rebuilding to target will have a cost in lost opportunities for harvest, recreation and, perhaps, ecological benefits.  Rebuilding beyond the target, on the other hand, merely provides more opportunities for everyone.

 

 

 

NMFS RELEASES REVIEW OF ATLANTIC SHARK FISHERIES

 

Last month, the National Marine Fisheries Service released its Final Atlantic Shark Fishery Review, a comprehensive examination of the recreational and commercial shark fisheries of the Atlantic and Gulf coasts.

The review does not focus on the health of shark stocks, but on the overall fishery.  As the review itself notes,

“The purpose of the Atlantic shark fishery review (SHARE) document is to analyze trends within the commercial and recreational shark fisheries to identify main areas of success and concerns with conservation and management measures and find potential ways to improve management of the shark fishery…

“…the purpose of this document is to explore various aspects of the Atlantic shark fishery to improve stability and resiliency within the fisheries.  NOAA Fisheries addresses four objectives through this project:  review the current state of the Atlantic shark fishery; identify areas of success in the fishery; identify areas of concern in the fishery; and identify potential ways to improve the fishery and potential shark management actions or measures.  Based on the results of analyses in this document and public comments, NOAA Fisheries anticipates that there may be future management changes within the Atlantic shark fishery.”

To that end, the review documents a declining commercial shark fishery, and a recreational shark fishery that is going through significant changes.

With respect to the commercial shark fishery, it notes,

“data indicate that catch of available quota and participation in the commercial shark fishery have dramatically declined from historical levels.  In addition, NOAA Fisheries anticipates further declines in the future, due to adoption, in November 2022, of a proposal under CITES to list the entire family of requiem sharks and all hammerhead sharks in CITES Appendix II [which will require certain documentation, including a certification that the sharks were harvested sustainably, before any part of the fish may be traded on the international market]…”

With respect to the recreational fishery, the report states that

“data indicate increased shark fishing by state-waters and shore-based fishermen, along with an increased number of sharks being caught and released.  Directed trips targeting pelagic sharks and tournament landings have declined since shortfin mako shark limits were implemented, and are likely to decline further due to the current zero retention limit for shortfin mako sharks…”

The report also examines claims of increased shark depredation—that is, sharks stealing fishermen’s fish—in both commercial and recreational fisheries.

The decline in the commercial shark fishery is notable. 

Access to the shark fishery in federal waters has long been limited; in order to enter it, a fisherman must purchase a permit from someone exiting the fishery.  Even so, the number of active permits—defined by permits held by persons who landed at least one shark over the course of a year—declined sharply between 2014 and 2019, with active directed permits falling by 36% and active incidental permits dropping by 50%.

State-waters shark fisheries have shown a similar pattern, although the peaks and lows didn’t necessarily occur in 2014 and 2019.  In the Atlantic, the number of active state-waters permits peaked in 2016, had declined 30% by 2018, then rebounded slightly in the following year.  In the Gulf of Mexico, the number of active permits peaked in 2018, then dropped by 37% in 2019.  In both regions, the number of active permits in 2019 was well below 2014 levels.

Commercial landings dropped sharply as well.  Between 2014 and 2019, landings of Atlantic large coastal sharks fell by well over 50%, and never came close to the commercial quota, which remained constant throughout that time.  However, some other fisheries saw very different landings patterns; in the Atlantic small coastal shark fishery, for example, landings increased by roughly 50% between 2014 and 2019, and were on an upward trend.

From a value perspective, the commercial shark fishery is relatively small, with ex vessel sales of shark meat and fins totaling about $2.2 million in 2019.

The report noted that

“while NOAA Fisheries has successfully found ways to rebuild or prevent the decline in population of many shark species, the commercial shark fishery is in decline.  This decline is happening despite fishermen having available quotas for many species, and, in most regions, an open season year-round.”

It suggests that, to turn around that decline, NMFS might consider regulations that would change the existing commercial permit structure, perhaps converting the current limited-access incidental permit into an open-access permit; modify current vessel retention limits for various categories of shark; set quotas at the regional or sub-regional level (as has already occurred in the Gulf of Mexico); or authorize additional gear types.  It is possible that other changes to current regulations might also be adopted.

While such changes might well lead to some increase in commercial shark landings, and do so without causing harm to shark populations, one might still ask why the agency would choose to do so.

In the end, market demand for various fish products is going to have a big impact on the volume of landings.  In the case of some fisheries, consumer demand is high, and landings are limited only by quotas intended to ensure that removals don’t rise to unsustainable levels.  In other fisheries, landings are limited not by quotas, but by consumers’ demand.

For a very long time, canned Maine sardines—which were actually immature herring—were a popular and inexpensive food in the United States, supporting not only a fishing fleet, but more than 50 canneries.  Today, consumer demand for sardines has tanked.  Only one cannery remains in the entire state, and it has abandoned sardines’ traditional working-class image, instead promoting the fish as an upscale, all-natural, environmentally friendly product—a product that's sourced  from Latvia's, rather than Maine’s, coastal waters, because the local fishery disappeared along with the demand.

In the Mid-Atlantic region, commercial fishermen rarely come close to catching their entire scup quota, because if they did, the landings would overwhelm the markets, and much of the fish would remain unsold.  While there are hopes that consumer demand will increase, that has yet to happen.

There is even less domestic demand for shark meat.  It’s offered in some restaurants, and sold in some markets, but is few consumers’ first choice, at least in the eastern part of the country.  There is more demand overseas, particularly for shark fins, but its contribution to the nation's commercial fishing revenues remains small (in 2019, ex vessel values for some of the more popular fish such as black sea bass, striped bass, summer flounder, and haddock were $12.7 million, $15.8 million, $22.7 million, and $18.9 million, respectively); one must ask whether it makes sense for NMFS to go out of its way to support a small fishery for the various species of shark, or whether it ought to concentrate on providing adequate protection to the fish themselves, and allow consumer demand to determine the fishery’s fate.

On the recreational side, shark fishing is undergoing real change.

When I came into the fishery in the late 1970s, the emphasis, at least in the northeast, was on the shortfin mako, which was valued both for its fight and for its food value.  

Other species of sharks were caught, and their aggregate numbers exceeded those of the makos by a substantial margin; while many of those were released, the fishery also saw a lot of catch-and-kill, with sharks brought to the dock, weighed, and then dumped back into the ocean.  I well remember going to seminars given by a fisherman known for catching very large tiger sharks; part of his talk always included instructions on how to remove the sharks’ livers, which tended to float, before towing the fish out and dumping them in Great South Bay.

Because makos were the shark fisherman’s primary target, the recreational fishery was primarily a pelagic fishery, with most fishing taking place well beyond sight of shore.

Those things are all changing.

In the Atlantic coastal recreational fishery, most anglers catch sharks incidentally; only 19% of the trips on which sharks were caught were directed at coastal shark species.  93% of trips on which coastal sharks (that is, all sharks other than porbeagles, blues, makos, threshers, or oceanic white tips) were either caught or targeted occurred in state, rather than federal, waters; 55% of such trips involved anglers fishing from shore.  Much of the coastal shark fishery occurs in southern waters.

Coastal shark species are broken down into the large coastal shark and small coastal shark complexes, with the latter accounting for 52% of all recreational shark (including smooth dogfish) harvest; large coastal sharks only account for about 4% of total shark landings, but are a very visible part of the inshore shark fishery.  As the report notes,

“the recreational fishery for [large coastal sharks] attracts a substantial portion of media and stakeholder attention due to the growing popularity of the shore-based, trophy shark fishery that primarily targets these species.  While this fishery is overwhelmingly catch-and-release, it draws significant attention from environmental organizations due to its high visibility on social media, concerns over post-release mortality due to the improper handling of sharks in the surf, and the conservation status of many of the species involved.”

The latter is an important point, as in the northeast, the vast majority of the large coastal sharks caught from shore are sandbar, dusky, and sand tigers, species that may not be retained by anglers because they are either overfished or very vulnerable to fishing activities.  

Shorebound anglers, who frequently drag such sharks out of the water, pull them around by their tails, and even straddle such fish for photos, in which they bend back the sharks’ necks to unnatural angles in order to show off their teeth, certainly don’t do much good for already-troubled species.

Despite such issues, the release rate for large coastal sharks, other than blacktips, is very high, close to 98% of all the fish caught; bull and spinner sharks account for most of the landings.

The pelagic shark fishery is very different.  It is largely prosecuted in northeastern waters, and is a relatively small fishery; between 2014 and 2019, an average of only 7,720 directed trips were taken each year.  Shortfin makos were landed on 62% of all directed shark trips; it’s thus not surprising that, when increased size limits were placed on shortfin makos in 2018, the number of directed trips fell, dropping 33% between 2014 and 2019. 

It appears that some anglers who formerly targeted makos may have switched their attention to common threshers, as the percentage of trips targeting that species increased in both 2018 and 2019.  Absolute numbers of harvested fish also seem to be creeping up; NMFS' report observes that

“Common threshers are unique among sharks in the recreational fishery in that they may be the only commonly caught species that is more likely to be harvested than released, with harvested thresher sharks accounting for 60 percent of the total catch.  Harvest estimates from 2014 to 2016 were approximately double or more relative to estimated releases.  The number of thresher sharks released increased significantly between 2017 and 2019 while the number of harvested increased slightly after 2016.”

With all shortfin mako harvest now banned, pressure on threshers is very likely to increase.  The NMFS report has already documented a shift in that direction.

Despite the changes in the recreational shark fishery, the report contemplates fewer changes to recreational management measures than it does to commercial regulations.  Modifications to existing size and bag limits were mentioned, as were improved data reporting and enhanced data collection with respect to both catch and depredation events.

It would probably make sense to adopt more species-specific management measures.  We have already seen a ban on shortfin mako landings, and an increase in the minimum size for the major hammerhead species.  The next logical step would be an increased size limit for common threshers, to counteract the increased pressure such fish are experiencing as a result of the mako closure.  Right now, many of the threshers being caught are less than six feet long (fork length), and weigh under 200 pounds; raising the size limit from the current 54 inches (a length originally developed to suit the much smaller sandbar shark) to at least 72 inches would allow more opportunity for reproduction while also putting a brake on landings.

It would also make sense for NMFS to work with the states, to prevent the targeting, and post-catch mishandling, of protected shark species caught in state waters, particularly those caught from shore, where the likelihood of mishandling is greatest.

But right now, that’s all speculation.  We’ll probably see some proposed management measures emerge as the folks at NMFS digest the information in the report, and use it to inform regulatory actions.  Just what such measures might be will depend upon both managers’ inclination and stakeholder input; once they take form, they will undoubtedly go through a long scoping and public comment process before anything becomes final.

Whatever proposals eventually emerge, it’s good to know that NMFS cares enough about the Atlantic shark fisheries to perform a comprehensive review, and is willing to act when the data reveals that such action is called for.

 

 

NATIONAL MARINE FISHERIES SERVICE APPROVES MID-ATLANTIC "CONTROL RULE"

 

On March 9, 2023, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) issued a final rule approving the so-called “harvest control rule” (Control Rule) adopted by the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council (Council) at its June 2022 meeting. The Control Rule amends the Council’s Summer Flounder, Scup, and Black Sea Bass and Bluefish fishery management plans, bringing significant change to the process used to set annual management measures for the recreational sector.

 

In the past, recreational management measures were established by first calculating what landings were in the previous year (or, in the alternative, by averaging the landings for the preceding three years). Such past landings were then compared to the recreational harvest limit for the upcoming season to determine whether the previous year’s management measures could be kept in place, whether such measures might be liberalized, or whether management measures would have to be made more restrictive in order to constrain future landings to the recreational harvest limit.

Such process was fraught with management uncertainty, as weather, fuel prices, and the comparative availability of various fish species cause angler effort to swing, sometimes wildly, from year to year. The estimates produced by the Marine Recreational Information Program, used to gauge anglers’ landings, introduced another source of uncertainty into the management process.

 

The Control Rule was intended to address such uncertainties, and hopefully reduce the frequency of changes to recreational regulations, while allowing anglers to harvest greater numbers of fish when stocks are at high levels of abundance. Unfortunately, as critics of the Control Rule noted in comments submitted to NMFS, it does so using a management approach that received, at best, lukewarm scientific support, was disfavored by Council staff, and may not comply with language contained in the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (Magnuson-Stevens), which is intended to prevent overfishing and constrain overall landings at or below the annual catch limit set for each managed fish stock.

 

NMFS did not have to adopt the Control Rule to address the management uncertainty issue. It could have employed an annual catch target instead. Its own National Standard 1 Guidelines (Guidelines) state that “An [annual catch target] is an amount of annual catch of a stock or stock complex that is the management target of the fishery, and accounts for management uncertainty in controlling the catch at or below the [annual catch limit],” and advise, “If an Annual Catch Target, or functional equivalent, is not used, management uncertainty should be accounted for in the [annual catch limit].”

 

Unfortunately, while Magnuson-Stevens requires the agency to publish the Guidelines “to assist in the development of fishery management plans,” it also explicitly states that such Guidelines “shall not have the force and effect of law.” Despite the high levels of management uncertainty that chronically plagued the Council’s recreational management measures, the Council never adopted annual catch targets to address the problem. As a result, recreational landings, particularly those of black sea bass, frequently exceeded recreational harvest limits, and regulations often changed from year to year, frustrating anglers and angling-related businesses.

 

Instead, the Council developed the Control Rule, which provides a means for fisheries managers to address uncertainty in recreational fisheries data, while avoiding the Guidelines’ call for annual catch targets and the resultant reductions in harvest. It allows anglers to increase their landings of abundant species, but in doing so sidesteps the spirit, and very possibly the letter, of federal fisheries law.

The Control Rule represents a historic change in the way the Council will manage recreational fisheries, yet NMFS received surprisingly few comments on its proposed rule. In total, NMFS received only one letter, signed by five organizations affiliated with the recreational fishing industry, in support of the Control Rule, one letter from an individual and two from conservation organizations (one of which was signed by three different entities) opposing its adoption, and six letters from individuals that touched on tangential matters, but did not directly address the Control Rule itself.

 

In its response to public comments arguing that the adoption of an annual catch target would have rendered the Control Rule moot, NMFS responded,

Including management uncertainty into the process for setting recreational management measures would result in setting a recreational harvest target below the [recreational harvest limit], and even more restrictive recreational harvest measures. This would exacerbate the disconnect between what anglers are observing (e.g., high levels of abundance of black sea bass and scup) and the increasingly restrictive management measures. Implementing a large buffer, and further reducing the quota, does not recognize that uncertainty applies in both directions—catch and biomass may be higher or lower than estimated. Simply restricting recreational fisheries more is not solving the fundamental problem, particularly when considering the lack of success in continually attempting to constrain harvest to a specific limit that, in retrospect, was lower than needed.

It was a strange response for a number of reasons, and appears to fall short in both logic and technical comprehension of the issues addressed; because such response was characteristic of the agency’s overall approach to the Control Rule, it deserves closer attention.

The response, which dismisses the use of annual catch targets, makes it clear that NMFS was sharply focused on setting recreational landings limits, at least for abundant stocks, at the highest possible level. The Control Rule certainly accomplishes that goal. But does that justify NMFS ignoring its own Guidelines?

When NMFS published the Guidelines, it certainly understood that setting an annual catch target would reduce recreational landings to a level somewhat below the recreational harvest limit. Even so, the agency chose to recommend the adoption of such targets, without adding any qualifiers that limited the use of catch targets to situations where a stock was at low levels of abundance. There is no suggestion, anywhere in the Guidelines, that an annual catch target should not be used when stock abundance is high.

Similarly, NMFS’ comment that implementing a buffer, presumably in the form of an annual catch target, “does not recognize that uncertainty applies in both directions—catch and biomass may be higher or lower than estimated,” strikes a discordant note. Once again, when NMFS prepared and published the Guidelines, it must have been aware that catch could, at times, be overestimated, yet the Guidelines nonetheless recommend that an annual catch target be used, presumably because the agency recognized that underestimating catch carried ar greater risks to the stock than underestimating it (estimating biomass involves scientific, rather than management, uncertainty, and so does not belong in this discussion).

Other agency comments were similarly unpersuasive.

Magnuson-Stevens plainly states that “Conservation and management measures shall prevent overfishing,” a mandate that has been enforced by the courts for more than two decades; the statute defines “overfishing” as “a rate or level of fishing mortality that jeopardizes the capacity of a fishery to produce the maximum sustainable yield on a continuing basis.” Several comments opposing the Control Rule advised that the Control Rule did not, in practice, reliably prevent overfishing, and the Environmental Assessment of the Control Rule supported their position.

 

But NMFS disagreed. The agency argued that the Control Rule would not lead to overfishing because scup and black sea bass stocks are currently at very high levels of abundance. “In theory, for such stocks, fishing at F_msy [the fishing mortality rate that would produce maximum sustainable yield] should gradually fish the stock back down to the biomass target. Fishing above F_msy for a year may increase the rate at which this is achieved, but would not jeopardize the long-term sustainability of the stock.”

 

According to NMFS, even if fishing mortality exceeded what biologists deem the “threshold fishing mortality rate” (F_msy) in any given year, overfishing would not occur because an abundant stock could still produce maximum sustainable yield on a continuing basis, at least until it was fished down to the biomass target.

 

Such interpretation of the term “overfishing” is novel, and unsupported by any interpretation made by a federal court ruling on the question. It ignores the critical fact that “overfishing” is defined in terms of a rate of fishing mortality that would jeopardize the long-term health of a stock. If fishing mortality exceeds F_msy in any year, overfishing is occurring, even if such overfishing will not necessarily continue long enough to do material harm.

 

That fact is recognized in the Control Rule’s Environmental Assessment, which advised that

 

All combinations of sub-alternatives under [the Control Rule] would allow for some level of [recreational harvest limit] overages in some circumstances. [Recreational harvest limit] overages carry a risk of [annual catch limit] overages, which in turn risk [acceptable biological catch] and [overfishing limit] overages and therefore risk resulting in overfishing. Therefore, [the Control Rule] cannot be demonstrated to proactively prevent overfishing every year in all circumstances. The [recreational harvest limit] accounts for the best available scientific information on stock status. Therefore, even at high biomass levels, [recreational harvest limit] overages can result in overfishing. [emphasis added]

 

The Environmental Assessment clearly acknowledges that calculations of overfishing are based on an annual fishing mortality rate (the Control Rule “cannot be demonstrated to proactively prevent overfishing every year…”), and explicitly states that “even at high biomass levels, RHL overages can result in overfishing.” In view of such statements, NMFS’ arguments to the contrary, and in support of the Control Rule, are nothing short of baffling.

 

Equally baffling is NMFS statement that “Scup and black sea bass are stocks in the “very high” bin [of the Control Rule], meaning biomass is over 150 percent of their respective biomass targets—the level of biomass associated with maximum sustainable yield. In plain language, stocks in this bin are at least 1.5 times larger than is ideal for maximizing long-term benefits. [emphasis added]”

 

Such comment suggests that stocks which see biomass increase above target levels somehow provide lesser benefits than those maintained at the supposedly “ideal” target.

Nothing is farther from the truth.

The target biomass level (B_msy) is a purely biological measure; it represents the biomass level that will produce maximum sustainable yield, provided that the fishing mortality rate does not rise above F_msy. It has nothing to do with “maximizing long-term benefits” from the resource, although benefits decline one biomass falls below B_msy.

 

Once again, NMFS appears to have overlooked the significance of the fishing mortality rate, which essentially measures the proportion of fish removed from the stock each year. If a stock at B_msy and another stock at 150% of B_msy are fished at the same fishing mortality rate, the landings from the stock at 150% of B_msy will be 50% higher than the stock that is merely maintained at B_msy; the larger stock will yield substantially greater benefits, whether such benefits are measured by the amount of food produced, the recreational opportunities offered, or the level of social and economic benefits garnered from that particular resource.

 

Long-term benefits are not maximized at B_msy, as NMFS seems to contend; instead, B_msy represents the lowest biomass level that can produce maximum sustainable yield, although greater benefits can accrue, if only for a limited time, if biomass rises higher. NMFS’ apparent willingness, perhaps even eagerness, to use the Control Rule as a vehicle to reduce very abundant stocks to B_msy does not have a rational basis.

 

NMFS made other arguments in support of the Control Rule, relating to its compliance with Magnuson-Stevens, its use of the best available science, and whether it constituted a de facto reallocation of commercial and recreational quota. But, like the arguments detailed above, the agency’s responses seemed to be less a logical refutation of public comment than an effort to justify a management action that was not, in the end, justifiable.

 

Beginning with NMFS’ and the Council’s decision to address the Control Rule in a “framework” action, which offered very limited opportunity for formal public comment, and extending through the June 2022 Council meeting, which saw NMFS’ Greater Atlantic Regional Fisheries Office threaten to adopt the Control Rule through agency action if the Council did not approve it, the Control Rule seemed a management measure that was being relentlessly advanced by a regulator who was either inherently sympathetic to, or had been bludgeoned into submission by, elements of the recreational fishing industry who have long been aggressively critical of the federal fishery management process.

 

The fact that NMFS justifies its adoption of the Control Rule by citing “what anglers are observing (e.g., high levels of abundance of black sea bass and scup),” rather than the results of state and federal fisheries surveys and other objective data, further contributes to that impression.

Rather than take the time to craft a scientifically vetted management approach that clearly accords with Magnuson-Stevens, NMFS hastily adopted what it admits, in its response to public comments, was “intended to be an interim approach” to setting recreational management measures, and then attempted to justify its actions with dubious arguments that, in some cases, are in direct conflict with statements included in the Control Rule’s Environmental Assessment.

Nonetheless, unless and until someone seeks judicial review of the agency’s action, and a court finds the Control Rule invalid, it will now govern the recreational summer flounder, scup, and black sea bass fisheries, and will govern the recreational bluefish fishery as well, once the current rebuilding plan has run its course.

 

Stakeholders can only hope that such important fish stocks are not harmed as a result.

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This essay first appeared in “From the Waterfront,” the blog of the Marine Fish Conservation Network, which can be found at http://conservefish.org/blog/