STRIPED BASS: GRASPING AT STRAWS

 

By now, anyone who follows striped bass management issues knows that there has been another bad spawn in the Chesapeake Bay, with the Maryland juvenile abundance index coming in at 4.0, and the Virginia JAI at 5.12.  Both are well below the long-term JAI averages for the two states, which are 11 and 7.77, respectively.

While neither of those numbers fall into recruitment failure territory, which is defined as three consecutive years of JAIs that fall within the 25^th percentile of all JAIs for the region’s time series (1957-2009 for Maryland, 1980-2009 for Virginia), both are low enough, when combined with the previous two years’ JAIs, to trip the recruitment trigger contained in Amendment 7 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass, which is three consecutive years of JAIs that fall within the 25^th percentile of JAIs for the period 1992-2006.

Once the recruitment trigger in Amendment 7 is tripped,

“an interim [fishing mortality] target and interim [fishing mortality] threshold calculated using the low recruitment assumption will be implemented, and the [fishing mortality]-based management triggers [that require management action to be taken under certain circumstances] will be reevaluated using those interim reference points.  In [a fishing mortality] reference point is tripped upon reevaluation, the striped bass management program must be adjusted to reduce [fishing mortality] to the interim [fishing mortality] target within one year.”

Of course, that's almost irrelevant now, since low recruitment in Maryland, Virginia, and the Delaware River already tripped that management trigger a while ago.

So it’s clear that the two JAIs, and the Maryland JAI in particular, were pretty bad news.

However, there are always people who try to deny reality, either because the have a financial incentive for doing so, or because they just can’t bring themselves to accept that the striped bass stock is quickly sailing into dire straits.  I didn’t realize how delusional such people could be, until I happened to look at the Facebook page of Fisherman’s Headquarters, a New Jersey tackle shop.  The store got the story and the context right, saying

“4.0…better than the last two years but another poor year (7^th consecutive) of striped bass recruitment from the Chesapeake Bay.”

But then I noticed the comment,

“By the percentage, it looks like 25 was 100% better than 24, which was 75% better than 23.  I wouldn’t call that a failure.”

A second comment read,

“100% increase,non top [sic] of 100% increase.

Good news doesn’t sell.”

I’ve since seen similar comments on the Facebook page of a regional magazine and on a website dedicated to striped bass angling.

And then there are the conspiracy theorists, with one commenting,

“Can we really believe these numbers? Are bass still spawning in the same estuaries as ten, twenty and thirty years ago?  Is the entire biomass shifting northward as temps rise, making Chesapeake YOY less predictive?  We see more bass of NJ now than in the past 15 years and more in the past 15 then [sic] the past 50.  Bureaucrats can make numbers say whatever they want to justify their actions.”

I’ve heard those comments elsewhere,

 too, often at striped bass hearings when people, usually connected to the for-hire fishing industry, are trying to impeach the data underlying fisheries management actions, in order to maintain current regulations and current harvest levels.

It’s startling just how many people try to deny the reality that poor recruitment is putting the striped bass stock at risk of serious future decline, and how many others try to concoct stories in an effort to convince themselves that things aren’t really too bad, either because they found some hope in the data or because they are certain that conservation efforts are all part of some nefarious government plot.

To be fair to the first comment that I quoted, the last three Maryland JAIs were steadily increasing, and this year’s JAI of 4.0 was the highest since 2018.  But reaching a high of 4.0 over the course of seven years of poor recruitment isn’t something to be cheered.

If we look at the last time recruitment dropped to low levels for an extended period of time, the years 1975 through 1988—in other words, the years leading up to the last stock collapse, and the years extending through the collapse itself—we can find two different occasions when the JAI rose as high as 8.45, the first in 1978, the second in 1982.  

In the first instance, the 1978 JAI increased from 4.85 to 8.45, before falling back to 4.24 in the next year.  While none of the JAIs in the decade prior to 1978 were as low as all of the JAIs in the last seven years, the stock collapsed a few years later anyway.

In fact, no seven-year period, including periods immediately prior to the last stock collapse or during the collapse itself, resulted in an average JAI as low as the average for the period 2019-2025.  It isn’t even close, with the average JAI for the past seven years a mere 2.81, while the second-lowest seven year average was substantially higher, at 3.41.  And that one occurred during the years 1980-1986, in the heart of the last stock collapse, which puts the current low recruitment levels in an uncomfortable context.

Thus, the fact that the Maryland JAIs increased from 1.02 to 1.98 to 4.0 shouldn’t give anyone comfort, for those numbers are all still dismally low, and the last stock collapse occurred despite being preceded by JAIs that were substantially higher.

The 1982 JAI of 8.45 was bracketed by JAIs of 1.22 and 1.37, so taking heart because the JAI is trending somewhat higher in the near term is probably a mistake; the index can trend downward just as quickly as it can rise.    

That being said, the 1982 year class, with its index of 8.45, was the year class that managers relied on to rebuild the striped bass stock.  But that rebuilding didn’t occur because managers said, “Hooray, this year class is bigger than the last one!” and then clung to the status quo, hoping that the bass population would heal itself, but instead because managers built Amendment 3 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass around the idea of protecting that year class, and every year class that followed, with a steadily increasing size limit, and of limiting fishing-related removals to no more than five percent of the spawning stock biomass until the spawning stock biomass was well on its way to being rebuilt.  

The regulations needed to accomplish that goal were far more restrictive than any adopted, or even proposed, in recent years.

Amendment 3 seemingly worked, as the 1989 JAI was 25.20, a year class that was considered “dominant” then, and would be considered the same today.  Yet the JAIs for 1988 and 1990 were Just 2.65 and 2.14, respectively.

Thus, anyone who believes that they can predict good news from three poor, but increasing JAIs, or who believes they can predict future JAI trends from past patterns, are going to be disappointed.  JAI patterns can no more predict future JAIs, than the patterns in tea leaves or in the entrails of a ram can herald future events, and we would foolish to believe otherwise.

And, speaking of foolish, why do the conspiracy theorists of the fishery world so often believe that managers are manipulating the numbers to show fewer fish in advancement of some secret government agenda?  

More particularly, why do they believe that “the government” wants to place additional restrictions on fisheries, and so cooks the data to further such goal, as the comment quoted above suggests?

There’s just no upside to any government agency doing that.

Anyone who spends any time around fisheries meetings know how much flak the various agencies receive any time that restrictions are mentioned, and anyone who knows any fisheries managers, and has spent any time speaking with them, also knows how much more flak they catch in letters, emails, and phone calls made outside of the public eye.

And anyone who takes the time to think for maybe four seconds will realize that commercial and recreational fisheries generate sales tax revenues, fuel tax revenues, and eventually income tax revenues, that are, to some degree, lost when fishing is further restricted.

So exactly what government interest would justify distorting the data in order to cause fisheries managers additional stress while also reducing the stream of tax revenues from the fishing industry?

Wouldn’t it make more sense for the government to only do what is necessary, based on the most accurate data available, to rebuild fish stocks, so that regulations could be eased, government employees receive fewer complaints, and more tax revenues might be generated?

That certainly makes sense to me, but the conspiracy theorists might know something that I don’t, because they’re always complaining that fisheries managers are using bad data to adopt unnecessary rules, all to, as the quote above suggests, “justify their actions,” although just what those actions might be, and why those allegedly unneeded actions might be, is never made completely clear.

And that’s because folks are grasping at straws.

Instead of accepting the fact that the striped bass stock is facing real problems, and that, regardless of whether the stock rebuilds by 2029, we’re looking at an almost inevitable decline after that, and instead of resigning themselves to the truth that tough remedial measures are going to be needed to turn things around, fishermen try to find solace in bad news, and if they can’t do that, try to convince themselves that talk of incipient problems are all part of some sort of government con.

In a few years, it’s likely that the truth is going to hit them between the eyes, and it’s going to hurt.  Very badly.

And then they’ll ask how it all happened, when everything was going so well.

                                                                                                                          .

 

WILL YOUR GRANDKIDS EVER SEE A STRIPED BASS?

 

A few years ago, I was on one of my sporadic trips down to Washington, D.C., wandering around some House office building and talking to folks about fish.  I had just come out of a meeting with the staff of a member who represented a district in the New York City Borough of Queens, which is geographically, if not politically, a part of Long Island, shares the same geology and same species of saltwater fish.

Most of the staffers were the typical, just-out-of-college-or-law-school twentysomethings who are getting their start in the political arena.  It turned out that one of the staff was a pretty serious recreational fisherman, who spent much of his free time on the waters of Jamaica Bay and western Long Island Sound.

After the meeting ended, that stafffer and I were having a casual conversation about fishing out in the hall when I happened to mention winter flounder.  He gave me a funny sort of look, then, and admitted that he not only had never caught one, but that he had never even seen one alive.

Remember, this was someone who was probably in his late 20s and an active angler, who regularly fished places such as Jamaica, Manhasset, and Little Neck bays, which were once fertile flounder grounds.  So many flounder used to inhabit waters like those, all along New York’s coastline, that in 1984, New York anglers harvested nearly 14.5 million of them, and released many more.

Granted, that was the highest harvest ever recorded, but was not unusual for the time.  Nearly 12.5 million were harvested in 1981, and close to 12 million in 1985.  After that, a decline did set in, but flounder harvest remained above 1,000,000 fish through 1993, and didn’t sink below 500,000 until a decade later.

But by 2022, when that conversation in Washington took place, New York’s winter flounder landings had fallen to something like a mere 120 fish—although, by then, winter flounder landings were so rare that the folks doing the catch surveys almost never came across one, making the recent landing estimates little more than a wild-ass guess.

So, it’s understandable that the Congressional staffer whom I spoke with never came across a flounder, either.

It’s also sad, for throughout the first four decades of my life, winter flounder were one of the most abundant, most pursued, and arguably most important recreational fish in New York’s waters.  But as they began to decline, fishery managers were very slow to react, and very hesitant to adopt the management measures needed to stabilize the stock.  The opposition of the recreational fishing industry, and particularly the for-hire industry, to any sort of meaningful regulation created a political barrier that managers were, in the end, unwilling to scale.

Environmental factors, in the form of warming waters, the resultant hypoxia, and other, related factors certainly also played a role in the flounder’s decline, but it is difficult to argue that fishing, and in particular recreational fishing, didn’t play the dominant role in the flounder’s demise (for those who would rather blame the commercial fishery for the flounder’s ills, I would note that in 1984, the year that saw New York anglers land nearly 14 million pounds of flounder, the commercial landings were under 1.4 million pounds; the same comparison holds true in other years, as commercial landings in 1981 were just 2.1 million pounds, compared to a 12.5 million pound recreational harvest, while in 1985, commercial landings were under 1.3 million pounds, while recreational landings exceeded 12 million).

Today, anglers in New York just don’t see winter flounder anymore, although one will occasionally be caught while fishing for something else.

The striped bass has taken the flounder's place as the most frequently-targeted marine fish in New York, with somewhere between 30 and 35 percent of all fishing trips primarily targeting them.

And now, the striped bass is also in decline.

The stock remains overfished, although as of the 2024 stockassessment update, spawning stock biomass was approaching the threshold, andbiologists were predicting that SSB might finally exceed the threshold thisyear.  However, even if it does, there is a bigger problem on the horizon.

The last seven years have seen very few young bass recruiting into the population.  The Maryland juvenile abundance index has been the most reliable indicator of future striped bass abundance, and its average for those seven years, 2.81, is the lowest seven-year average in a time series that dates back to 1957.  The next-lowest 7-year average was 3.47, for the period 1980-1986, the heart of the last stock collapse, which gives some idea of just how bad recent recruitment has been.

Yesterday, the Maryland juvenile abundance index for 2025 was announced.  It was 4.0, a slight improvement over recent years and the highest since 2018, but nonetheless less than half of the long-term average of 11.  Maryland’s Department of Natural Resources Fishing and Boating Services Director Lynn Fegley tried to put a positive spin on the news, saying that

“Management actions taken over the last decade have resulted in a healthy population of spawning-age striped bass,”

a dubious assertion given that spawning stock biomass is currently hovering somewhere near—below, as of the last stock assessment—the threshold that defines an overfished stock, but also admits that

“continued low numbers of striped bass entering the population is a threat to this progress as there are fewer juveniles growing into spawning adults.”

There is just no way that a JAI of 4.0, following six previous years of record-low recruitment, can be seen as good news.

The Virginia JAI for 2025 was also released, and the news there is little better although, once again, there were efforts to put a positive spin on the numbers.  The value was 5.12, which was better than the last couple of years, but still below the long-term average of 7.77.  The press release called it an “average” year class, apparently because the upper confidence interval—the allowance for possible error in the calculation—of the 2025 JAI slightly overlapped the lower confidence interval for the long-term average.

However, that designation is deceiving, as the long-term average is calculated based on all years from 1967 through 2025, including the many years of poor recruitment that occurred during the stock collapse of the late 1970s and much of the 1980s, while the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Amendment 7 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass provides that

“If any of the four JAIs used in the stock assessment model to estimate recruitment (NY, NJ, MD, VA) shows an index value that is below 75% of all values…in the respective JAI from 1992-2006…for three consecutive years, then an interim [fishing mortality] target and interim [fishing mortality] threshold calculated using the low recruitment assumption will be implemented, and the [fishing mortality]-based management triggers…will be reevaluated using those interim reference points.”

Using that standard, Virginia’s 2025 JAI of 5.12 fell below the 25^th percentile value of 8.22, and thus is considered “low” pursuant to the provisions of Amendment 7,  It was the fifth consecutive year of low Virginia JAIs.

Yet, just as occurred with winter flounder nearly 40 years ago, the recreational fishing industry is ignoring the threats that both fishing mortality and changing environmental conditions pose to the striped bass stock, and is fighting against needed management action.

On September 9, the American Sportfishing Association, the largest fishing tackle trade organization, announced its opposition to any reductions in recreational fishing mortality, and encouraged anglers to send in comments to the ASMFC opposing the proposed 12% reduction included in Draft Addendum III to Amendment 7 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass for Public Comment.

And the summary of comments made at hearings held by the ASMFC to obtain input on Addendum III reveals that members of the for-hire industry, appearing at multiple venues between Maine and Virginia, were nearly unanimous in their opposition to the same 12% reduction.

So, the question is, when the Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board meets on October 29, will it take action to conserve what remains of the striped bass stock, in an effort to preserve the spawning stock biomass so that, when environmental conditions allow, it will be able to produce the strong year classes needed to rebuild the bass population?

Or will it heed the calls to maintain status quo, and put the stock at increased risk of eventual collapse. . 

And, if the Management Board opts for inaction, just how far might the striped bass population decline?

After all, the last seven years of recruitment has already fallen below all previous marks, and set a new record low.  If no management action is taken, might the spawning stock biomass also enter a long and unprecedented freefall, dropping to levels never before recorded? 

When the grandchildren of today’s anglers are in their mid-20s, perhaps 40 years from now, will they still be catching stripers?  Or will the twentysomething anglers of 2065 say “Striped bass?  I never caught one.  I’ve never even seen one alive?”

That might seem improbable now.

But folks would have said the same thing about winter flounder in 1985.

 

 

 

 

NEW MENHADEN ASSESSMENT CORRECTS ERROR, CHANGES STOCK STATUS

 

A benchmark stock assessment, released in 2020, found that

“[The fishing mortality rate] in 2017 [the terminal year of the stock assessment] (0.11) was below the F_threshold (0.60) and F_target (0.22).  In addition, the stock is above the current fecundity target.  The Atlantic menhaden stock is not overfished and overfishing is not occurring.  [emphasis in original]”

A stock assessment update, released in 2022, found that stock status had not changed, stating that

“The fishing mortality for the terminal year of 2021 was below the [Ecological Reference Point] target ant threshold and the fecundity was above the [Environmental Reference Point] target and threshold.  Therefore, overfishing is not occurring and the stock in not considered overfished.”

Unfortunately, in coming to those conclusions, the authors of both stock assessments used an estimate of natural mortality (the fish that die from causes that are not fishing-related) that was too high, which resulted in an overestimate of population size and an overly optimistic evaluation of the population’s status.

A new update to the single-species stock assessment was recently completed (so recently that I received a copy in pdf form, as it has not yet been posted to the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s website).  It addresses the overestimate of natural mortality, and the steps used to correct it, reporting that

“The only new change for this update assessment is the inclusion of a new vector of natural mortality based on a revised analysis of the historical tagging data that was completed by the M Working Group.  The 2020 benchmark used the estimate of [natural mortality] from Liljestrand et al.’s (2019) analysis of the tagging data to scale the Lorenzen (1996) curve of [natural mortality]-at-age, assuming that the [natural mortality] estimated from the tagging data represented the [natural mortality]  for age 1.5 menhaden, based on the size of the tagged fish.  During the 2025 benchmark assessment process, Ault et al. (2023) submitted a working paper to the Atlantic menhaden [stock assessment subcommittee] and the Ecological Reference Points Work Group (ERP WG) that re-analyzed the historical tagging data and produced an estimate of M=0.56, significantly lower that the M=1.17 reported by Liljestrand et al. (2019).

“However, Ault had used a different subset of the data and a different approach to handling key parameters, which made direct comparisons with Liljestrand et al. (2019) difficult.  The [stock assessment subcommittee] formed a working group to review the datasets and methods in consultation with the primary authors to determine the best estimate of [natural mortality] for use in the Atlantic menhaden stock assessment.  The [M Working Group] and [stock assessment subcommittee] determined that the main cause of the difference in [natural mortality] estimates was the handling of the magnet efficiency parameter [related to the detection of magnetic tags], which was equivalent to the tag reporting rate in conventional tagging models.  The [M Working Group] and [stock assessment subcommittee] found that Liljestrand et al. (2019) had overestimated the magnet efficiency rate in their analysis, but did not agree with the stepwise estimation approach proposed by Ault et al. (2023) to estimate this parameter.  In the end, the [M Working Group] and [stock assessment subcommittee] recommended a revised estimate of M=0.92 from the tagging study, based on the corrected magnet efficiency rate and updated effort and landings datasets, which was lower than the value used in the 2020 benchmark, but higher than the value estimated by Ault et al.’s (2023) method…”

To put that in simpler terms, the 2020 benchmark assessment assumed that about 69% of the adult menhaden are removed from the population by natural causes each year, while the 2025 assessment update assumes a natural mortality rate of about 60% (while rejecting the conclusion of another team of scientists that only 43% of the population succumbs to natural mortality each year).

The difference between 60% and 69% might not seem very large, but it is large enough to cause the estimate of the Atlantic menhaden population to drop substantially.  A memorandum prepared by the Atlantic Menhaden Technical Committee and Ecological Reference Point Workgroup, addressed to the Atlantic Menhaden Management Board and dated October 9, 2025 (which was attached to the copy of the 2025 stock assessment update that I received), notes that

“the lower [natural mortality rate] used in 2025 resulted in a lower biomass compared to the 2022 update.  The time-series average of age-1+ biomass for the 2025 update with the lower [natural mortality rate] was 37% lower than the time-series average in the 2022 update.  In addition, the 2022 update showed a large increase at the end of the time-series that not present at the end of the 2025 update.”

That 37% reduction, plus the absence of a large biomass increase near the end of the time series, was enough to change the status of the stock from one with a fishing mortality rate below the target level and a fecundity level above the target to one with a fishing mortality rate and a fecundity level that sits between target and threshold.  

That’s a big change, but not catastrophic, for while managers should always attempt to maintain both fishing mortality and biomass/fecundity at or near target levels, the fact is that for most species, most of the time, fishing mortality will often stray above target while biomass often remains below.  Things only get truly serious if a stock becomes overfished or overfishing occurs.

So far, that is not the case for Atlantic menhaden, and the 2025 assessment update noted that

“Short-term projections at the current Total Allowable Catch (TAC) of 233,550 [metric tons] were provided.  Under a constant TAC of 233,550 mt, [fishing mortality] will be between [the fishing mortality target] and [the fishing mortality threshold], with a 4% probability that [fishing mortality] will be above the [Ecological Reference Points’ fishing mortality threshold] and a 100% probability that it will be above the [fishing mortality target] in 2028.”

While that might not seem too dire, there are some important facts that it leaves unsaid.  One is that, as noted in the October 9 memo,

“the 2021 biomass that was projected forward to inform the 2023-2025 TAC options was approximately 60% higher than the 2023 biomass, which is informing the 2026-2028 TAC.”

So the Management Board is going to have far fewer fish to work with when setting the overall TAC, as well as individual state quotas, this time around.

As a result of the corrected, smaller population size, the 2025 assessment update found that 2023 fecundity was just 71% percent of the target level and, more significantly, just 105% of the fecundity threshold.  So while the Atlantic menhaden stock might not have been overfished in 2023, fecundity needs only fall a few more percentage points, to anywhere below 100% of the threshold, for menhaden to become overfished.

That should be setting off alarms at the Atlantic Menhaden Management Board, and making it clear that maintaining status quo—in the form of a 233,440 mt Total Allowable Catch—is neither a prudent nor a viable option. 

For while the current TAC might not lead to overfishing, it could very well lead to an overfished stock, which is not an acceptable outcome.

Thus, if the Management Board is to be a responsible steward of the menhaden resource, it must make a substantial reduction in the menhaden TAC for the years 2026-2028.

How large should that reduction be?

If we want to get fishing mortality back down to its target level, the TAC must be cut by more than 50%.  The October 9 memo presents a number of options, built around the likelihood of exceeding the TAC in the upcoming years.  The most liberal of the options presented, a 110,000 mt TAC for the entire 2026-2028 period, that would carry a 60% probability of exceeding the fishing mortality target, represents about a 52.5% reduction in TAC compared to the TAC currently in place (although the reduction compared to 2024 landings would be less, as such landings were about 20% below the existing TAC).

A more prudent TAC, that would have just a 50% probability of exceeding the target—and so represent a sort of mirror image to the usual process of setting harvest at a level with a 50% probability of not exceeding the mortality level needed to achieve management success—would cut landings back to 108,450 mt, nearly a 54.5% reduction from the current level.

As a practical matter, the difference between a 54.5% reduction and a 52.5% reduction is trivial, and hardly worth arguing about.  But we can be sure that the findings of the 2025 stock assessment update, and the recommendations in the October 5 memo, are going to set off an intense debate between the menhaden industry and the folks who want to shut most of that industry down.

It is extremely likely--it is a virtual certainty--that the menhaden industry will howl and complain that it can’t absorb a 50%-plus cut in harvest, and that the Management Board should adopt a new TAC that is very close to the one now in place.  It might—or might not—be willing to accept a 20% TAC reduction, given that the menhaden fishery only landed about 80% of its quota last year, and a TAC of around 187,000 metric tons would be larger than the TAC for 2013-2014, and about equal to the 187,880 mt TAC that was in place for 2015-2016.

But that level of landings would almost certainly mean that the fishing mortality target would be exceeded, and when managers go to the trouble of setting a target—essentially saying that, ideally, “fishing mortality ought to go no higher than this,”—they do have an obligation to the public to at least try to achieve that goal.  Each person might have a different definition of “try,” but it’s probably fair to say that if you adopt management measures that, more likely than not, will lead to a fishing mortality target from being exceeded, you’re not really trying at all.

The menhaden fishing industry will be on shaky ground if they argue for keeping the menhaden TAC at or near its current level, or at or near current landings.  Throughout the debate over the proper level of, and methods used for, menhaden harvest, the industry has regularly called for following the science, rather than giving in to emotional arguments.  Now that we have the science telling us that menhaden fecundity was hovering just above the threshold that denotes an overfished stock in 2023—it could conceivably have slipped below that threshold since, although we lack the data to know if it has—and telling us that we need to cut the TAC by more than 50% to achieve the target fishing mortality level, the industry has the choice of staying true to its previous messaging, and going along with what the science appears to demand—even if that means taking a serious economic hit—or suddenly saying that the science isn’t the only consideration, and looking like hypocrites.

We can’t know for certain which course they’ll choose, although “follow the money” is usually dependable advice.

On the other side of the table, we’ll undoubtedly see the folks who worship at the menhaden's altar, and have regularly made irrational and scientifically unsustainable calls for the elimination of the menhaden reduction fishery, increase the volume of their yowling, and use the 2025 assessment update as an excuse to redouble their efforts, never seeming to realize that a menhaden that dies in a pound net is just as dead, and has the same impact on the stock as one that dies in a purse seine.

By focusing on eliminating a gear type instead of on reducing the TAC, such persons will make it easier for the industry to prevail, as they open the door to equally emotional arguments that the reduction industry is unjustly targeted, that ending the reduction fishery would kill an economically important business in a generally depressed area of the coast, and that closing that fishery would deny employment for people—including many people of color—in a region that offers few viable alternatives.

And it will be easy for the industry to argue that, even with the population size revised downward, the menhaden stock is not in anywhere near as bad condition as the industry's opponents maintain.

The October 9 memo shows that menhaden landings—and, in particular, menhaden reduction landings, have been relatively stable since 2000.  During that time, overall landings ranged between a low of 169.4 metric tons in 2013 to a high of 270.05 metric tons in 2001, with landings in 2023, the last year in the time series, coming in closer to the low end, at 181.75 metric tons.  

Similarly, reduction landings ranged from a low of 124.60 in 2020 (and 131.02 in 2013, the lowest non-COVID year) to a high of 233.56 in 2001, with landings in the last three years of the time series, 2021, 2022, and 2023, coming in near time-series lows, at 136.69, 136.70, and 131.80 metric tons, respectively, even though the ,menhaden TAC has been increasing in recent years.

At the same time, the 2025 assessment update revealed that current spawning stock biomass is higher than it has been for most of this century, that the current fishing mortality rate is near the middle of its range for the past 30 years, and that current recruitment is better than it has been in most years since 1990.  However, it also indicates that both age-1+ biomass and fecundity are either at, or not far from 30-year lows.

So, after discounting the demands from both stakeholder extremes, what should the Management Board do when it meets on October 28?

The need to cut the TAC—sharply—is clear.  Ideally, the 2026-2028 TAC should be reduced to no more than 108,450 metric tons, although its unlikely the Management Board will have the appetite to get that done over the course of a single year.  In the real world, some sort of phase-in is likely, but so long as there is a fixed schedule to get the TAC down to that level over the course of a few years—ideally by 2028—no one will have too much reason to complain.

Of course, the industry almost certainly will complain anyway.  They’ll argue that a cut of more than 50%, even if phased in over the course of three years, is too sudden and extreme for them to bear.  But the fact is that the TAC should never have reached 233,550 metric tons.  It got that high only because the biologists made a mistake, and adopted a natural mortality rate that was too high, and so skewed previous stock assessments.

No one was really to blame for that error—not the scientists doing the stock assessment, who relied on what they thought was accurate data; not the Management Board, who relied on the assessment when setting the TAC; and not the fishermen who relied on the Management Board to set the TAC at the proper level..  But blame isn’t the issue.

The simple fact is that the menhaden industry was killing more menhaden than they should have been, and now that we know that to be true, the Management Board needs to get landings down to a more sustainable level.

One might borrow a concept from civil law, and argue that the menhaden fishery was “unjustly enriched” by the error in the stock assessment and received a benefit, in the form of far more fish, than they were entitled to.  If that had happened in a financial context—if, for example, someone’s bank made an error and credited their account with $100,000. instead of $1,000.00 because someone put a decimal point in the wrong place—the party who was unjustly enriched would have to return all of the assets that they weren’t entitled to.

But no one is suggesting that the menhaden industry make pound-for-pound paybacks of the extra fish that they harvested as a result of the earlier stock assessments’ error.  

No one is suggesting that they make any sort of restitution at all.

But now that we know that the earlier natural mortality estimate was wrong, it’s neither unreasonable nor unfair that the Management Board reduce the TAC to what it should have been all along.

THE PROBLEM WITH THE STRIPED BASS HEARINGS

 

What a field day for the heat

A thousand people in the street

Singing songs and a-carrying signs

Mostly saying hooray for our side.

                              From “For What It’s Worth”

                              by Buffalo Springfield, 1966

 

When the song “For What It’s Worth” was recorded back in the latter half of the 1960s, I was still very young, growing up in a nation riven by internal conflicts over the Viet Nam War, civil rights, and the first stirrings of feminism and the environmental movement.  Traditional values were being challenged by a public growing ever less willing to accept the status quo. 

Although the song was originally a response to a curfew imposed by the City of Los Angeles, California, intended to reduce late-night crowds patronizing various music venues, the lyrics became, and still are, an anthem and--if you listen closely enough, also a caution--for advocates who challenge the established governing system and work toward some sort of reform.

As I’ve grown older and more cynical, I’ve also noted to myself that some of its lyrics could apply as much to a fisheries hearing—and particularly, in my part of the world, a striped bass hearing—as to a debate over other, more broadly applicable policy matters that raise the public’s ire.

Certainly, the current debate over the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Draft Addendum III to Amendment 7 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass for Public Comment seems to fit.

At its heart, Addendum III is a simple document, born out of a simple need:  The last benchmark striped bass stock assessment, which the ASMFC accepted in early 2019, found that the striped bass stock was overfished.  Amendment 6 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass, which was still in effect at that time, required the ASMFC’s Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board to rebuild the overfished stock within 10 years, thus establishing a 2029 rebuilding deadline (Amendment 7 to the Interstate Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass, adopted in 2022, includes the same requirement).  Last October, a 2024 update to the stock assessment was released, which informed biologists and fishery managers that the stock was unlikely to meet the rebuilding deadline unless removals (the combination of landings and release/discard mortality) were reduced.  At the August 2025 Management Board meeting, the ASMFC’s Striped Bass Technical Committee informed the Board that, in order to have a 50% probability of meeting the rebuilding deadline, striped bass removals would have to be reduced by 12%.

Although it also addresses some ancillary issues, the primary purpose of Addendum III was to implement that 12% reduction.

Efforts to reduce removals, regardless of the species involved, are always controversial, but Addendum III’s relatively modest harvest cuts drew particular rancor because, for the first time, they called for a closed recreational fishing season in the ocean fishery (which includes all recreational striped bass fisheries outside of the Chesapeake Bay).  

With the bag limit already reduced to a single fish, and a narrow, 28- to 31-inch slot limit already in place, such closed season represented the only practical way to achieve the necessary reduction.  But that didn’t mean that anglers were going to accept the closure easily, particularly when it might shut down fishing at the most productive times of the year.

Commercial fishermen rejected any quota reduction outright, and disclaimed any responsibility for the striped bass’ current depleted condition.  They adamantly insisted that they were only responsible for 10% of all removals—rarely mentioning that their share of the removals increased to 16% in 2024. 

New York’s Bonnie Brady, the head of the Long Island Commercial Fishing Association, whined that

“It’s the commercial fleet that takes the cut,”

even though the same 12% reduction would be applied to the commercial and recreational fisheries, and claimed that

“Commercial and for-hire fishermen did not create this problem,”

even though, in 2024, the combined commercial and for-hire fisheries accounted for more than 20% of all striped bass removals.

Instead, Brady blamed the shore-based and private boat anglers, and particularly those who practiced catch-and-release, for any woes that might be besetting the striped bass stock.

Her comments were in line with those made by the rest of the commercial fishing community, some of whom even said things like

“Why haven’t you considered giving us 12 percent back instead of taking?”

and

“I’ve been doing this for 60-plus years.  You come in for one day, trying to run this industry…Had a 12,000-pound quota when this all started.  When you’re done with this one, I’ll have seven.  Take a 50 percent cut in your salary, see how long you sit there.”

The for-hire fleet, for the most part, also sought to evade any responsibility for rebuilding the striped bass stock, even though, on a per-trip basis, they harvest more striped bass than any other segment of the recreational community (an analysis of data made available by the National Marine Fisheries Service indicates that shore-based anglers harvest, on average, 0.025 striped bass per directed striped bass trip, private boat anglers harvest 0.185 striped bass per directed trip, and anglers fishing from for-hire vessels harvest 0.777 striped bass per directed trip).

By and large, the party boat fleet and the traditional “six-pack” charters opposed any landings reductions, and actually sought to increase their harvest by widening the ocean slot limit to 28 to 33 inches, with an equivalent adjustment made to the recreational slot in the Chesapeake Bay, for anglers fishing from their vessels.  

The fact that adopting the wider for-hire slot would force shore-based and private boat anglers to cut back their removals even more, and face a longer closed season, did not seem to bother most of the for-hires at all.  (It should be noted that the smaller light-tackle boats, often colloquially referred to as “guide boats” rather than “charters,” generally supported the 12% reduction and opposed the special for-hire slot, with the American Saltwater Guides Association recommending that the Management Board adopt the former while rejecting the latter.)

The fishing tackle industry also opposed the reduction in removals proposed in the draft addendum, apparently afraid that both shops and manufacturers would lose sales if a closed season was imposed.  The American Sportfishing Association tried to rally anglers in opposition to the proposed reductions, arguing, in part, that

“The recreational striped bass fishery drives billions of dollars in economic activity, supports tens of thousands of jobs, and sustains countless small businesses up and down the Atlantic coast.  An additional 12% reduction would devastate the recreational fishing economy while doing very little to improve the health of the fishery.”

In an exhibition of unintended irony, the American Sportfishing Association alleged that

“ASMFC is reacting to short-term swings in the recreational catch estimates,”

only to have Michael Waine, its spokesman on East Coast fishery matters, call in to an Addendum III hearing held in Kings Park, New York, and argue in favor of maintaining the status quo, because recreational striped bass catch appeared to be off by 50% in the first half of 2024—an argument that could only be called a reaction to a short-term swing in recreational catch estimates.  

A big on-line New Jersey tackle shop also asked its customers to support status quo.

And some Garden State anglers clearly did, as the New Jersey angling press reported that many recreational fishermen attending New Jersey hearings also opposed any reduction in landings.  In other places, the majority of anglers seemed to support Addendum III’s conservation measures.

But in most instances, whether comments were made by recreational fishermen, commercial fishermen, for-hire operators, or members of the fishing tackle industry, most of those comments seemed to focus on how the proposed harvest reductions would impact the person making the comments, or that person’s industry or sector.

Outside of many—but far from all—of the recreational fishermen, the comments were strictly partisan, and didn’t focus on the most important factor of all—the health of the striped bass stock.

In the end, things could be summed up with another set of lyrics:

There’s battle lines being drawn

Nobody’s right, if everybody’s wrong

And in the Amendment III debate, just about everyone has been wrong to a greater or lesser degree.

There are the folks involved in the various businesses—commercial fishermen, for-hire operators, and the tackle industry—who can’t seem to shift their focus from their short-term profits and possible losses onto their likely long-term gains if the bass stock can be rebuilt and maintained at a higher level of abundance.

They seem to lack the ability to contemplate what might happen to their businesses should the bass stock, instead of being rebuilt, go into a further decline and, perhaps, even a collapse.

Given the last six years of historically low levels of recruitment, such decline and collapse are not impossible outcomes.

Yet the businesses' wrongheaded focus on the short term continues.

The many anglers who want to see the bass stock rebuilt often criticize the commercials and for-hires for their resistance to needed management measures, but the recreational sector is also far from blame in that regard.  That has been painfully obvious in their reaction—and their opposition—to the proposed closed seasons.

Since the idea of closed seasons was originally broached, many anglers, most particularly those in states between Maine and New Jersey, complained that the proposed closures would unfairly hamper their ability to fish for striped bass.  

While, to some extent, I could sympathize with the folks from northern New England—they kill relatively few bass, compared to states farther south, and nature has already allowed them the shortest fishing season of any states within the striped bass’ range—the fact remains that everyone has contributed to the species’ decline, and everyone should expect to contribute to its recovery.

So Maine anglers complain about midsummer closures, which hit them at their peak season, while New Jersey fishermen whine that, even though they may catch bass for ten months of the year, closures that impact Wave 3 (May/June) and Wave 6 (November/December) would cause them unacceptable harm.

Here in New York, anglers complain about different possible seasons, depending upon where they fish.  Those who fish on the East End of Long Island abhor the idea of a midsummer closure, but would accept closed seasons in the spring and late fall, while anglers on the western half of Long Island, in Westchester and in New York City share the concerns of New Jersey fishermen, and might grudgingly accept a midseason closure, but don’t want their activities impaired in the spring and the fall.

The need to rebuild the striped bass seems to take second place to anglers’ desires to catch them.

That fact becomes even more clear in the debate between “no-harvest” and “no-target” seasons.

A “no-harvest” season would prohibit anglers from taking fish home, but would not prevent them from practicing catch-and-release; New York’s current striped bass season operates in just that way.  A “no-target” season would prohibit anglers from even trying to catch a striped bass during the closure, regardless of whether or not the fish was released.

Because catch-and-release fishing results in some striped bass dying after being returned to the water, a no-target closure would be shorter than a no-harvest closed season.  However, as a practical matter, no-target seasons are not enforceable, as it is extremely difficult to prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that an angler was actually trying to catch a striped bass and not a bluefish, weakfish, or other species that might be caught at the same time in the same waters using the same angling technique, so the mortality savings attributed to such no-target seasons are largely illusory.

In addition, no-target seasons would unnecessarily deny anglers the social and recreational benefits offered by a catch-and-release fishery, while denying angling-related businesses the economic benefits that accrue from anglers catching and releasing striped bass.

Thus, most recreational striped bass fishermen rightfully argue for no-harvest closures and against a no-target season.

However, far too many anglers are opposing no-target seasons so intensely that they are forgetting that the most important issue being considered isn’t the nature of the closed season, but instead the need to reduce striped bass removals by at least 12%, so that the stock can have a reasonable probability of rebuilding by 2029.  

By de-emphasizing the need for such reduction, those anglers are implying that avoiding a no-target closure—something that could be accomplished merely by taking no management action at all, and so maintaining the current status quo—is more important than rebuilding the stock.

They don’t understand that even ae partial reduction, dependent on a flawed and unenforceable no-target closure, is better than no reduction at all.

And that, too, is wrong.

It is time for everyone involved in the fishery—recreational, commercial, for-hire, and related businesses—to understand that there is nothing more important to all of them than the long-term health of the striped bass stock, and that even if it comes at some temporary cost to business and/or to recreational opportunity, a rebuilt stock will, in the end, benefit everyone.

It is time for everyone to understand that, in the long run, drawing battle lines, and cheering on their own side, rather than coming together for the good of the striped bass resource, only makes it more likely that, in the end, we—and the striped bass—are all going to lose.

Yet it seems that, for far too many, that understanding will never come.

 

 

 

WILL NEW JERSEY GO OUT OF COMPLIANCE WITH STRIPED BASS ADDENDUM III?

 

Because I write this blog, and am fairly involved in the fisheries management process, people often tip me off when something interesting, controversial, or newsworthy is going on somewhere along the coast.

Thus, about 10 days ago, I received a text and a follow-up phone call telling me that “New Jersey”—it wasn’t exactly clear who, just “New Jersey”—had decided that, if the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board approves Addendum III to Amendment 7 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass when it meets later this month, the state would not comply with its management measures, or at least, not with those imposing a closed season on the ocean fishery.

The rumor went on to say that there was some sort of meeting of New Jersey fishing clubs, perhaps under the aegis of the Jersey Coast Anglers Association, but whether that meeting involved New Jersey regulators, and whether those regulators had committed to noncompliance, or just failed to discount the possibility, was unknown.

As any state’s noncompliance with a fisheries management measure can have a serious negative impact on the affected stock all along the coast, a threat of noncompliance is a significant management issue, so I began trying to chase the rumor down, reaching out to contacts in the New Jersey recreational fishing community in an effort to root out the truth.  For a while, my efforts did not yield results, but finally a friend in the Garden State, who happens to be a charter boat captain committed to fisheries conservation, whom I had not contacted in my initial round of inquiries, reached out to me and provided some of the details.

I was told that the decision to go out of compliance with Addendum III was made by the New Jersey Marine Fisheries Council, which had met, in part to discuss that issue, on September 10.  [NOTE:  Since this post was published, I received another comment from an person, who chose not to identify himself, who provided a different version of what took place at the meeting.  He reported, in part "the Council met to discuss the situation and subsequently submitted a comment letter to ASMFC during the open public comment period indicating which management options on the table that they favored and stating their rationale for the options that they favored; the letter did not state that NJ would not comply with any decision made by the ASMFC, nor did it urge the State to currently take such a position on the matter."  His entire message can be found in the comments following this post.  I do not know which version more accurately reflects what went on.]

The New Jersey Marine Fisheries Council was established by the state legislature.  It is composed of 11 individuals, nine of whom are appointed by the state’s governor, and must be confirmed by the state Senate.  Four of the nine persons subject to Senate confirmation must represent the recreational fishery, two must be active commercial fishermen, one an active fish processor, and two shall represent the general public; the other two Council members are the chairmen of the two sections of the state’s Shellfisheries Council.

The Council neither promulgates regulations nor drafts fisheries management plans, although it advises the Commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection on such issues and contributes to the development of management plans.  However, what makes the Council’s decision to go out of compliance with Addendum III very significant is its power to

“disapprove, within 60 days of the proposal thereof and the submittal thereto, any rule or regulation or any amendment thereto proposed by the commissioner pursuant to this act except for any rule or regulation adopted pursuant to subsection (c) of section 4 of the ‘Administrative Procedures Act.’”

Thus, even if New Jersey’s fisheries management professionals want to comply with the ASMFC’s decision on Addendum III, the Council has the authority to veto that decision and force the state into noncompliance.

And from what I was told occurred at the September 10 meeting, the Council intends to do just that.  No minutes of that meeting are yet available, but my contact is knowledgeable enough, and tuned in enough, that I feel comfortable taking him at his word.

I was also told that, of all the fishing clubs and other organizations that belong to the Jersey Coast Anglers Association, all but two—the Berkley Striper Club and Menhaden Defenders—voted to either support the JCAA encouraging the Council to promote noncompliance or endorsing its decision not to comply (the sequence of events isn’t completely clear).

Thus, if the ASMFC ultimately adopts Addendum III, and additional striped bass management measures, at its Annual Meeting, which is scheduled for later this month, there is a very good chance that the Council will either convince state regulators to go out of compliance, or disapprove any compliant regulations.

Either way, New Jersey would not adopt any new and necessary restrictions included in the new addendum.

Technically, even given the Council decision, New Jersey would not be out of compliance with the ASMFC’s striped bass management plan at any time this year, as it is all but certain that, if Addendum III is adopted, it will include a January 1, 2026 compliance date.  Assuming that is the case, all of the states with a declared interest in striped bass will have until then to put the required measures in place.

Thus, the ASMFC and its Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board is going to face a number of decisions, two at its October meeting and, depending on what it decides then, as many as three when it meets again in February 2026.

In October, it will have to decide whether it really believes that New Jersey will go out of compliance and, if it thinks that it will do so, whether to adopt Addendum III and risk a confrontation that it might very well lose, or whether it should either delay the vote or decide to discontinue work on the addendum altogether, in order to avoid a bad outcome.

Right now, it’s impossible to say what path it would take, given the strong fishing tackle industry opposition to Addendum III, coupled with similarly strong opposition from the for-hire and commercial sectors, might be enough to convince some Management Board members that if adopting the addendum, in the face of such opposition, will lead to a compliance battle that it might very well lose, then abandoning Addendum III is the wiser course.

We saw the American Lobster Management Board make such a decision at last February’s ASMFC meeting.

But if the Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board adopts Addendum III in October, and the New Jersey Marine Fisheries Council makes good on its threat to go out of compliance, then the ASMFC will face as many as three decisions in February 2026.

The first is whether the Management Board should move forward with a noncompliance vote, or whether to refrain, tolerate New Jersey’s noncompliance, at least for a while, and not risk undercutting the Commission’s authority by losing a noncompliance fight.

If it decides to find New Jersey out of compliance, and the ASMFC’s Interstate Fishery Management Plan Policy Board endorses its decision, an additional decision arises:  Which law should govern the noncompliance finding?

To date, as far as I know, all of the ASMFC’s noncompliance findings have been made pursuant to the Atlantic Coastal Fisheries Cooperative Management Act, which provides, in relevant part,

“The Commission shall determine that a State is not in compliance with the provisions of a coastal fishery management plan if it finds that the State has not implemented and enforced such plan within the timeframes established under the plan…

“After making a determination [that a State is not in compliance] the Commission shall within 10 working days notify the [Secretary of Commerce] of such determination.  Such notification shall include the reasons for making the determination and an explicit list of actions that the affected State must take to comply with the coastal fishery management plan.  The Commission shall provide a copy of the notification to the affected State…

“Within 30 days after receiving a notice from the Commission…and after review of the Commission’s determination of noncompliance, the Secretary shall make a finding on (1) whether the State in question as failed to carry out its responsibility under [the fishery management plan]; and (2) if so, whether the measures that the State has failed to implement and enforce are necessary for the conservation of the fishery in question…

“Upon making a finding…that a State has failed to carry out its responsibility under [the fishery management plan] and that the measures it failed to implement and enforce are necessary for conservation, the Secretary shall declare a moratorium on fishing in the fishery in question within the waters of the noncomplying State.  The Secretary shall specify the moratorium’s effective date, which shall be any date within 6 months after declaration of the moratorium.  [formatting omitted]”

The Atlantic Coastal Fisheries Act became law in 1993, and for the first 24 years of its existence, the Secretary of Commerce routinely endorsed the ASMFC’s noncompliance findings, and used the moratorium as an incentive to bring states into compliance with the ASMFC’s management plans.

But that all changed during the first Trump administrationwhen, in 2017, the State of New Jersey (yes, them again) decided to go out ofcompliance with the ASMFC’s summer flounder management plan, betting thatpolitical connections (its then-governor, Chris Christie, was an early Trumpsupporter, and so had some political influence within that administration)would trump good science and lead to a favorable decision.

The gamble paid off, as Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross became the first Commerce Secretary in history to override the ASMFC’s finding of noncompliance and excuse a noncompliant state’s actions.

It is not at all unlikely that, if New Jersey went out of compliance with striped bass and a noncompliance finding was made under the Atlantic Coastal Fisheries Act, the same thing would happen again, if for different political reasons.

Thus, the ASMFC might well be reluctant to initiate noncompliance proceedings under that law.

But it may have another, more viable alternative.

In 1984, Congress passed the Atlantic Striped Bass Conservation Act, which actually provided a template for the later law, but differed in an important respect.  Under the Striped Bass Act, if a state went out of compliance with the ASMFC’s striped bass management plan,

“The Commission shall immediately notify the Secretaries [of Commerce and the Interior] of each negative determination made by it…

“Upon receiving notice by the Commission…of a negative determination regarding a coastal State, the Secretaries shall determine jointly, within 30 days, whether the coastal State is in compliance with the Plan and, if the State is not in compliance, the Secretaries shall declare jointly a moratorium on fishing for Atlantic striped bass within the coastal waters of that coastal State…  [formatting omitted]”

The Striped Bass Act has fallen into obscurity since the passage of the Atlantic Coastal Fisheries Act, as the latter addresses all ASMFC-managed fisheries, including that for striped bass.  But the Striped Bass Act was never repealed by Congress, and remains on the books, and it may offer the ASMFC a far better chance of enforcing its noncompliance finding, because it does not require that the Secretary of Commerce (or the Interior) determine whether the provisions that as state has not complied with are “necessary for conservation.”  A mere finding that a state is not in compliance with the striped bass management plan is enough to require that a moratorium be imposed.

Of course, things probably wouldn’t go that smoothly.  The secretaries might well try to impose a “necessary to conservation” standard for political reasons, even though it wasn’t explicitly stated in the statute, and New Jersey might well choose to litigate if the secretaries imposed a moratorium without addressing the necessity of the management measures in question. 

Still, the best evidence of Congressional intent is the plain language of the statute, and “if the State is not in compliance, the Secretaries shall declare jointly a moratorium” is pretty plain and clear.  There’s not much room for interpretation.  If Congress really wanted a “necessary to conservation” standard to apply to the Striped Bass Act, all they would have had to do was write one in--which, after all, they did it in the Atlantic Coastal Fisheries Act.  The fact that they didn’t include similar language in the Striped Bass Act surely suggests that they chose not to do so.

Hopefully, things won’t get that far.

Hopefully, the New Jersey Marine Fisheries Council isn’t quite as determined to go out of compliance as the stories I’m hearing suggest, and hopefully, New Jersey will choose to be a responsible member of the ASMFC that respects the Commission’s decisions, even if they don’t go New Jersey’s way.

But history suggests that expecting New Jersey to act responsibly is expecting too much, and that the state might well choose to place its own short-term interests ahead of the interests of the striped bass resource and all of the anglers, commercial fishermen, and fishing-related businesses lining the coast between Maine and Virginia, that depend on a healthy striped bass stock.

2017 isn’t that far in the past, a Trump administration is again in the White House, and there isn’t any reason to believe that New Jersey doesn’t hope that history will repeat itself if it goes out of compliance again.

So, should New Jersey again decide to act irresponsibly, it’s nice to know that the ASMFC might have an option that could see the latest round of noncompliance, should it occur, bring the consequences such actions deserve.