BLUEFISH: WHY NOT MANAGE FOR LIFE?

To date, salt water fishery management is largely about dead fish.

We worry about fishing mortality. We try to figure out how many fish can be landed without doing long-term harm to the stock.

What we don’t think about very often is how many fish we should leave alive in the water to make the best use of the stock.

Probably nothing illustrates that fact so well as Amendment I to the Bluefish Fishery Management Plan (Amendment), which was drafted jointly by the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council (Council) and the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission.

Bluefish are primarily a recreational species; the commercial fishery is relatively small. The Amendment recognizes that fact by allocating 83% of the harvest to the recreational sector and 17% to commercial fishermen.

But harvest doesn’t tell the entire story.

Many anglers don’t like to eat bluefish. While they make good table fare if bled and iced down immediately after they’re landed, and cooked in a way that masks the oil in their flesh, poor handling or thoughtless preparation can result in strong, fishy-tasting dishes that many people find nearly inedible.

However, a lot of anglers who don’t care to eat bluefish still like to catch them. They are one of the hardest-fighting fish found in coastal waters, strike lures with abandon and are widely available, often coming well within casting range of the shore. As a result, bluefish support an active catch-and-release fishery.

Catch and release fisheries need to be managed differently than fisheries driven by harvest. Anglers don’t care about how many fish they can take home, but do care about the number of fish that they encounter. Instead of being managed to maximize the poundage of fish landed, as is the case in food fisheries, release fisheries must be managed to maximize the number of fish that are left in the water for anglers to catch.

That concept has not yet been grasped by fisheries managers, who still think in terms of dead fish on the dock. So the Amendment provided that “If the commercial quota was less than 10.5 million lbs, the quota could be increased up to 10.5 million lbs if the recreational fishery was not anticipated to land their entire allocation for the upcoming year.”

Such provision sends a bad message to anglers, telling them that there’s not much point releasing their bluefish, because if anglers don’t kill their entire quota, the commercial sector will just kill the fish instead.

That message was reinforced in a report by the Council’s Bluefish Monitoring Committee (Monitoring Committee), in which “The [Monitoring Committee] recommended that a transfer from the recreational fishery to the commercial fishery is applied so that the recreational harvest limit will equal expected landings, and the commercial fishery receives the maximum amount possible.”

Under current management, anglers who release bluefish aren’t rewarded with a more abundant bluefish population. They’re merely compelled to watch “their” fish be killed by someone else.

Such management seems to assume that fish only have value when killed, and that catch and release fishing has no value at all. The Council needs to take a step back and read the relevant provisions of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (Magnuson-Stevens). They might be surprised to learn that the definition of “optimum yield” includes “the amount of fish which…will provide the greatest overall benefit to the Nation, particularly with respect to food production and recreational opportunities…”

The law places recreation on an equal footing with food production. Yet the Council’s Amendment and the Monitoring Committee’s recommendation don’t follow its mandate, and instead favor enhanced harvest over enhanced recreational opportunities.

If the word and the spirit of the law were truly observed, each sector would be able to make its own decisions on how its quota would best be utilized. The nature of commercial fishing dictates that the commercial quota be harvested. However, if the recreational sector effectively decides that the “greatest overall benefit…with respect to…recreation” is realized when some of the fish are harvested and some left in the water to be caught again, the Council should not override that decision by transferring anglers’ unharvested bluefish to the commercial sector.

That is admittedly a philosophical argument, but the quota transfers have also caused a very practical problem.

Quota transfers have occurred in every year since the Amendment was approved in 1999. Commercial fishermen have gotten very used to them, and some now seem to feel entitled to a share of the recreational quota. They seem to have forgotten that, should anglers begin keeping more bluefish, the transfers will go away.

For awhile, it appeared that would happen in 2016.

The Council approved a quota transfer for 2016, based on the assumption that recreational landings in 2016 would be the same as they were in 2015, and that 2015 landings would be about the same as they were in the year before. However, revised landing estimates released in June showed that recreational bluefish landings had spiked, increasing from 4.8 million pounds in 2014 to 6.2 million pounds a year later.

As a result, predicted 2016 bluefish landings were revised upward, too. The National Marine Fisheries Services (NMFS) said that, in response, it planned to cancel the quota transfer for 2016.

Basil Segos, Commissioner of New York’s Department of Environmental Conservation, wrote a letter to NMFS, asking it not to cancel the quota transfer and calling any such cancellation a “devastating blow to our commercial fisheries.” Bonnie Brady, representing the Long Island [New York] Commercial Fishing Association, also opposes NMFS’ cancellation of the quota transfer, saying that, “The precedent it is setting is the more troubling issue.”

Ms. Brady’s statement seems somewhat off the mark, since the real precedent was set when the Council inserted a quota transfer provision into the Amendment; that was the first and only time that such a provision appeared in a Council management plan. As for the rest of her comment, it’s not clear why Ms. Brady would find it “troubling” that the recreational bluefish quota might be landed solely by recreational fishermen.

However, NMFS ultimately backed off its position, announcing on August 1 that further investigation revealed that 2015 recreational landings were being revised downward again, and that 1.57 million pounds of bluefish will be transferred from the recreational to the commercial sector. Such transfer, while smaller than the 2.2 million pounds originally contemplated, should alleviate most of the commercial fishermen’s concerns.

Even so, with the bluefish quota transfer so recently in the news, there could be no better time for the Council to reconsider its quota transfer policy.

Eliminating the transfer would finally allow recreational fishermen to utilize, but not necessarily kill, their entire quota, and maximize recreational opportunities, as Magnuson-Stevens intends. It would also end the commercial sector’s risky dependence on a transfer that might not always occur.

More importantly, ending the quota transfer would be a signal to anglers, letting them know that fisheries managers finally understand that live fish in the water can, in the end, have at least as much value as dead fish on the dock.

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"Bluefish:  Why Not Manage for Life?" originally appeared in "From the Waterfront", the blog of the Marine Fish Conservation Network, which can be found at http://conservefish.org/blog/

WHITHER MENHADEN?

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission held its annual meeting last week, and it’s probably fair to say that setting the 2017 menhaden quota, was the hottest item on the agenda.

Menhaden management is not a new topic at ASMFC.  I’ve been working on it since I first got involved with ASMFC issues back in the mid-1990s, and folks that I know at the Coastal Conservation Association have worked on it longer than that. 

We started back in the days when the reduction industry controlled it all, dominating both the management board and the technical committee.  After a lot of hard work by a lot of dedicated folks, most particularly the CCA guys, ASMFC finally decided to manage menhaden like every other fish, with each state having a say, and no seats reserved for industry spokesmen.

After that, things moved forward by fits and starts, in a highly politicized process that pitted anglers, conservationists and some small-scale commercial fishermen against large-scale commercial operators that can wipe out an entire menhaden school with just one set of their nets and are willing to commit substantial resources in order to swap current regulations for others that will maximize the industrial boats’ short-term kill.

 Scientific uncertainty as to the health of the stock hasn’t been helping the process. 

A stock assessment released in 2011 provided more questions than answers.  It found that there was little or no clear connection between the size of the menhaden stock and the number of young-of-the-year fish recruited into the population.  No population model seemed to provide a good fit for the species.  However, based on the information available, biologists determine that, although the stock was not overfished, overfishing was probably occurring.

An update to the stock assessment conducted in 2012 agreed with the conclusions of the previous assessment, but contained the comment that

“Overall, the retrospective pattern and a number of other issues cast considerable doubt on the accuracy of the estimates from this update stock assessment.”

Concerns about the quality of menhaden management led ASMFC to adopt an amendment to the management plan in late 2012.  That amendment adopted more biologically justifiable reference points for use in determining when the stock might be overfished or experiencing overfishing.

More importantly, the amendment recognized that menhaden were a very important forage fish, which were preyed upon by a host of fish, birds and marine mammals, and that as a result of such status, the reference points adopted in the amendment were only for interim use, until ecologically-based reference points, which would take account of the menhaden’s role in the coastal food web, could be developed.

ASMFC clearly stated that

“the Amendment is designed to minimize the chance of a population decline due to overfishing, reduce the risk of recruitment failure, reduce impacts to species which are ecologically dependent on Atlantic menhaden, and minimize adverse effects on participants in the fishery.”

In order to achieve such goals, the amendment reduced harvest by 20% until a new benchmark stock assessment, which hopefully provided a better picture of the health of the population, could be produced.  It would be an understatement to say that the big industrial harvesters were not happy.

Thus, when the new stock assessment was being prepared, the reduction industry made sure that they were a part of the process.  Their goal was to demonstrate that there were more fish in the population than biologists believed, in order to justify an increased harvest.

They did that by arguing that the samples used by scientists to determine the size of the population did not survey all age classes equally; that older, larger fish were being missed by the samplers.  As things turned out, there was evidence to support such claim, with four different sets of data capturing older fish that were not showing up in surveys of the menhaden fishery.  As a result, when the next stock assessment was completed in December 2014, it depicted a much healthier stock than did its predecessors.

Now, ASMFC’s Atlantic Menhaden Management Board is trying to figure out how to deal with that conclusion.

Last June, using data based on the most recent stock assessment, ASMFC’s Atlantic Menhaden Technical Committee determined that there was no chance of overfishing occurring, even if harvest was increased by 40% in 2017.  Naturally, that energized the industrial fishing interests, with Jeff Kaelin, a representative of Lund’s Fisheries of Cape May, New Jersey, stating

“We’re focused on the science.  If the science supports an increase, we want to take it.”

But whether or not the science supports an increase depends very much on a person’s point of view.

If someone’s sole concern is whether harvest can be increased in 2017 without exceeding the overfishing threshold, the answer is certainly yes.  However, the same stock assessment that relied on a larger than previously believed number of large fish in the population to support such an increase also showed that recent recruitment hasn’t been all that good; it found that the number of small fish in the population was relatively low.

Thus, killing a lot of fish in 2017 could possibly lead to a problem a few years down the road.

And that’s when the only concern is the mere sustainability of menhaden harvest.  When we look to the real future of menhaden management, management based on biological and ecological reference points, the science does not clearly show that harvest can be safely increased.

When managing under such ecological reference points, harvest is not the first thing on scientists’ minds.  Instead, they initially have to determine the volume of menhaden required to sustain the species’ role in the coastal food web; that is, how much menhaden is needed to support fully-restored populations of striped bass, bluefish, king mackerel, red drum, weakfish and predatory fish, along with the ospreys, bald eagles, bottlenosed dolphins, humpbacked whales and various other birds and marine mammals that feed on menhaden on  a regular basis.

After that’s figured out, the appropriate amount of fish must be set aside to provide necessary ecosystem services, before harvest can even be considered.  Only after that is done should managers begin to look at how many menhaden may safely be harvested while still assuring that the population can not only sustain itself in the long-term, but also provide forage for all of the predators that benefit from an abundant menhaden population.

Since the needed science is still being developed, no one knows how many menhaden may be safely harvest under such criteria, but it’s a pretty good bet that the number will be a lot lower than current harvest.

Thus, conservation groups and anglers say, ASMFC shouldn’t be in a hurry to increase landings now.  As the Chesapeake Bay Foundation notes,

“Some advocates for the fishing industry are urging an increase in the quota, arguing that the [most recent] assessment shows a healthy population.  [Chesapeake Bay Foundation] and others are urging caution and more thorough analysis to ensure there are enough menhaden to serve as forage for other species in the coastal ecosystem.

“While the population does appear to be in better condition than previously thought, it is still a long way from being healthy and certainly a long way from fulfilling all the forage needs of striped bass and other predators.  The new assessment only shows the status of the menhaden population independent of other species and not its robustness within the food web.”

On the other side, the Menhaden Fisheries Coalition issued a release saying that

“An analysis conducted by scientists at the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission finds that the coastwide Altantic menhaden quota can be substantially raised without impacting the sustainability of the species.”

The Coalition release notes that

“In 2015, the ASMFC’s Atlantic menhaden stock assessment found that the menhaden stock was healthy and sustainably managed, with the species neither overfished nor experiencing overfishing.  It also found that fishing mortality is at an all-time low, and that menhaden fecundity (egg production) has been strong in recent years.”

However, the release fails to tell readers that the stock assessment also found there is no strong link between egg production and the size of any particular year class, or that relatively few young menhaden have been recruited into the population in recent years.  It also completely failed to address the menhaden’s role as an important forage fish, or the consideration that managers should give to the menhaden’s important place in the food web.

Thus, the two sides were arrayed for a confrontation at last week’s meeting. 

It resulted in deadlock.

Although the meeting ran on for well over three hours, neither side could make any headway.  Conservationists repeatedly frustrated industry efforts to substantially increase their kill, while lacking the single key vote that would allow them to obtain a plurality of the vote needed to put a conservative menhaden quota in place. 

The only thing that the two sides could eventually agree on was to postpone the rest of the discussion to the Management Board’s October meeting.

That put the pro-conservation folks in a bad place.

Bob Vanasse, a representative of the Menhaden Fisheries Coalition, reportedly said after the meeting that

“all of the reasonable people want a quota of some sort.”

He also indicated that there would be a lot of informal politicking between now and October to get enough votes behind one of the proposals, to adopt such a quota.

Still, folks such as Venasse have a stronger hand, for if ASMFC fails to adopt a 2017 menhaden quota, states with important menhaden fisheries will feel free to relax restrictions on harvest, something that, under any set of assumptions, could not be good for the stock.

So now everyone finds themselves caught up in a big game of political chicken, in which each side is trying to force the other to blink and offer a generous compromise. 

The industrial harvesters worry that conservation advocates will find a way to pick up just one more vote, and then be able to freeze landings at the current level.

The pro-conservation folks, on the other hand, must worry that no compromise will be reached, and that the lack of any coastwide quota will allow states such as Virginia and New Jersey will unleash their industrial fleets, and decimate the menhaden resource.  Or, in the alternative, they worry that the threat of such unfettered harvest will coerce one more state to enter into a compromise that will still up the kill by 20% or more.

It’s a bad place to put the fishery.

But it still could end will if managers changed their focus from dead fish to live ones, and took no action until folks figure out how many menhaden must remain in the ocean to assure a sustainable fishery not only for menhaden, but for everything that feeds on them as well.

ONE COAST, ONE RULE

Fisheries management can be a complicated and sometimes confusing business.  Here on the East Coast, one of the more complicated and often confusing concepts is that of “conservation equivalency,” as practiced by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission.

It comes into play after ASMFC has adopted a set of management measures as part of a fishery management plan.  In order to comply with such plan, all states must either adopt the precise measures proposed by ASMFC, or come up with alternate measures that have the same conservation effect—have “conservation equivalency”—pass muster with the relevant Technical Committee and are approved by the appropriate species Management Board.

Conservation equivalency is deeply enshrined in the governing documents of ASMFC.  The Standards and Procedures for Interstate Fishery Management Plans, included in the Interstate Fisheries Management Program Charter, states that

“If the [Fishery Management Plan so provides, procedures under which the states my implement and enforce alternate management measures that achieve conservation equivalency”

must be included in such plan.

The same Charter defines “conservation equivalency” as

“Actions take by a state which differ from the specific requirements of the [Fishery Management Plan], but which achieve the same quantified level of conservation for the resource under management.  For example, various combinations of size limits, gear restrictions, and season length can be demonstrated to achieve the same targeted level of fishing mortality.  The appropriate Management Board/Section will determine conservation equivalency.”

ASMFC has also developed a “Policy and Technical Guidance Document” to help apply the conservation equivalency concept in practice.  Such document provides, in part, that

“During the development of a management document, the Plan Development Team (PDT) has the responsibility to recommend if conservation equivalency should be permitted for that species…The PDT should consider stock status, data availability, range of the species, socio-economic information, and the potential for more conservative management when stocks are overfished or overfishing is occurring when making a recommendation on conservation equivalency.  [emphasis added]

And thus the can of worms is opened…

I need to say at the start that, under some circumstances, conservation equivalency can be a very good thing.  

The best example of that may be seen in the recreational summer flounder fishery, where fish are both larger and more abundant toward the northern end of their range, and a single, coastwide size limit would work a real and unnecessary hardship on states in the southern mid-Atlantic.

Given the solid biological basis for differing state regulations, it’s hard to question the wisdom of invoking conservation equivalency.

Conservation equivalency also seems to have worked with scup.  More than 90% of the harvest is taken by New York, Connecticut, Rhode island and Massachusetts, and a large portion of that comes from waters between Long Island’s East End and the “elbow” of Cape Cod, where boats from multiple states often anchor up within sinker-throwing distance of one another.  

Under such conditions, it makes sense for the same set of regulations to apply to all anglers from the quad-state region.

But does it make sense for the rest of the coast to fish under different regulations?

In the aggregate, anglers in New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Massachusetts landed about 4,500,000 scup in 2015.  Anglers on the rest of the coast accounted for around 34,000, with more than 31,000 of those fish coming from New Jersey.   

Maryland, where scup are so scarce that its anglers reportedly landed a grand total of 309 scup in 2015, has a bag limit of 50 fish per day, while anglers in the northern states, which enjoy an abundance of fish, may generally land only 30.  Does that seem right to you?

While adopting conservation equivalency for scup probably doesn't cause any harm, it’s also hard to argue that doing so does any significant good.

Things reallyh start to get problematic when conservation equivalency is invoked for purely “socio-economic” reasons.  

I’ve said before that if my involvement with fisheries issues has taught me anything, it’s that if folks try hard enough, they can always find a reason to do the wrong thing.  Just about everybody can come up with a reason to kill too many fish.

Applying conservation equivalency to the coastal striped bass fishery clearly demonstrates that point.

As a lot of folks know, striped bass are a migratory fish, that travel for hundreds of miles up and down the Atlantic seaboard.  Although there are small spawning populations in a number of rivers between North Carolina and Maine, most of the coastal migratory stock is spawned in Chesapeake Bay, with other smaller, but still important, spawning areas in the Hudson River and the Delaware River estuary.

Once mature and a part of the coastal migratory population, an individual striped bass may migrate from wintering grounds off North Carolina all the way up to Maine and back south again in the course of a single year.

Striped bass abundance is largely driven by the success of the annual spawn, which in turn seems driven, at least in Chesapeake Bay, by environmental conditions.  Cold winters followed by wet springs tend to produce large year classes, while warm winters and dry springs have led to the smallest year classes on record.

When the same fish are traveling through the waters of multiple states, there is no biological justification for regulations that subject those fish to different rules as they travel from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.  

In fact, such regulations can be an impediment to management.  At the October 2014 Striped Bass Management Board meeting, where a new, more restrictive addendum to the management plan was being created, a representative of the Striped Bass Technical Committee noted that

“the technical committee has greater certainty in the percent reduction of simple management measures…

“The technical committee does not have a specific recreational management option, but does remind the board that more simple management measures have been successful when managing striped bass in the past.”

In other words, gauging the effectiveness of uncomplicated management measures—say, a 1-fish bag limit and 28-inch minimum size—applied coastwide is relatively simple.  Give states the freedom to adopt slot limits, a second “trophy” fish or other alternate management measures, and things get a lot more complicated.

But, of course, that doesn’t stop states from trying to connive ways to increase their own anglers’ kill.

At that October 2014 meeting, Adam Nowalsky, the legislative proxy from New Jersey, set the tone early when he stated, soon after the meeting began

“I think we just need to be very clear on the record for the audience that the options we select today may not be the options that individual states implement and that phrase ‘all jurisdictions will implement’ really only means in the absence of them bringing forward a conservation equivalent proposal, and I just wanted confirmation of that.”

It was certainly very clear, from his statement, that even if the Management Board adopted a 1-fish bag limit, or other conservative measures, New Jersey had no intention of going along.

New Jersey's intent was reinforced later in the meeting, when Mr. Nowalsky tried to convince the Management Board to adopt no specific management measures at all, but rather made a motion that

“the states submit for technical review and board approval conservation equivalency proposals for 2015 that achieve the 25 percent and 20.5 percent reductions for the coastal and Chesapeake Bay recreational fisheries, respectively.”

He justified his motion, which was amended to merely address the coastal fishery, by saying

“States are expected to come forward with proposals, anyway.  By selecting one of the proposals here tonight, I believe we’re doing ourselves an injustice in two areas.  One, we’re setting an expectation with the public that all states are going to come back with that regulation exactly.  If we go ahead and come for a proposal for a one-fish limit, let’s say, and most states come back with two-fish conservation proposals, then you’re going to have an outcry from the public about why we’re allowing that.

“Secondly, I believe that the column that is in the table [of management options] on the right-hand side that describes a specific percentage associated with each of the specific options would also serve to be misleading when our conservation proposals are going to come back at the 25 percent target and not the numbers that are higher up to 31 percent in the column.”

It’s a telling comment.

Mr. Nowalsky had no regard for the overwhelming public support for a one-fish bag limit.  Even if the Management Board adopted such a limit, he expected “most states,” which certainly would include New Jersey, to ignore the will of the angling public and support a bigger kill, even if doing so led to an “outcry” from a public that he clearly held in contempt.

In addition, he was making it manifest that, even if the Management Board adopted a more conservative measure, anglers in states which did the right thing and followed that board’s advice would be put at a disadvantage when compared to those in states which adopted conservation equivalency, where any harvest reduction would be limited to the minimum 25 percent required by the Management Board.

When you think about it, that’s a pretty troubling message, on a number of levels.

Mr. Nowalsky’s motion didn’t fly, and was quickly amended.  But the amendment was a little strange; it would have set a 1-fish bag and 32-inch minimum size, but still allow any conservation equivalent proposals to only achieve a 25% reduction.

David Simpson, the fisheries director from Connecticut, quickly saw the problem with that, and made an eloquent case against conservation equivalency, saying

“I’m concerned it is going undermine one of the most desirable features of striped bass management, and that has been consistency among states…one at 32…is probably, I’m going to guess a 40 percent reduction…

“[Y]ou’re adding four more inches to 28 and [1 fish at 28 inches is a] 31 percent [reduction], or almost half of that by conservation equivalency; we’re all going to go home and be under a great deal of pressure to do something different.  Even if we don’t, our neighbors will…we’re going to end up three different sets of rules within a 3.5 mile radius of [where the meeting was held in Mystic, Connecticut].  I would be OK with [1 fish at 32 inches], certainly, but not with its conservation equivalency.  [emphasis added]”     

However, the Management Board didn’t heed his wise words, and ultimately adopted recommended regulations that included a 1-fish bag and 28-inch minimum size on the coast, which would theoretically reduce fishing mortality by 31%, but set the conservation equivalency standard at 25%. 

For the recreational fishery in Chesapeake Bay, no management measures were recommended at all; regulations merely needed to achieve a conservation equivalency of 20.5%.

Nearly two years later, we know how that turned out.

Most coastal states adhered to the 1 fish bag and 28-inch minimum size recommended by ASMFC.  Collectively, they achieved a fishing mortality reduction of 41%, somewhat better than the 31% predicted.  However, New Jersey, which always intended to ignore the recommended management measures in favor of conservation equivalency, didn’t come close to matching the performance of the other states.  

Reducing its fishing mortality by a mere 18.7%, it failed to meet even the minimum standard of 25%.

Yet New Jersey did well compared to the Chesapeake Bay states.  Not only didn’t they come close to reducing their fishing mortality by 20.5%, but they didn’t reduce it at all.  

Instead, recreational striped bass landings in the Chesapeake increased by 53.4%

And that probably says all that we need to know about adopting conservation equivalency for “socio-economic” reasons, because “socio-economic reasons” is just another way to say “killing more fish.” 

When conservation equivalency is adopted for biological reasons, those biological factors tend to limit the catch in a way that makes alternate regulations truly “equivalent” to those recommended by ASMFC.

However, conservation equivalent regulations adopted for “socio-economic” reasons are rarely anything more than a way to game the management system, allowing states to manipulate the data in a manner that will increase their anglers’ kill.

Thus, it is well past time for ASMFC to take a hard look at how conservation equivalency is used in its management plan, and to adopt a firm policy of “One Coast, One Rule” unless the biology of the managed stock dictates otherwise.

STRIPED BASS: IS ANYONE ACCOUNTABLE?

This week, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Striped Bass Management Board will meet to determine state compliance with Addendum IV to Amendment 6 of the Atlantic Striped Bass Interstate Fishery Management Plan, which was supposed to reduce fishing mortality coastwide by 25%, when compared to such mortality in 2013.  The rule for Chesapeake Bay was a little different; there, because of certain actions already taken in the region, the Bay jurisdictions were required to cut landings by 20.5%, when compared to 2012.

As part of the management process, ASMFC issued a 2016 Review of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass, which reviewed each state’s landings and measured such states’ compliance with Addendum IV.

It is an interesting document that contains some good, some bad and some ambiguous news; such news is worded in very careful ways.

The good news is that, over all, there were meaningful reductions in fishing mortality. 

The coastal commercial fishery reduced harvest by 32.6% compared to 2013, which was a good thing.  All states except Rhode Island managed to keep landings below their individual quotas.  Rhode Island exceeded its quota by a modest amount, not quite 7,000 pounds’ the state’s commercial fishermen were held fully accountable for that overage, with the excess landings deducted from their 2016 quota.

Chesapeake Bay’s commercial fishermen also stayed within their quota.  2015 landings were 24.2% below landings in 2012.

There was also good news with respect to coastal recreational landings.  Harvest was down 41% compared to 2013, although how much of that was due to the regulations, and how much due to reduced angling effort brought about by an absence of bass, is open to debate.  Nearly all the states managed to reduce their landings by at least 25%.  The one exception was, to no one’s surprise, New Jersey, which always seems to convince the relevant Technical Committee to let it adopt “conservation equivalent” regulations that allow Garden State anglers to kill more fish than their peers in other states and shirk their responsibilities to help conserve the stock.

However, the greatest failure was that of Chesapeake Bay anglers.  They were supposed to decrease their landings by 20.5%; they ended up increasing their landings by 52.4% instead.  And a significant percentage of those fish were between 18 and 22 inches (fork length) long, strongly suggesting that they were from the big 2011 year class that, according to the most recent benchmark stock assessment, is supposed to play a meaningful role in rebuilding the stock.

Killing too many of those fish is clearly not good.  The question is, what is anyone going to do about it.

It doesn’t appear that ASMFC’s Atlantic Striped Bass Plan Development Team is recommending remedial action.  It states in its 2016 Review that

“each state and jurisdiction implemented a management program for 2015 consistent with the requirements of Amendment 6 and Addenda I-IV.”

Maybe that’s true, and maybe it isn’t.  It all depends on what one means by “consistent with the requirements of Amendment 6 and Addenda I-IV.”

If one means adopting recreational regulations that are the same as, or adjudged equivalent to, those included in the final version of Addendum IV, then the statement is perfectly correct.

On the other hand, if one means actually getting the job done in practice, not just on paper, and reducing recreational harvest 25% on the coast and 20.5% in Chesapeake Bay, then some states’ regulations aren’t consistent with Addendum IV at all.

The question is, what is ASMFC’s Striped Bass Management Board going to do about it?  

If it was up to the State of Maryland, they would increase the kill and reward that state's anglers for not reducing their harvest, by giving them even more fish.  Last December, Mike Luisi, of the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, told a Striped Bass Management Board meeting that

“I’ve heard the word ‘crisis’ from my stakeholders.  The charter, the recreational and the commercial industry are all suffering greatly as a result of the reductions that we’ve taken…

“This board gave us the opportunity in the Chesapeake Bay to seek a lesser reduction of 20.5 percent.  We implemented measures to achieve that 20.5 percent.  What we’ve been hearing through Wave 4 on the recreational harvest indicates that we’re grossly over that 20.5…

“I can’t sit back and explain to people in my state that we’re going to hold the line and we’re going to wait until 2019 before any consideration would be given to making corrections given that there was no socioeconomic evaluation of these reductions, fishing mortality was at the target, given the latest best available science.”

To be fair, a 2015 update to the benchmark stock assessment did paint a rosier picture than did the benchmark assessment itself.  While the benchmark assessment made it appear extremely likely that the stock would be overfished at some point in 2015, the 2015 update reduced the likelihood of overfishing to a mere 49%...

Fishing mortality, on the other hand, at 0.205, was a little closer to threshold (0.219) then target (0.180).

But what is really striking about the Maryland statement is how wrong the basic premise was.

While the commercial sector did accept a real reduction in landings, it’s hard to understand how Maryland anglers experienced a “crisis” and were “suffering” as a result of regulations that allowed their landings to increase by 50%.

And as far as Maryland’s recreational harvest reductions being “grossly” more than 20.5%, well, the data shows us that the only thing grossly out of hand was the level of misrepresentation.

One has to wonder whether representatives of the state feel any shame when they try to present a 50% increase in landings as a “crisis” resulting in “suffering,” and try to use it to justify an increased kill.

And since that 50% increase over what Maryland caught in 2012 represents a nearly 100% increase over what Maryland should have landed in 2015, one also has to wonder whether anyone will hold Maryland accountable for killing far too many striped bass.

Think about it.  

Rhode Island commercial striped bass fishermen exceeded their state quota by less than 4%, and are going to have those fish subtracted from their quota this year.  Maryland recreational striped bass fishermen exceeded their target by about 95%.  

Is it right that they should get off scott-free, willing and able to overfish once again in 2017?

I’m not suggesting that they pay back their overage; if they did, they wouldn’t fish at all in the upcoming season.  But it wouldn’t be unreasonable for the Management Board to compel Maryland to adopt new regulations that will actually have a chance of achieving a 20.5% reduction, instead of an increase, in landings.

New Jersey presents a far less egregious, but still objectionable, situation.  

The state was allowed to adopt regulations that supposedly had “conservation equivalency” to a one-fish bag and 28-inch minimum size.  On paper, perhaps they did.  But after a year of on-the-water experience, it’s clear that not only did New Jersey fail to reduce its harvest by the minimum 25%, but that its landings reduction was far less than that of nearby states that hewed to the 1 fish at 28 inches standard.

That makes it pretty clear that the New Jersey rules are not “equivalent” to the standard adopted in Addendum IV, and provides solid ground for the Management Board to refuse to allow the state to follow the same regulations next year.  It should be either compelled to adhere to the 1-fish, 28-inch standard, or come up with rules more likely to truly have a similar impact on harvest.

Whether ASMFC does take action to rein in such state excesses will tell us whether it truly believes in states sharing the burdens and benefits of fisheries management or, whether George Orwell’s Animal Farm had it right, and

“all animals are equal but some animals [including fish hogs] are more equal than others.”

WHO HAS THE RIGHT TO MANAGE RED SNAPPER?

Louisiana Congressman Garret Graves is the primary sponsor of H.R. 3094, legislation that would strip the National Marine Fisheries Service of its authority to manage red snapper in the Gulf of Mexico, and to turn that authority over to the five Gulf states.

Rep. Graves has provided a number of justifications in support of such bill, ranging from the alleged inaccuracy of federal fisheries data to a presumption that anglers would have better access to a state-managed resource. Recently, in a Facebook post, he came out and baldly said, “This is about state’s rights.”

And that is just wrong.

The Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (Magnuson-Stevens) clearly says that “the United States claims, and will exercise in the manner provided for in this Act, sovereign rights and exclusive fishery management authority over all fish, and all Continental Shelf fishery resources, within the exclusive economic zone…”

However, Magnuson-Stevens also says that “Except [for situations where state regulation will substantially and adversely affect a fishery management plan for a fishery predominantly prosecuted in the exclusive economic zone], nothing in this Act shall be construed as extending or diminishing the jurisdiction or authority of any State within its boundaries.”

Such language, combined with provisions of the federal Submerged Lands Act, which grants coastal sovereignty over natural resources, including fish, located within three miles of their coastlines (and within three marine leagues of the coastlines of Texas and the west coast of Florida), may have led people to believe that the states have an inherent right to manage coastal fisheries, whether in state or, as Rep. Graves asserts, in federal waters.

A review of court decisions shows that such belief is unfounded. The federal government, and not the states, has primary jurisdiction over the fish that swim off our coast.

That was made clear in the Supreme Court decision United States v. California, where the Court noted that

“At the time this country won its independence from England there was no settled international custom or understanding between nations that each nation owned a three-mile water belt along its borders…when this nation was formed, the idea of a three-mile belt over which a littoral nation could exercise rights of ownership was but a nebulous suggestion. Neither the English charters granted to this nation’s settlers, nor the treaty of peace with England, nor any other document to which [the Court had] been referred, showed a purpose to set apart a three-mile ocean belt for colonial or state ownership…

“It did happen that shortly after we became a nation our statesmen became interested in establishing a national dominion over a definite marginal zone to protect our neutrality. Largely as a result of their efforts, the idea of a definite three-mile belt in which an adjacent nation can, if it chooses, exercise broad, if not complete dominion, has apparently at last been generally accepted throughout the world…That the political agencies of this nation both claim and exercise broad dominion and control over our three-mile marginal belt is now a settled fact.

“Not only has acquisition, as it were, of the three-mile belt been accomplished by the National Government, but protection and control of it has been and is a function of national external sovereignty. The belief that local interests are so predominant as constitutionally to require state dominion over lands under its land-locked navigational waters finds some argument for its support. But such can hardly be said in favor of state control over any part of the ocean…”

The decision completely undercuts Rep. Graves’ state’s rights assertion, saying

“Conceding that the state has been authorized to exercise local police power functions in the part of the marginal belt within its declared boundaries, these do not detract from the Federal Government’s paramount rights in and power over this area…national interests, responsibilities, and therefore national rights are paramount in waters lying to the seaward [of the low water mark] in the three mile belt.”

Although United States v. California dealt with mineral rights rather than fisheries regulation, the language of the decision, which speaks of “national dominion” and the nation’s “paramount rights…in waters lying…in the three mile belt” makes it clear that it applies to natural resources that reside within, and not merely beneath, such waters.

Another Supreme Court decision, Skiriotes v. Florida, makes it clear that a state’s authority to regulate fisheries in federal waters is limited to situations where the federal government has chosen not to regulate the fishery in question. Even then, a state may only regulate the actions of its own citizens, and not the citizens of any other state.

Thus, Rep. Graves’ state’s rights argument is shown to be completely false. It seems to spring from the same kind of false assumptions that have led some of his colleagues to call for “returning” ownership of vast tracts of federal land to a number of western states. Just as such land belonged to the federal government before the states ever existed, making the notion of “returning” it to the states nonsensical, so did the federal government have dominion over the three-mile coastal sea before the states ever tried to assume such control.

Another, even more basic, consideration militates against Rep. Graves’ state’s rights claim.

Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution of the United States gives Congress the authority “To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes.” Courts have construed that so-called “Commerce Clause” very broadly, with one landmark Supreme Court decision holding that even a few bushels of wheat, grown by a farmer for his personal use, are subject to federal regulation.

If that is the case, then the Gulf of Mexico red snapper fishery, which generates commercial landings worth $11.5 million annually, that are subsequently shipped throughout the nation, and also supports a recreational fishery that contributes no less than $61.6 million to the gross domestic product while playing a significant role in the interstate tourism industry, certainly falls within the Commerce Clause’s ambit.

Thus, the Constitution, federal statutes and the common law make it clear that red snapper management is not a “state’s rights” issue at all, but rather an issue that is, first and foremost, a federal concern.

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