TAUTOG: SOMETIMES, IT'S GOOD TO BE WRONG

I’ve been a consistent critic of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s efforts to manage tautog (a/k/a “blackfish”), and for very good reason.

The ASMFC first learned that tautog had become overfished in1996.  However, faced with dogged fishing industry opposition to every effort to reduce fishing mortality, the Commission delayed taking decisive action to rebuild the stock.  Instead, it adopted a long series of half-measures that were never restrictive enough to make a significant difference; as a result, tautog stubbornly refused to rebuild.

It wasn’t until 2017, fully twenty-one years after the stock was declared to be overfished, that the ASMFC’s Tautog Management Board finally adopted an amendment to its management plan that had a decent chance of rebuilding the stock.  Even then, with respect to the tautog in Long Island Sound, arguably the single most productive piece of water in the species’ entire range, the Management Board failed to adopt biologists’ recommended measures.  Instead, it opted for significantly less restrictive regulations, which were not expected to end overfishing until 2029.

Given that, I predicted that Long Island Sound’s tautog stock would not only fail to rebuild, but would continue to decline.  As recently as last week, I also suggestedthat tautog would be the next northeastern fish species to become too scarce tosupport significant recreational or commercial fisheries.

For once, it appears that I was overly pessimistic about the tautog’s future, and that my predictions were wrong.

I’m happy about that.

Recently, the ASMFC released a stock assessment update that covered all four tautog stocks which, to my surprise, seem to be doing better than they were in 2017.

Back then, only the Massachusetts-Rhode Island stock was doing well.  The Long Island Sound and New Jersey-New York Bight stocks were both overfished and experiencing overfishing, while the Delaware-Maryland-Virginia stock was overfished, although overfishing was not occurring.

Today, the Massachusetts-Rhode Island stock remains healthy.  The Long Island Sound stock, although not fully recovered, is no longer overfished, and is no longer experiencing overfishing.  The New Jersey-New York Bight stock remains overfished, but overfishing is no longer occurring; there is a 53% chance that biomass will rise above the threshold denoting an overfished stock by 2025.  The Delaware-Maryland-Virginia stock, like the Long Island Sound stock, is not yet rebuilt but no longer overfished.

Over all, the tautog news is pretty good.

At the same time, it doesn’t mean that managers shouldn’t proceed with caution for, except in the case of the Rhode Island-Massachusetts stock, the tautog’s recovery remains somewhat fragile.

With respect to the Long Island Sound stock, the assessment update noted that

“Short term projections (five years) were conducted to evaluate the risk to the stock for maintaining status quo management.  While there is little risk that the stock will be overfished in the near future, the stock is still at risk of overfishing with the current level of removals, so precaution should be taken in management decisions.  [emphasis added]”

The need for precaution is reinforced by the level of uncertainty inherent in the stock assessment.  A Preliminary Risk and Uncertainty Report prepared in connection with the assessment stated that, with respect to the Long Island Sound stock,

“The [Marine Recreational Information Program] estimates have high [Percent Standard Errors], especially as a result of splitting New York between Long Island Sound and New York Bight.  The interruptions to the recreational sampling surveys and fishery independent surveys in 2020 increase uncertainty.  There is high uncertainty in catch and catch-at-age due to poor sample sizes.  There is an age 1+ fishery independent index with a long time series; however, it is a trawl survey, which is not ideal for tautog.  Overall, there are few biological observations.  There are not enough catch and length observations for all modes, particularly headboats (no length observations since 2016), spear fishing (no observations at all), and the commercial fleet (few observations).  Length-age observations had to be borrowed from different years and different regions to fill out a minimal age-length key.  The retrospective patterns were large but in a conservative direction.  The retrospective patterns fit within the 95% confidence intervals, however the percent difference in [fishing mortality] is as high as 250% different from 2020.  Retrospective patterns in recruitment are distributed more evenly, some years overestimating some underestimating.  Harvest is fairly variable.”

In addition,

“The recreational fishery accounts for about 96% of tautog removals in the LIS region in weight.  Tautog fishermen are poorly encountered in [Marine Recreational Information Program] sampling and MRIP estimates for the region have moderate to high [Percent Standard Errors], indicating limited ability to accurately estimate catch.  As a result, there is limited capacity to regulate removals and assess recreational compliance.  In addition, there are difficulties with separating Long Island Sound catch from New York Bight catch for New York.  There are significant concerns with illegal and unreported harvesting in the region, however, the commercial tagging program was implemented to help combat these issues.  There is a high level of fishing activity and interest in tautog from fishermen in the LIS region.”

Given that degree of uncertainty, it’s only prudent to view the Long Island Sound tautog’s recovery with more than just a grain of salt.  Still, there is other data that, while largely anecdotal, supports the notion that the stock’s health is improving.

One is angler effort.  On the Connecticut side of Long Island Sound (unfortunately, because publicly available New York MRIP data doesn’t distinguish between the Sound and the New York Bight, I can’t make the same comparisons for that state), the number of trips primarily targeting tautog has been increasing since the new management measures took effect.  In 2018, Connecticut anglers made more than 353,000 targeted tautog trips.  That number increased to 464,000 in 2019 and 490,000 in 2021.

Given that angler effort is typically tied to the abundance of the targeted species, steadily increasing effort can be an indicator of increasing abundance.

The number of fish landed seems to vary from year to year, with 2018 seeing the lowest landings, 2019 the highest, and 2020 falling in between, making it hard to say that anglers are actually catching more fish.  Given that the percent standard error for those years are 37.7, 25.7, and 20.6, respectively, and indicate a high degree of uncertainty, the fact that fewer fish seem to have been caught in 2020, despite increasing effort (PSEs for effort were nearly as high, at 25.7, 32.4, and 19.1, admittedly adding uncertainty to the “increasing effort” argument as well) probably shouldn’t be seen as a sign that tautog were becoming less available.

Another factor that seems to suggest that the health of the tautog stock may be improving is the ratio between fish harvested and fish released.  In 2018, that ratio was 13.6 tautog released for every one kept.  Such ratio dropped to 3.4 in 2019, then increased to 7.9 in 2020.

Once again, the inherent uncertainty, expressed as PSE, in the estimates clouds the trend of the numbers.  However, when effort, landings, and the number of larger fish in the population all seem to be increasing, it is much easier to become comfortable with the optimistic conclusions in the stock assessment, despite the existing uncertainty.

Yes, it is possible that the stock assessment could still be wrong, that the tautog stock in Long Island Sound remains overfished, and that overfishing is still continuing.  But given the data, and the trends in such data, since 2018, it seems more likely that I was wrong about the species’ outlook, and that the state of the tautog is slowly and steadily improving.

It’s a mistake that I’ll gladly own up to.  I grew up fishing for tautog from the Connecticut shore, and from boats on Long Island Sound.  I recall when the fish were abundant.

Nothing would make me happier than to see tautog abundant again.  The assessment update gives me hope that could happen.

It also gave me the incentive to take a ride up to my old fishing grounds this weekend, where I’ll check out tautog abundance for myself.

I’m looking forward to the trip.

STRIPED BASS: IF WE GET AMENDMENT 7 WRONG

We all know that, right now, striped bass aren’t in good shape.  A recent stock assessment found them to be overfished, and the recruitment of new fish into the population isn’tgoing all that well.

There were big year classes in 2001 and 2003, but that was two decades ago, and the survivors are dwindling fast, although if you catch a high-40s or 50-plus fish, those two year classes are probably responsible.

Spawning was generally below average from 2004 to 2010.  After that, there was a big year class in 2011 that Amendment IV to Amendment 6 to the Atlantic Striped Bass Interstate Fishery Management Plan was supposed to protect, but for whatever reason, failed to do; the 2011s never recruited into the spawning stock in the expected numbers, although there still seems to be fair numbers of them around.

2012 saw the lowest Maryland juvenile abundance index ever recorded.  2013 was better, but far from good, 2014 just below average; 2015 produced a solid year class that, while not as big as the 2011s, recruited into the stock in greater numbers and arguably forms the current last, best hope for rebuilding the spawning stock biomass.

Very slightly above-average year classes in 2017 and 2018—I tend to think of them as “strong average” given the statistical uncertainty and the fact that they’re only a couple of points above the average level—could provide the 2015s with an assist in rebuilding the stock if we don’t kill them off before they mature (both year classes can already be legally killed in the Chesapeake Bay).  

On the other hand, 2016,2019, and 2020 produced dismally below-average abundance indices of 2.20, 3.37,and 2.48, respectively (the long-term average is around 11.6); the whispers I’m hearing out of Maryland are suggesting that the 2021 numbers won’t be much, if any better—we should know that for certain in a few days, when the numbers ought to be released.

All of which means that, given the current age structure of the population, if we lose the 2015s, the striped bass is probably screwed.

There are a lot of folks out there who realize that.

At the May meeting of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board, Maine fishery manager Meagan Ware made a motion to include measures to protect the 2015 year class in the draft Amendment 7 to the striped bass management plan, even though such measures weren’t specifically contemplated in the Public Information Document that sought stakeholder comment on issues to be addressed in such amendment.  The motion passed by a vote of 9 to 4, with two Management Board members abstaining, showing broad-based support for the concept.

In supporting her motion, Ms. Ware stated

“While I don’t think we are at the place where the stock was in the 1980s, at this point we have had five years of average or below average recruitment.

“It is this repeated poor recruitment that got us in trouble last time, so I think how we deal with this 2015-year class could be kind of make or break on where this stock goes, and how successful we are in rebuilding…”

David Sikorski, Maryland’s Legislative Proxy, seconded Ms. Ware’s motion.  In doing so, he observed

“recent Addendum VI measures probably failed to meet reducing fishing mortality on this 2015 stock, as implemented by all three [Chesapeake] Bay jurisdictions.

“I really have the utmost concerns of the impact we’re already having on these fish.  I think the best way to address this is to be laser focused on limiting fishing mortality on these fish that are left in the system, recognizing that they hold a lot of the hope for the future, as we all cross our fingers and hope that 2021 brings us brighter recruitment projections.”

It’s difficult to disagree with either Ms. Ware’s or Mr. Sikorski’s comments.  As Michael Armstrong, the Massachusetts fishery manager, noted,

“we’ve got five-year classes locked and loaded, with nothing behind 2014 [sic].  We have the 2015-year class, and 2014 was not bad out of the Hudson.  That is all we’ve got to rebuild with.  You know we targeted that for [a fishing mortality rate of] 0.2, and we never achieved it, so I’ve got to assume we didn’t hit it this time.  We have to start doing draconian things to get this stock back.  That is the bottom line, and so I support that.”

Of course, protecting the 2015s is easier said than done. 

The simple expedient of a 35-inch minimum size, originally one of the options included in Addendum VI, would have accomplished that goal for a few years, until the 2015s reached that size, at which point the current 28- to 35-inch slot limit might have been adopted to protect what would then have been the older, larger females.  By adopting the slot limit for the 2020 season, just as the 2015s were approaching 28 inches in length, the Management Board placed a huge bullseye on the very year class they must depend upon to rebuild the stock.

It’s unclear whether they will be able to change management measures quickly enough to prevent severe damage to those fish.

The ASMFC’s Atlantic Striped Bass Plan Development Team is certainly trying to get that done.  It has developed a number of proposals that will be presented to the Management Board at its October meeting, all of which are intended to reduce fishing mortality of the 2015 year class, enhance the female spawning stock biomass, and facilitate the recovery of the striped bass stock.

Now, it’s up to the Management Board to decide which, if any, of the PDT’s proposals to include in the draft Amendment 7 that will be released for public comment, and which to include when the final version of the Amendment is adopted, probably at next February’s Management Board meeting.

It’s possible that the Management Board will decide to abandon any special protections for the 2015s, and just leave the current slot limit in place, but I don’t expect that to happen.  I don’t think the real question is whether the Management Board will adopt measures to protect the 2015s, but rather whether, if it adopts such measures, they will be put in place soon enough to make any real difference.

The current thought is that Amendment 7 won’t be implemented until 2023; that means that at least some portion of the 2015 year class will have been bracketed by the 28- to 35-inch slot limit for three full fishing years, 2020-2022—and that doesn’t include earlier attrition that occurred in the Chesapeake Bay, where immature females may be legally harvested, beginning when they’re about two years old. 

Between 2017 and 2019, the period when the immature females would have been legal to harvest, but before a significant number would have entered either the spawning stock or the current coastal slot, Maryland landings totaled around 2,850,000 fish, with annual harvest steadily decreasing over that period.  While not all of the landed fish would have been 2015s, the size distribution of the such bass strongly suggests that, at least in 2019 and 2020, 2015s comprised the majority of the harvest.

So by 2023, the 2015 year class will have been heavily targeted for no less than five years.  It’s hard to say how many will remain when any Amendment 7 protections finally go into effect.

The Management Board might make an exception for the 2015-specific management measures, and implement them a year earlier than the rest of Amendment 7.  However, the Board is usually reluctant to implement measures mid-season, and any measures adopted in February 2022 probably couldn’t be implemented by the states until April or May, when the bass season along most of the coast is already well underway.

In addition, implementing new size limits, bag limits, or seasons a year before any new restrictions on the use of conservation equivalency go into effect would allow states like New Jersey and Maryland, which typically seek advantage through the conservation equivalency process, to undercut the 2015-specific measures with proposals designed to evade their full share of the conservation burden.

Thus, the question of what happens if we get Amendment 7 wrong, and we lose a large portion of the 2015 year class, looms large and real.

As Mr. Armstrong recognized in his statement quoted above, “We have the 2015-year class, and 2014 was not bad out of the Hudson.  That is all we’ve got to rebuild with.”  If we lose the 2015s, rebuilding will become very, very difficult to achieve, unless some unexpectedly good year classes emerge from the Chesapeake Bay.

That could happen.  But a continuing string of low recruitment years could happen, too, and in fact has happened before. 

From 1975 through 1988, the Maryland striped bass juvenileabundance index never rose above 8.45, well below the current long-termaverage, and bottomed out at 1.22.  In an exchange of thoughts with one of my management-savvy striped bass fishing friends, I commented that the years that teed up the stock collapse of the late 1970s and 1980s—that is, the recruitment decline between 1970 and 1975—bore an uncomfortable resemblance to the last few years of recruitment, between 2015 and 2020.

From what I could remember at the time that I made the comment, both periods saw a strong year class followed by a few near-average year classes, before below-average recruitment.

But I said that based on memory.  When I actually looked at the numbers, I found that the last 6 years of recruitment in Maryland—which tends to be the bellwether for striped bass abundance along the coast—was significantly worse than it was in the early 1970s.

Although we have seen larger year classes since, the 1970 year class was, when it was produced, the largest ever seen on the striper coast, with a value of 30.52.  The next five years saw the Maryland juvenile abundance index produce values of 11.77, 11.01, 8.92, 10.13, and 6.69, for a 6-year average of about 13.17.  That’s actually above the current long-term average of 11.6.

Of course, the ten years after that produced an average juvenile abundance index of 4.26 and a stock collapse.

Comparing the early 1970s to the past six years, we begin with another big year class in 2015, although with a juvenile index of 24.20, the 2015 year class was about 20% smaller than 1970.  The next five years saw juvenile abundance indices of 2.20, 13.19, 14.78, 3.37, and 2.48, for a 6-year average of 10.04, below both the long-term average and the average for the first six years of the 1970s.

That is an unsettling comparison.

At the same time, the management environment is very different today than it was in 1975.

For one thing, there is now a formal, coastwide management structure.  The Management Board may not be perfect, but it is far better than the management vacuum that existed forty-five years ago, when state managers’ greatest concern was maintaining a level playing field for their fishermen, an attitude that severely hampered the adoption of needed regulation.

Throughout the 1970s and into the early 1980s, there were no commercial striped bass quotas, no limitations on who could sell fish (many so-called “recreational” fishermen routinely did so, even in what were supposed to be “gamefish” states), and no meaningful recreational regulations.  The 1970 year class, which held out such promise, was largely wiped out by the middle of the decade.

Current management measures should prevent the sort of wholesale slaughter that went on back then.

At the same time, striped bass were under far less recreational fishing pressure than they are today.  During the 1970s, there were plenty of winter flounder, tautog, weakfish, bluefish, and other inshore species to absorb fishing pressure, particularly pressure brought by those who wanted to take fish home to eat.  Striped bass were not yet a panfish.

Charter boats had more plentiful targets offshore, with cod still relatively abundant, pollock teeming as far south as Block Island, and pelagic species such as mako sharks, white and blue marlin, and the various tunas more available in more places than they currently are.

So the two periods are not directly comparable.

Still, it’s clear that bass could be in serious trouble if we lose the 2015s.  There have been no big year classes since, and even if we get a good one in 2022, such year class won’t be fully recruited into the spawning stock until after the end of this decade.

Thus, we must get Amendment 7 right.

The bass are running out of options.

 

 

THE LOST SEAFOOD FEAST

I’m interested not only in fish, but in food, and I’ll sometimes find myself reading a book about some aspect of food history, the development of American cuisine, or a similar subject.

I just finished Lost Feast, by Lenora Newman.  Subtitled

“Culinary extinction and the future of food,”

Lost Feast chronicles once-abundant foods that have been lost, beginning with Pleistocene megafauna such as the mammoth and the aurochs (the latter the imposing, wild ancestor of our domestic cow), through the more modern extinction of the passenger pigeon, which was once shipped in barrels to provide cheap nutrition to the new hordes of factory workers in industrializing urban centers, to the varieties of fruits and vegetables that have been sacrificed to serve the needs of mechanized agriculture.

Some such losses, like that of the mammoth and aurochs, took place over millennia.  Some, like the extinction of the passenger pigeon, took place over centuries, while others, such as the loss of more than half of the named cultivars of the tomato, took decades and is still going on.

As I read the book, I began to think of the fish that are gone from my table, that disappeared in the course of my lifetime.  Ms. Newman spent some time discussing issues with seafood, but in a book, no matter how well written, such discussions can feel too abstract to take personally. 

When I think of the fish that have become lost to me, even if they remain scattered thinly across a few pieces of ocean, the ghost of their taste and texture still haunts my tongue.  I can think of the times when I caught them, and the friends and family who were once able to share the fishing and the food, but never will again.

Fall is a good time for such thoughts, because the lost fish all favored cool weather.

Winter flounder was probably foremost among them...

The remainder of this post can be found at the website of Hatch Magazine, https://www.hatchmag.com/articles/our-lost-fish/7715368

BECAUSE IT'S ALWAYS EASIER TO CONSERVE SOMEONE ELSE'S FISH

In September 2021, at a meeting of the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization (NAFO), the United States, supported by the European Union and other nations, proposed that NAFO ban the retention of Greenland sharks accidentally caught in the Arctic and western Atlantic waters that fall under such organization’s jurisdiction. Intentionally targeting Greenland sharks had been prohibited by NAFO since 2018.

Many species of shark take many years to mature and have very low rates of reproduction, characteristics that can make shark populations vulnerable to even modest levels of fishing mortality. The life history of Greenland sharks is particularly problematic. They can live for at least 272 years (based on a tissue sample taken from an individual of that age), and perhaps for more than 400, and females might not become sexually mature until about 150 years old.

Scientists have characterized the species as “both data deficient and vulnerable to human threats such as fishery-related mortality.” Because of “possible population declines and limiting life-history characteristics,” the International Union for the Conservation of Nature has included Greenland sharks on its Red List as “Near Threatened.”

Given those concerns, it is entirely reasonable for the United States and European Union to take a precautionary approach and call for an end to all Greenland shark landings. While such proposal was withdrawn at NAFO’s 2021 meeting due to objections from Iceland, the supporting parties intend to reintroduce it next year.

When the conversation shifts to conserving shortfin mako sharks, a species frequently landed by both the U.S. and E.U., the picture changes completely. Although a prohibition on landings is strongly supported by the most recent stock assessment, such prohibition has been actively opposed by both the United States and the European Union.

The issue first arose in 2017, when two different studies revealed that shortfin makos were probably experiencing excessive levels of fishing mortality.

One study, conducted by a team of scientists from Nova Southeastern University, the University of Rhode Island, and other institutions, was limited in scope. It saw 40 shortfin makos, caught in the western Atlantic Ocean, released after being fitted with satellite tags, which allowed the researchers to obtain real-time information on the tagged sharks’ location.

To the scientists’ surprise, the satellite tags revealed that 30 percent of the tagged makos were soon caught again; each such shark only had a 72 percent chance of surviving for a year without being recaptured. Their fishing mortality rate was ten times higher than previous estimates, which were based on the reported recaptures of makos implanted with traditional dart tags, and raised concerns that fishermen were killing too many shortfin makos.

Such concerns were echoed in a report issued by the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) which, despite its name, has been granted the authority to manage all of the Atlantic’s highly migratory species. Such report found that the North Atlantic stock of shortfin makos was in decline, and that such decline could only be averted if fishing mortality was reduced by 80 percent. Yet even such a large reduction would only provide a 25 percent chance of rebuilding the population by 2040.

In response to the ICCAT report, a group of conservation organizations wrote a letter to the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), asking that the United States take the lead in shortfin mako conservation, and support a complete prohibition on retention. If that were done, the organizations noted, there would be a 54 percent chance of rebuilding the shortfin mako stock by the same 2040 deadline.

The United States ignored such request. Instead, at ICCAT’s 2017 general meeting, the U.S. supported “measures to reduce fishing mortality and efforts to further strengthen data collection, while protecting opportunities for U.S. commercial and recreational fishermen to retain small amounts of shortfin mako sharks.”

Fishermen kept landing shortfin makos, and the species prospects got worse. ICCAT released a new stock assessment in 2019, which stated that

"regardless of the [total allowable catch] (including a [total allowable catch] of 0), the stock will continue to decline until 2035 before any biomass increases can occur; a [total allowable catch] of 500 tons has a 52% probability of rebuilding the stock levels above [the spawning stock fecundity needed to produce maximum sustainable yield] and below [the fishing mortality rate that will produce maximum sustainable yield] in 2070; to achieve a probability of at least 60% the realized [total allowable catch] would have to be 300 tons or less…All the rebuilding projections assume that the [total allowable catch] account for all sources of mortality—including dead discards."

Given that some level of discard mortality, particularly in the pelagic longline fishery, is inevitable, the 2019 stock assessment effectively advised against any retention of shortfin makos that were still alive when caught.

Declining mako abundance began to draw real international attention. At the 2019 meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna (CITES), Mexico offered a proposal to list shortfin makos on CITES Appendix II.

CITES states that “Appendix II includes species not necessarily threatened with extinction, but in which trade must be controlled in order to avoid utilization incompatible with their survival.” Thus, an Appendix II listing would not prohibit the harvest of, or international trade in, shortfin makos. It would merely seek to conform such trade to the needs of the stock.

More than fifty nations signed onto Mexico’s proposal; at the time, it was the greatest support given any listing proposal in the forty-six year history of CITES. Yet the United States voted no. Fortunately, it was in the distinct minority; while the U.S. opposed the Appendix II listing, the proposal received the support of over two-thirds of the treaty nations, and so was adopted.

That was the mako’s only international success. At ICCAT’s 2019 meeting, ten nations, led by Canada and Senegal, followed the advice of ICCAT scientists and proposed a ban on all retention of shortfin mako sharks. Six other nations, including some, such as Japan and China, which frequently oppose conservation efforts, supported the proposal as well. But the United States, joined by the European Union and Curacao, prevented such proposal from moving forward.

The United States presented the only proposal that would allow fishermen to retain makos that were brought to the boat alive, a position so unpopular that, of all the ICCAT nations, only Curacao chose to support it.

Sonja Fordham, president of Shark Advocates International, commented that “North Atlantic mako depletion is among the world’s most pressing shark conservation crises. A clear and simple remedy was within reach. Yet the EU and US put short-term fishing interests above all else and ruined a golden opportunity for real progress. It’s truly disheartening and awful.”

ICCAT’s 2020 annual meeting was no less disheartening and awful, as Canada and Senegal again offered a proposal to prohibit all retention of shortfin makos, which again failed because of U.S. and E.U. opposition.

At that meeting, the United States again presented a proposal that would allow the retention of live makos. Such proposal, which would have permitted the retention of live fish only if the nation where a fishing vessel is registered “requires a minimum size of at least 180 cm fork length for males and of at least 210 cm fork length for females,” was clearly intended to protect the U.S. recreational mako fishery, which currently functions under precisely those rules, although it would have permitted the retention of live makos encountered in the commercial fishery as well.

By that time, Canada had already decided that it shouldn’t wait for ICCAT to act, and unilaterally prohibited any retention of shortfin makos by vessels under its jurisdiction.

Now, the United States finds itself in an anomalous position.

On April 15, 2021, the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, NMFS’ parent agency, issued a so-called “90-day finding” regarding shortfin makos, declaring that

"We, NMFS, announce a 90-day finding on a petition to list the shortfin mako shark (Isurus oxyrinchus) as threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) and to designate critical habitat concurrent with the listing. We find that the petition presents substantial scientific or commercial information indicating that the petitioned action may be warranted. Therefore, we are initiating a status review of the species to determine whether listing under the ESA is warranted. To assure this status review is comprehensive, we are soliciting scientific and commercial information regarding this species."

A 90-day finding that an Endanhgered Species Act listing may be warranted is far from a guarantee that such listing will occur. It is very possible that, after a comprehensive status review, NMFS will decide that such a listing is not justified. Still, finding does suggest that, after reviewing all of the information presented in the subject petition, NMFS believes that there is a reasonable chance that the shortfin mako’s plight could be dire enough to warrant a listing. Comments on the finding were due by June 14, 2021, there’s at least a remote chance that NMFS’ review will be completed before ICCAT meets again in November.

Whether or not a final decision is rendered before the next ICCAT meeting, it’s not unreasonable to presume that, if the shortfin mako stock is in enough trouble that an Endangered Species Act listing is even possible, the United States would support a retention ban. But that does not seem to be the case.

In July 2021, ICCAT members engaged in a three-day intercessional meeting dedicated to shortfin mako management. By then, the stalemate over management measures had gone on for so long that the Chair of the meeting asked that nations try to find some basis for agreement before such meeting began, and even took the very unusual step of providing his own proposal for the delegates’ consideration.

Ahead of the meeting, the American Elasmobranch Society, which represents the nation’s shark scientists, sent a letter to NMFS supporting a retention ban.

But those efforts seem to have been futile. The E.U. and U.S. still insisted on retaining makos, while the U.S., seeking to protect its recreational fishery, demanded the ability to harvest live mako sharks. The United States’ position appears to contradict not only NMFS’ 90-day finding, but its stated policy on shark management.

The 500 metric ton annual catch limit proposed by the U.S. would only have a 52 percent probability of rebuilding the shortfin mako stock by 2070. Yet Draft Amendment 14 to the 2006 Consolidated Atlantic Highly Migratory Species Fishery Management Plan states “when addressing management measures for overfished Atlantic shark stocks, NOAA Fisheries’ general objective is to rebuild the stock within the rebuilding period with a 70-percent probability…NMFS uses the 70 percent probability of rebuilding for sharks given their live history traits, such as late age at maturity and low fecundity (i.e., instead of 50 percent, which is commonly used for other species)…”

Given such policy, and the United States’ acknowledgement that the shortfin mako may be in peril, it’s not clear how the U.S. can continue to oppose a full retention ban when ICCAT convenes later this year.

It had no problem sponsoring a similar retention ban for Greenland sharks, even though some recent research suggests that they may still be relatively abundant; it is very possible that Greenland sharks are less imperiled than shortfin makos are.

But Greenland sharks rarely reach U.S. waters, and United States fishermen, whether recreational or commercial, neither target nor harvest the species. That makes Greenland sharks, like elephants and Bengal tigers, easy species for the United States to conserve.

But the North Atlantic’s shortfin makos are different. They swim off every state between Maine and Texas, and both commercial and recreational mako landings make small but significant contributions to local coastal economies. Calling for a ban on shortfin mako retention would have real economic consequences, and make NMFS few new friends in the fishing industry.

Thus, in the case of the shortfin mako, unlike that of the Greenland shark, economic and environmental concerns are in immediate conflict. So far, dollars have ruled the debate. In November, new leadership at both the Commerce Department and NMFS will have an opportunity to prove whether they are willing to make the sort of hard choices needed to conserve and rebuild the North Atlantic’s shortfin mako stock, or whether they will only lead the fight to protect sharks found off other nations’ shores.

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

ASMFC COULD CONSIDER STRIPED BASS MORATORIUM

There’s an old saying that we probably ought to hear more often these days:  Be careful what you wish for, because you might get it.

That’s something that striped bass anglers ought to contemplate as they look forward to the Draft Amendment 7 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass, which is likely to be released for public comment in less than a month, and as they think back on certain comments that they made withy respect to the Public Information Document for Amendment 7 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass, which they made last spring.

When it released the Public Information Document for stakeholder comment, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board wasn’t specificallyy looking for comments on a harvest moratorium; instead, it was looking for input on broader guidelines that it would use to manage the stock, and then invited the public to also provide comment on any other issues that they might want to be considered.

A lot of striped bass anglers, who tend to be more conservation-oriented than salt water fishermen as a whole.  They're not happy that the ASMFC allowed the stock to become overfished and experience overfishing.  They told the ASMFC that it wanted to see striped bass harvest reduced and abundance increased.  

And many of those anglers said that imposing a harvest moratorium was the best way to make those things happen.

Such comments must have been shocking to fishery managers.  Anglers tend to shy away from management issues, and rarely comment on proposed management measures.  Usually, when managers hold a hearing on fishery issues, such hearings tend to be dominated by the commercial and recreational fishing industries, which differ on many things, but are usually united in opposition to landings reductions and more restrictive regulation.

But when striped bass issues are on the table, anglers turn out to speak for the fish.

Striped bass have always been a legendary sport fish, particularly in the northeast.  They were always the coast’s apex predator, the biggest of the inshore sport fish, that could be found everywhere—in the ocean and in the bays, around rocks, sod banks, and sandy beaches, on shallow flats and over deep-water reefs—but are not easily caugh, except by those anglers who had “paid their dues” and taken the time to learn the striper’s ways.

When fishermen gathered around the dock in the evening, to tell their tales and drink a few beers, the talk wasn’t of flounders, blackfish, or tomcod, but of striped bass.  They spoke of fish caught, and of fish lost, and they spoke of the fish that they hoped to catch in the future.

And then, sometime around 1980, the conversation changed.  Striped bass anglers began to talk about whether they, and the bass, had any future at all.

Today, we all know the story—how the stock collapsed and, thanks to hard and dedicated work by Congress, the Management Board, and the states, was nursed back to health by the mid-1990s—because that tale of loss and recovery is now legend, too, with anglers who weren’t even born when the population first crashed learning about it from older fishermen who had lived through the bad times and seen the return of the good.  

And thanks to that story, handed down between generations, many anglers feel a duty to conserve and stand up for the stock.

But the legend has morphed, as legends do.  While its conservation message still rings true, the details of what happened forty years ago have gotten a little fuzzy.  And one of the fuzziest details of all is the moratorium that “saved” the striped bass.

Ask a striped bass angler today, particularly one who wasn’t alive back then, and most will be quick to tell you that the striped bass recovery can largely be attributed to a coastwide moratorium imposed on the fishery, which prevented anyone, anywhere, from killing a striped bass.

Today, many people still believe that a moratorium represents the best way to assure the overfished striper’s recovery.  One organization, Stripers Forever, called for a 10-year ban on all harvest when it commented on the Public Information Document last spring.  As one Stripers Forever board member explained,

“Bold, decisive action is needed to prevent the collapse of the fishery like we saw in the late 1970s.  An emergency moratorium was adopted in 1984 and is the only approach proven to work.  We are calling on recreational anglers, conservationists, and anyone who depends on a healthy coastal ecosystem for their economic well-being to stand with us and demand that a moratorium be adopted now.”

A lot of anglers took up Stripers Forever’s call.  During last spring’s round of comments on the Public Information Document, the ASMFC received 170 comments supporting some sort of striped bass moratorium.  141 of such comments were written (130 from individuals, 1 from Stripers Forever, and 10 form letters), while 29 were made by stakeholders speaking at the various hearings held up and down the coast.  The ASMFC’s Fishery Management Plan Coordinator characterized such comments by noting,

“Most comments related to harvest control supported a moratorium on all commercial and recreational harvest for some period of time.  Suggested times ranged from 3 years to 10 years or until the stock is rebuilt.  Some comments support designating the striped bass a gamefish (recreational only with some recreational harvest allowed).  [emphasis added]”

And the ASMFC listened.  Sort of.

At the September 28 meeting of the ASMFC Plan Development Team that is putting together the draft Amendment 7 for discussion at the October Management Board meeting, the PDT examined a proposal, intended to protect the big 2015 year class, to impose a moratorium on all recreational harvest for some length of time that would allow the 2015s to become an important component of the spawning stock.

And yes, you read that correctly.  The moratorium would be imposed solely on the recreational fishery, while the commercial fishery would be allowed to continue doing business as usual, removing whatever 2015s that it encounters along the way.

That isn’t exactly what Stripers Forever and the other moratorium proponents were looking for.  Those folks were seeking a complete ban on striped bass retention, that was applied to both sectors.  Leaving the commercial sector free to kill bass that anglers were legally compelled to release—a sort of “anti-gamefish” measure that would be 180 degrees opposed to what StripersForever has long worked for and some individuals requested at last spring’s hearings—would almost certainly be an unacceptable option, both to moratorium proponents and to the great majority of recreational fishermen.  

Frankly, I don’t see it as a politically viable option for the Management Board to approve.

Still, there is a very remote chance that it could happen, and if it does, it will happen because some well-meaning people asked for an action that wasn’t needed, based on a belief in past events that never really happened.

I was fishing for striped bass before the crash occured.  I fished through the collapse, and I celebrated the bass’ recovery in the mid-1990s.

And because I was alive and on the water at the time, I know one thing to be true:  A coastwide “emergency moratorium” was never imposed.  Not in 1984, and not in any other year.

Yes, many states closed their striped bass fisheries for a period of time.  But such closures were neither uniform, coordinated, universally imposed, nor even necessarily adopted in order to restore the bass population. 

Maryland and Delaware shut down their fisheries for a few years, 1985 through 1989.  But Virginia, Maryland’s neighbor in the Chesapeake Bay, only closed its season down for a single year, in 1989, when the stock was already clearly on its way to recovery.  Connecticut and Rhode Island imposed striped bass moratoriums in 1986, to preserve the remaining fish.  New York also shut down its fishery that year, but such closure was brief, lasting only one year, and was done to keep people from eating striped bass loaded with PCBs released by factories along the Hudson River, and not to conserve the striped bass.

On the other hand, Massachusetts and New Jersey, which are some of the most important states on the coast, with respect to striped bass harvest, never closed their fisheries at all.

While the state landing bans probably did benefit the fishery, the striped bass found its salvation not in an irregular patchwork of state moratoriums, but in federal legislation called the Atlantic Striped Bass Conservation Act, which became law in 1984 and, once that legislation empowered the ASMFC to adopt binding striped bass management measures, in Amendment 3 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass, which protected the female spawning stock biomass until recruitment was again strong enough to rebuild and maintain the stock.

Right now, the PDT can’t even provide a good idea of how a moratorium would impact the stock, and whether it might significantly accelerate its rebuilding, for the factors that need to be considered are very different from those addressed with a size or bag limit change.  When managers adopted the current size limit, for example, they presumed that recreational fishing effort would remain roughly the same, and that harvest would merely be focused on a particular size class of fish.

But such assumption doesn’t hold true in a moratorium.  How much would recreational fishing effort chage if anglers could no longer retain striped bass?  No one really knows.

And no one knows how much of the fishing mortality, now attributable to recreational landings, would merely be converted into release mortality if a moratorium was imposed.

Thus, while I’m not categorically opposed to a moratorium on striped bass harvest—so long as it prohibits all striped bass harvest, and not just apply to of one particular sector—I’m far from convinced, given the current state of the stock, that such drastic action is needed.  After all, as depleted as the stock is today, the current female spawning stock biomass is between three and four times as large as it was in the early 1980s, and the ASMFC managed to fully rebuild the bass population by 1995 without ever completely closing the fishery.

I strongly suspect that the Management Board will feel the same way, and not impose a moratorium, even if it does leave a moratorium option in the Draft Amendment 7 that goes out for public comment.

That doesn’t concern me. 

What does concern me is that, by focusing on a moratorium, anglers and other stakeholders might not pay enough attention to things that really could hurt the striped bass.  Things like amended fishing mortality management triggers, that would allow overfishing to go on for up three years before any remedial action is taken, and then give the Management Board another three years to fix the problem—and such options will appear in the Draft Amendment.

Trading a ban on recreational harvest for a management plan that still allows commercial landings, while giving the Management Board more excuses for delay after a threat to the stock first appears, seems like a bad deal.

But if stakeholders convince the Management Board to adopt a moratorium in Amendment 7, that might just be the deal that they get.