HOW MIGHT THE 2024 ELECTION AFFECT MARINE FISHERIES?

 

Every couple of years, when a national election is held, I’ve looked at the issues and the candidates involved and shared some thoughts on how the outcomes might impact marine fisheries and fisheries management.

Traditionally, fisheries management has been a non-partisan issue, which has had the support of both major parties; that tradition dates back to the passage of the Fishery Conservation and Management Act of 1976, which was introduced by Rep. Gerry Studds (D-MA) with the strong support of Rep. Don Young (R-AK), both legislators committed to addressing the problems confronting the fishermen and fish stocks of the United States.  

In the Senate, the primary advocates of similar legislation were Sen. Warren Magnuson (D-WA) and Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK), legislators who crossed the aisle in a legendarily successful effort to conserve and manage living marine resources.

The two senators’ non-partisan efforts were important enough that, even though it was the House’s, rather than the Senate’s, version of the bill that was ultimately signed into law, the groundbreaking legislation is now known as the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act.  The last significant reauthorization of the Act took place in the early days of 2007, when President George W. Bush, a member of the Republican Party who was also an avid angler and strong advocate of marine conservation, signed the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Reauthorization Act in order to further strengthen the law.

Now, as we stand just two days from a critically important election, in which not only the presidency but also control of both the House and the Senate will probably be decided by a relative handful of votes cast in an few closely contested jurisdictions, it is time to ask what the outcome of the 2024 contest might mean for the health of the nation’s marine fisheries and its living marine resources.

In some ways, that might be hard to know, since neither of the presidential candidates is an active angler, and neither appears to have a close connection to the ocean or the life within.  

Donald Trump prefers to be driven around manicured golf courses in an electric cart, and appears to believe that striking an inoffensive little ball with a stick, before getting back in the cart to be chauffeured right up to the ball again, the apex of vigorous outdoor activity.  Plus, the guy seems to have an unhealthy aversion to sharks.

Vice President Kamala Harris, on the other hand, tends to eschew the golf course in favor of hobbies like cooking and physical training.  But like Trump, she has shown no affinity for the creatures of the sea.

Thus, the candidates’ personal lives provide no clue as to how they might address ocean issues.  That being the case, the next logical step is, perhaps, to look at their respective party platforms, which prove to be almost as uninformative.

The Democratic platform never uses the words, “fish,” “fishing,” or “fisheries,” while “ocean” appears only five times.  That platform states, in relevant part, that the Democrats are intent on

“protecting places that are too special to develop, like Alaska’s Bristol Bay,“

and

“Going forward, Democrats will…ensure clean water for all Americans by protecting rivers and wetlands.  We’ll protect our oceans by working to designate new marine sanctuaries, and protect coastal communities from climate impacts.  We’ll keep pushing to fully fund the Land and Water Conservation Fund, partnering with states and local governments…and continuing to protect lands and waters as National Monuments.”

That might sound good on its face, particularly the part about protecting rivers and wetlands, since the loss and degradation of such rivers and wetlands to dams, unregulated logging, poor farming practices (particularly draining wetlands, destroying marshes, and manure and fertilizer runoff), real estate development, industrial pollution and similar insults has severely harmed runs of diadromous fish, including striped bass, shad, river herring, American eels, various sturgeon and, in particular, the five species of Pacific salmon.

But if you’re an angler or commercial fisherman, there might also be an unperceived threat lying in the Democratic platform, and its mention of “marine sanctuaries” and “National Monuments,” for while the laws governing fishing in such areas are very flexible—in some national marine sanctuaries, such as the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary, even bottom trawling is allowed, while nothing prohibits anglers from fishing in the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts National Marine Sanctuary, although commercial fishing is not allowed—there are far too many members of the environmental community who would turn large areas of the nearshore ocean into a no-take marine reserves where fishing of any kind is outlawed.  If such voices gained too much influence in a Democratic administration, fishermen could be badly hurt, while the benefits to marine resources would not necessarily be any better than they might receive under active and effective management.

The Republican platform, on the other hand, doesn’t mention, “fish,” “fishing,” “fisheries,” “ocean,” or “sea” at all.  It is more an assemblage of slogans than a comprehensive platform; in that respect, the slogan most relevant to the fishery conservation and management project is probably either

“2. Rein in Wasteful Federal Spending

“Republicans will immediately stabilize the Economy by slashing wasteful Government spending and promoting Economic Growth,”

or

“3.  Cut Costly and Burdensome Regulations

“Republicans will reinstate President Trump’s Deregulation Policies, which saved Americans $11,000 per household, and end Democrats’ regulatory onslaught that disproportionately harms low- and middle-income households.”

The impact of the former platform position can already be seen in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, where the majority sought to slash the 2025 budget for the National Marine Fisheries Service, cutting 11% from its scitence and management funding, 17% from enforcement, 28.5% from habitat conservation and 55% of the funding needed to protect marine mammals and other endangered species from various activities, included but not limited to offshore oil drilling, commercial fishing, and shoreline development.  The report accompanying the overall 2025 budget made it clear that conserving and managing the nation’s marine resources is not, in the Republicans’ eyes, a national priority.

The latter platform position, expressing the party’s hostility to regulation, provides even a clearer threat to marine resources, as it would further restrict even a diminished NMFS’ ability to regulate harvest, prevent overfishing, and rebuild fish stocks, while allowing various industrial interests to pollute streams hosting runs of diadromous fish; divert water critical to such fish to farming, ranching, and similar business interests; allow the smokestacks of inland polluters to contaminate the oceans; etc.

And that is not mere speculation, because perhaps the best way to gauge how either of the candidates, if elected to the presidency, might impact marine resources is to see what they have done before.

That’s tough to do with Vice President Harris, for she was part of a Biden Administration that hardly set the world on fire when it came to marine conservation.

Since President Biden took office, he has not urged Congress to take on a single major ocean initiative.  There was no effort to reauthorize the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, although the last reauthorization took place almost 20 years ago.  About the biggest thing he did in that regard was to sign onto the so-called 30x30 initiative, a global conservation effort that originated well before Pres. Biden took office, and sought to protect 30 percent of the world’s lands and waters by the year 2023.  To promote the effort, the President rolled out his so-called “American the Beautiful” initiative, but the effort never really got off the ground.

One could even argue that the National Marine Fisheries Service took a step backward during the Biden Administration, adopting fishery management measures in its Greater Atlantic Regional Fisheries Office that allowed recreational fishermen to chronically exceed their annual catch limits of scup and black sea bass and, more recently, proposed specifications for the black sea bass fishery that directly contradicted the clear language of Magnuson-Stevens which requires that fishing limits accord with scientific advice.

That is hardly responsible stewardship.

Yet thouh some might claim Vice President Harris to be tainted by the Biden Administration’s mantle of mostly benign neglect of our fisheries by dint of her current office, Trump is stuck with his former administration’s record of doing active, intentional, and frequent harm.

It began with his cabinet appointees, the foremost of whom, when it came to putting fish stocks at risk, was probably Wilbur Ross who, when appointed as Secretary of Commerce at the age of 79, was the oldest person every appointed to a cabinet position for the first time.  As Secretary of Commerce, Ross was in charge of NMFS, but he seemed to have no concept of modern fisheries science.  He had made a successful career out of turning around bankrupt corporations, and perhaps that made him comfortable with dealing with depleted resources, for his first proclamation upon being confirmed was that one of NMFS primary objectives must be

“obtaining maximum sustainable yield for our fisheries.”

although he never seemed too concerned about rebuilding overfished stocks to a level that might make that possible.  Maintaining abundant fisheries was his primary concern, as he declared his intent to reduce American’s reliance on imported seafood, although just where the domestic seafood that replaced it was to come from was never revealed.  Furthermore, he stated that

“Given the enormity of our coastlines, given the enormity of our freshwater, I would like to how we can become much more self-sufficient in fishing and perhaps even a net exporter.”

Although Ross never managed to realize that particular pipe dream, he was able to frustrate at least two fisheries conservation efforts, involving two very popular recreational species, soon after becoming Secretary.

The first incident involved the recreational red snapper season in the Gulf of Mexico.  It saw NMFS, under Ross’ guidance, issue a rule re-opening the private boat season, even though it was clear that anglers had already made very substantial landings of snapper during the original season and that NMFS was aware—and freely admitted—that reopening the season

“will necessarily mean that the private recreational sector will substantially exceed its annual catch limit, which was designed to prevent overfishing the stock.”

Ross’ NMFS also readily admitted that

“if employed for a short period of time, this approach may delay the ultimate rebuilding of the stock by as many as 6 years.  This approach likely could not be continued through time without significantly delaying the rebuilding timeline.”

Yet, given the philosophy of the past Trump Admimistration, the action was nonetheless justified because,

“Given the precipitous drop in Federal red snapper fishing days for private anglers notwithstanding the growth of the stock, the increasing harm to coastal economies of Gulf States, and that the disparate [state] approaches to management are undermining the very integrity of the management structure, creating ever-increasing uncertainty in the future of the system, the Secretary of Commerce determined that a more modest rebuilding pace for the stock is a risk worth taking.”

It was just another take on the notion that short-term economic benefits should trump long-term resource health.  It was illegal, and was later subjectto a successful legal challenge, but it was nonetheless symptomatic of an administration that believed in cutting regulatory burdens in the name of more profitable business activities.

And it effectively foreshadowed events a month or so later, after New Jersey decided to defy that Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, intentionally failed to comply with its summer flounder management plan, and was then referred to the Secretary of Commerce to suffer the consequences of its failure to cooperate with the other states on the Summer Flounder, Scup, and Black Sea Bass Management Board.

Secretary Ross had the authority to find New Jersey out of compliance, and shut down its entire summer flounder fishery until it decided to conform its rules to the management plan.  As things turned out, he decided to give the state a free pass, without even consulting the people on his staff who were most familiar with the fishery—the NMFS Regional Administrator at the Greater Atlantic Regional Fisheries Office, and the GARFO staff.

The Regional Administrator, John Bullard, was very upset with Ross’ actions, noting that

“the chain of command was broken with this decision,”

and, because Ross’ action marked the first time in 25 years that a Secretary of Commerce every reversed an ASMFC finding of non-compliance, that

“This is a system that keeps all states accountable to each other.  We’re now going to figure out how to repair that system.”

But Ross didn’t act out of concerns for the science or for the management system, but out of pure political cronyism.  The Asbury Park Press reported, three months before Ross ruled on the non-compliance issue, that then New Jersey Governor Chris Christie

“wasted no time to petition Ross this week and ask him to put a hold on the new summer flounder regulations approved by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission on Feb. 2.”

So the fi inx favor of New Jersey—and against the summer flounder and the ASMFC—was already in well before the Commission made its noncompliance finding.  

Should the election go in Trump’s favor, we can probably expect another Secretary of Commerce, with the same sort of casual contempt for the science and the management system, to serve in Trump’s next administration.

And, although the Secretary of Commerce might have the most direct impact on fisheries issues, other cabinet members can also play a very significant negative role.

We learned that the hard way in 2017, after Trump appointed corporate lobbyist and energy company crony Scott Pruit as Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency.  Personally opposed to the Agency’s mission, Pruitt set about making the EPA more industry-friendly.  In the 17 months that he served as Adminsitrator role—he eventually resigned after finding himself the target of 14 separate federal investigations brought by agencies as diverse as the Government Accountability Office, the White House Office of Management and Budget, and the U.S. Office of Special Counsel—he managed to either harm or seriously threaten multiple fish stocks.

Perhaps his most infamous action was his decision to agree with the CEO of the Pebble Limited Partnership, a mining operation that wanted to develop a huge, open-pit mine in Alaska’s pristine Bristol Bay watershed, to vacate an Obama Administration decision, made pursuant to the Clean Water Act, that would have prevented the development of the so-called Pebble Mine.  Pruitt reportedly did so after less than an hour’s conversation with the Pebble CEO, and when he agreed to restart the mine's permitting process, he created a substantial risk that the salmon runs of the watershed—it hosts all five Pacific salmon species, all naturally reproducing, including the largest naturally-reproducing sockeye salmon run in the world—as well as its other natural resources would be severely harmed by tailings from the proposed Pebble Mine.

In a new Trump Administration, it’s far from unlikely that a Scott Pruitt think-alike will be the new Administrator of the EPA.

The Trump Administration finally halted the Pebble Mine, and hopefully provided the needed protection to the Bristol Bay watershed, after the Army Corps of Engineers refused to issue the final permit needed by the mining consortium.  But whether that refusal will be enough to finally defeat the Pebble Mine, or whether the various, seemingly almost random machinations and policy changes that took place between the time the Obama Administration initially halted the project and the Corps of Engineers’ final refusal will convince a court that such final refusal was, in truth, “arbitrary and capricious” and thus invalid, and that such court will allow the mine to proceed, we can’t know at this point.

Either way we shouldn’t believe that science or good policy had anything to do with the current halt. 

Good connections and cronyism did.

You see, Trump finally found out that some hardcore Republicans, including his son and namesake, Donald Trump, Jr., liked to fish for salmon in the Bristol Bay watershed, and didn’t want to see one of their favorite playgrounds turned into a cesspool for an open-pit mine.  Trump’s confidante, broadcaster Tucker Carlson, was also a Bristol Bay fan, who aired a statement in support of the watershed, where he noted that

“Suddenly, you are seeing a number of Republicans, including some prominent ones, including some very conservative Republicans, saying ‘Hold on a moment—maybe Pebble Mine is not a good idea.  Maybe you should do whatever you can not to despoil nature…’”

We probably shouldn't be shocked if new incidents of cronyism pop up in a new Trump administration, and the results of such cronyism might again even prove benign, but if that proves to be the case, we mustn't ignore the affects of accident.  For in such a Trump Administration, the concern that “you should do whatever you can not to despoil nature,” only applies to that part of nature valued by family and influential members of the Republican Party, not to those parts valued by the rest of us.

If, for example, you were just an average guy—maybe a tradesman, or a policeman, or a typical nine-to-fiver with a typical white-collar job, and you liked to fish for striped bass in the Chesapeake Bay, the Trump EPA was not on your side.  The Bay has long been the final dumping place for farm runoff, industrial runoff, and other pollution originating in the entire Susquehanna River watershed.  The federal government has a legal obligation to abate such pollution.  But the last Trump Administration refused to take any action to reduce the pollutant load coming into the Chesapeake’s waters, particularly that originating on Pennsylvania farms.  It took two different lawsuits, and an eventual legal settlement, to compel the Trump EPA to do its job.

Now that the striped bass stock has fallen on hard times, cleaning up the Chesapeake Bay, and minimizing the size of its hypoxic "dead zone," can only become more important.  But, based on what happened the last time, any assumption that a Trump Administration’s Environmental Protection Agency will take any action at all to protect the environment of the Chesapeake Bay will almost certainly prove to be false, and it will probably take another substantial legal effort to get it to provide any help.

It even turned out, the last time around, that the Trump-era EPA didn’t have to go near the water to hurt marine fish, fishermen, and fish consumers.  In the spring of 2020, when Trump’s EPA Administrator was Andrew Wheeler, a former lobbyist for the coal industry, Wheeler gutted an existing regulation that limited the amount of mercury that could be expelled from the smokestacks of coal-fed power plants.

Realizing that corporate profits are not a bit less important than people's health, he claimed that

“We have put in place an honest accounting method that balances the cost to utilities with public safety”

because a former coal industry lobbyist would certainly never want that balance skewed in favor of the public’s health…

That’s relevant to fishermen and fish consumers because the biggest source of methyl mercury in big fish such as tuna, swordfish, and some sharks

“is the burning of fossil fuels, especially coal, which releases 160 tons of mercury into the air in the United States alone.  From there, rainfall washes the mercury into the ocean…

“…High-sulfur (‘dirty’) coal tends to be high in mercury as well…bacteria sulfur in biochemical reactions that eventually convert the mercury into methylmercury, the highly toxic form that accumulates to deadly levels as it passes up the food chain.”

And, if anyone has any doubts, that “deadly” can refer to people, as well as unborn infants, and not just to the rest of the animal kingdom.

EPA regulations were actually beginning to drive down methylmercury levels in bluefin tuna, but Trump’s EPA then did what it could to make tuna fish toxic again.

But all of those things were done by Trump’s cabinet members, not by Trump himself.

So is there really anything that suggests that Trump himself would be hostile to good fisheries conservation and management?  There is, in the form of an “Executive Order on Promoting American Seafood Competitiveness and Economic Growth,” which was issued on May 7, 2020. 

Some of that Executive Order was actually beneficial to American fisheries, such as the section that sought to combat illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing, and the section that sought to create a global seafood trade strategy.  As for the rest, it certainly didn’t bring conservation to the forefront.

Instead, the Executive Order included a directive that each regional fishery management council must produce

“a prioritized list of recommended actions to reduce burdens on domestic fishing and increase production within sustainable fisheries,”

a directive that seems to come right out of the deregulation playbook—and I challenge anyone to name a single fish stock that became healthier after deregulation.  Anglers and conservationists were rightfully concerned that Trump’s Commerce Department issued a press release making it clear that the Executive Order was intended to be an example of

“Regulatory reform to maximize commercial fishing [emphasis added]”

that did not consider the recreational sector.

In fact, Ted Venker, then Conservation Director of the Coastal Conservation Association, perhaps the nation’s largest “anglers’ rights” organization, worried that

“There is the potential for NOAA Fisheries to interpret this order as encouraging increased use of commercial fishing gears such as longlines, gill nets, and trawls, which would be a tremendous step backwards for conservation.”

The Trump Administration was voted out of office just six months after the Executive Order was issued, so there probably wasn’t enough time to put its most egregious goals into place.  However, there is no reason to believe that a new Trump Administration wouldn’t begin where the old one left off, and attempt to deregulate commercial fisheries in an effort to increase production, regardless of such action’s impacts on fish stocks.

And, finally, before leaving Trump behind, let’s not forget his aversion to sharks.

It’s hard to know what effect that aversion had on his administration’s policies, but it’s reasonable to wonder whether it affected the United States’ position at the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas, which also regulates sharks, swordfish, and billfish in addition to its namesake pelagics.  

Traditionally, the U.S. was a conservation champion at ICCAT, but during the Trump Administration it, along with the European Union, became one of the primary opponents of conservation measures intended to halt the sharp and continuing decline in the North Atlantic shortfin mako shark population, and to possibly rebuild the stock sometime within the next 50 years.

While it’s impossible to say that Trump’s fear of sharks had anything to do with the U.S. stance on shortfin makos at ICCAT, it’s equally impossible not to note that the United States reversed its position, and made mako conservation possible, at the very next ICCAT meeting following President Biden’s inauguration.

And that’s probably as good a way as any to summarize Trump’s effects on marine fisheries issues.

So when the election occurs tomorrow, voters are getting a clear choice, between two very different candidates.

Some voters will make the perceived threat of crime, or of inflation, or of immigration issues, their primary concern, and vote accordingly.

Some will worry about issues impacting our foreign alliances, healthcare choice, and/or education standards, and cast their votes based on those.

But for those who will let a candidate’s impact on the health of the nation’s marine resources at least partially influence where their votes will go, I hope that the above summary of the candidates’ histories and party platforms might have provided at least a small nudge in the proper direction.

 

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BETWEEN NOW AND DECEMBER: STRIPED BASS MANAGEMENT IN 2025

 

About 10 days ago, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board met, and decided to do something to make it more likely that the stock will rebuild by 2029.  What that something will be isn’t yet clear—because there is so much uncertainty surrounding the level of catch reductions that will be needed to make rebuilding likely, the Atlantic Striped Bass Technical Committee wasn’t able to come up with management suggestions until the Management Board decided which of five possible scenarios it deemed the most probable.

Once the Management Board selected their preferred scenario, the Management Board would be able to recommend a suite of management measures likely to achieve the associated reduction. 

In the end, the Management Board agreed with the Technical Committee, which advised that the most likely scenario—emphasis on the “most likely,” as there is still significant uncertainty that something different, to a greater or lesser degree, might ultimately emerge—is that the fishing mortality rate will be relatively low in 2024, will increase somewhat as the slightly above-average 2018 year class, which for the most part is still below the 28- to 31-inch coastal recreational slot limit this year, grows into the slot in 2025, and then will fall back to the lower, 2024 fishing mortality rate after most of the 2018s grow out of the slot in 2026.

The Management Board will now have to meet again in December to decide what the 2025 management measures will be.

Its preferred scenario theoretically calls for a 14.5 percent reduction in landings to make timely rebuilding probable but, like so many things associated with striped bass this year, the magnitude of the needed reduction is…uncertain.

The uncertainty stems from the fact that Addendum II to Amendment 7 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass was just adopted last January, with its provisions becoming effective early last spring, so the Technical Committee really doesn’t have any clear guidance as to how Addendum II is impacting fishing mortality.

It does know that recreational catch and landings are down so far this year.

Between March and August 2023, recreational fishermen caught about 13.5 million striped bass, and took about 1.5 million of them home; this year, during the same six-month period, anglers caught only about 10.5 million striped bass and landed fewer than 900,000, reductions of 22 percent and 40 percent, respectively.  If that level of reductions does not increase during the last four months of the year, the fishing mortality rate for 2024 will be about 0.13, well below the fishing mortality target of 0.17, and almost low enough to have as 50% chance of rebuilding the stock with no changes at all.

On the other hand, there is good reason to believe that the fishing mortality rate will increase in 2025, as the 2018 year class grows into the slot.  Such mortality spiked in 2022, when the big 2015 year class was seven years old, and managers were faced with a scenario similar to the one that they face today; 2021 fishing mortality was low enough to rebuild the stock under then-current management measures, so the the 2022 spike caught many by surprise.  Now, informed by that experience, and knowing that the 2018 year class is much smaller than the 2015, just a bit above average, the Technical Committee doesn’t believe that the fishing mortality increase in 2025 will be quite as large.

But they can’t know that for certain.

A lot of things contribute to the size of each year’s harvest.  The availability of harvestable fish is certainly one of those things, but it is not the only factor.  While there is a large group of anglers who dedicate most of their fishing time to chasing striped bass, there are also quite a few who are generalists, and move in and out of the fishery as the fortunes of other species wax or wane.  The angler seeking to just catch of fish of any kind, or put some fish in their cooler, might target striped bass if a legal bass was easier to find than, perhaps, an equivalent amount of sea bass, bluefish or summer flounder, or if he could catch such bass closer to home, or at less expense, than fish of other species.  On the other hand, if such alternative species were readily available, anglers might be more inclined to target them than the less predictable stripers.

Weather can play a role, either keeping anglers locked up inside or enticing them to spend time on the water.  Economic issues can come into play, particularly in the case of the for-hire fishery, while the cost of fuel, if it gets too high, can keep private boat anglers ashore.  And bass may be more or less catchable, depending on the presence of bait, water temperatures, water clarity, and similar factors.

The Technical Committee has no way of accurately predicting such things; it can only look to past years for guidance, and hope that current patterns of angler behavior more-or-less mimic the past.

Against that background of uncertainty, the Technical Committee will have until the December Management Board meeting to come up with a proposed set of management measures.

What will they be?

Given that all striped bass anglers, whether fishing in the ocean or in the Chesapeake Bay, may only keep one bass per day, and that the slot size limits are fairly narrow, spanning just 28 to 31 inches in the ocean and 19 to 24 inches in the bay, reducing the bag limit is impossible, and narrowing the slots won’t be easy to do.  That would seem to make some sort of closed season the most attractive alternative.

However, seasons are complicated.  There is no one-size-fits all.  A closure at the start of the season, in April or May, or perhaps at the end in November and December, might achieve the needed reduction in New York, New Jersey, or Maryland, but probably wouldn’t accomplish much in New Hampshire or Maine.  Similarly, closing part of the summer fishery would impact New England, but might not do much in the Chesapeake Bay, where warm water and existing closures already limit the catch.  Season length also has a disparate impact on different states; the northern New England states have to pack all of their fishing into a handful of months, while seasons farther south can run for most of the year, so a 30-day closure would have a much greater impact in Maine than it would in Maryland.

Thus, seasons would probably have to be imposed on a regional basis, but what should such regions be?  Here in New York, for example, we live and fish at the intersection of New England and the mid-Atlantic region, and our fisheries don’t exactly align with either one.  Out on Long Island’s East End, our calendar looks much like Rhode Island’s with runs peaking a little later in the spring/early summer and a little earlier in the fall than they do in the New York Bight or in western Long Island Sound, where Connecticut and New Jersey appear better partners.  But if Connecticut is paired with New York and perhaps New Jersey, where does Rhode Island fit in?  Maybe it makes sense to group it with Connecticut, too, but then, how about where it abuts Massachusetts?

Judgement calls and compromise will obviously come into play.

Then there is what may be the most contentious issue of all:  Should any closed seasons merely prohibit harvest, or should catch-and-release also be banned?

In theory, a no-targeting closure could be shorter than one that merely prohibits landings, as release mortality would also be suppressed.  But would it work that way in the real world? 

Perhaps not.  There would certainly be enforcement problems.

Last spring, the Management Board appointed a Work Group to look into ways to reduce recreational release mortality.  When the Work Group report was presented at the October meeting, it was noted that the National Marine Fisheries Service has prohibited targeting striped bass in federal waters for about 30 years, yet in all that time, NMFS could not cite a single occasion when an angler was successfully prosecuted for doing so, unless there was a bass in the boat.  Similarly, although a number of states have limited no-targeting closures in place, none could cite a successful prosecution that did not involve a bass in possession.

It is all too easy for an angler to target striped bass while claiming to target bluefish, weakfish, red drum, or white perch, while it is nearly impossible to prove to a judge, beyond a reasonable doubt, that such angler was violating a no-target regulation.

Still, some Management Board members seem to want to put no-targeting seasons in place.  They include Adam Nowalsky, New Jersey’s Legislative Proxy, who has in the past complained that harvest reductions, unaccompanied by restrictions on catch-and-release, unfairly target the for-hire fleet and other catch-and-kill fisheries.  On several occasions during the October meeting, he made a point of asking whether such closures might be considered in December.

Emerson Hasbrouck, the Governor’s Appointee from New York, has close ties to the commercial and for-hire fisheries, and has always seemed somewhat averse to the interests of the surf and private sector anglers, particularly those who release their fish.  Like Nowalsky, he has been a past supporter of no-targeting closures, seemingly believing that allowing catch-and-release is unfair to his commercial and for-hire constituency and, at the October meeting, repeatedly asked questions intended to ensure that the topic comes up in December.

So even if closed seasons turn out to be the Management Board’s preferred way to achieve the needed reduction, the debate over how such seasons should be structured is likely to be very contentious.

Is it possible that the Board will choose to forego seasons and instead shift the coastal slot limit downward, to minimize removals from the 2018 year class?  While the answer to that question is yes, and it seems to make sense that, if the goal is protecting the 2018s, the best way to do that is to shield the entire cohort from the recreational fishery, that might be easier to say than to do.

The 28-inch size limit, whether used as a minimum size or the lower end of a slot limit, has been in place since 1995, so the Technical Committee has a good understanding of the role fish of that size play in recreational landings.  But except for New Jersey’s so-called “bonus” fishery, in which anglers are allowed to fish on that state’s commercial quota and target bass between 24 and 28 inches long, and except for a slot limit in Maine that allowed the recreational harvest of fish no larger than 26 inches, which was abolished in 2015, there is no data that might help the Technical Committee calculate how many sub-28 inch bass might be kept by anglers.

Would the ability to catch a smaller bass bring more anglers into the fishery?  Or would the small year classes produced, beginning in 2019, lead to such a dearth of smaller fish that fewer anglers would try to catch them?  While such smaller slot would do the best job of protecting the 2018s, it could also lead to an overall reduction that was far larger, or perhaps a little smaller, than the 14.5 percent that appears to be the current goal. 

Changing the slot size would also make it more difficult for the Technical Committee to determine how many bass would be caught because the current “selectivity curve,” which indicates the proportion of different-aged bass that would probably be caught in the fishery, is based on the current size limits.  Changing the slot limit would change the selectivity of both the recreational and commercial fisheries, and leave biologists in about the position that they suffer in today, with the new size limits ushered in by Addendum II blurring the selectivity assumptions made in previous years.

While such considerations will probably lead managers to disfavor a new slot, if it gets enough support, it might well get another look.

Which leads to the final point of this essay—public input.

There will not be a series of public hearings before the December Management Board meeting, as there are when addendums are drafted, so stakeholders won’t find it easy to comment on possible management measures, although it is possible that the ASMFC will be able to schedule a webinar or two, where public comment will be entertained.

There probably will be a meeting of the ASMFC’s Atlantic Striped Bass Advisory Panel, but the panel’s makeup doesn’t reflect the makeup of the striped bass fishing community; it provides commercial and for-hire interests with greater representation than they enjoy in the real world, and their comments comprise a far greater share of the AP comments than their typical share of the comments associated with public outreach.

Many states will also reach out to stakeholders, in either a formal or informal context.  But in that case, there is always the risk that the people the states reach out to will represent particular interest groups—commercial fishermen, for-hires, tackle dealers and such—and their comment will not accurately reflect overall stakeholder sentiment.

So it is important that anglers concerned about the striped bass’ future take the initiative, and provide their state fishery managers, and their ASMFC representatives, with input on the sort of management measures that they’d like to see, and the sort of measures that they oppose.  Comments need not be long, although logically presented arguments, based on facts and made respectfully, are always the best way to go.

A list of the ASMFC representatives, along with contact information for the members of each state’s delegation, can be found at https://asmfc.org/about-us/commissioners.

It doesn’t take long to make your thoughts known, and there can be real consequences if too many people, though concerned with the bass’ fate, keep their thoughts to themselves.

NMFS CONTINUES TO UNDERCUT KEY PROVISIONS OF THE MAGNUSON-STEVENS REAUTHORIZATION ACT OF 2006

 

The Fishery Conservation and Management Act of 1976—the initial iteration of the statute that we now know as the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act--was the United States’ first comprehensive law governing fishing in federal waters.  

Prior to its passage, other laws governed extracting the resources of the outer continental shelf, including marine life, or the harvest of tuna, but Congress had never before passed a bill intended to govern the conservation and management of marine life throughout the nation’s waters, on every coast, off every state and territory, from the point where federal jurisdiction began, three miles offshore (three leagues offshore of Texas and the Gulf Coast of Florida), to the edge of the Exclusive Economic Zone, 200 miles offshore (unless truncated to accommodate the EEZ of an adjacent maritime nation).

The primary motivation for the law’s passage was the decline in many stocks of fish, caused in part by domestic overfishing, but also driven by the fishing activities of large factory trawlers from other nations, which could come within 12 miles of U.S. shores.  Its sponsors hoped to nationalize marine fisheries, pushing the foreign boats 200 miles offshore (unless they were fishing for tuna which, to end the opposition of Pacific Coast blue water tuna seiners, the law did not include in its definition of “fish”) while providing incentives for U.S. fishermen to invest in new, modern vessels and gear.

The law also created the eight regional fishery management councils, and empowered them to be the primary authors of management measures intended to conserve and rebuild fish stocks.  However, the law had no safeguards to keep the fishermen sitting on those regional fishery management councils from adopting whatever management measures they chose, even if they led to overfishing.

As a result, the law’s biggest achievement was arguably shifting from a situation where foreign fishermen were overfishing U.S. fish stocks to one in which U.S. fishermen were overfishing U.S. fish stocks.  It didn’t do much for the fish, which continued to disappear.

Things got bad enough that, twenty years later, even the fishermen who originally took advantage of the 1976 law, bought new boats and gear, and had actively overharvested various stocks for the better part of two decades realized that things had to change before everyone, including the fish, were put out of business.

The result was the Sustainable Fisheries Act of 1996 which, for the first time, imposed legally enforceable standards on the fishery managers at the National Marine Fisheries Service.  Overfishing was not allowed.  Overfished stocks had to be rebuilt within a time certain, and within ten years if that was biologically feasible.  All management decisions had to be based on the best scientific information available.

After a federal appeals court decided, in the matter of Natural Resources Defense Council v. Daley, that federal management measures had to have at least a 50% probability of overfishing, the Sustainable Fish Act became a valuable tool to end overfishing and begin the rebuilding of overfished stocks.

Still, some regional fishery management councils—in particular, the New England Fishery Management Council—became adept at evading both the letter and the spirit of the law, crafting fisheries management measures that, on paper, appeared to meet the Sustainable Fisheries Act’s requirements, but failed to end overfishing in the real world.

Congress responded by passing the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Reauthorization Act of 2006, which was intended, in part, to close the loopholes that enabled regional fishery management councils to adopt ineffective management measures.

One of the relevant provisions required all regional fishery management councils to, in every fishery management plan they prepare,

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

Another stated that each such council must

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

Together, the provisions seemed to assure that fishermen would be held to scientifically justifiable catch levels each year, and that if they would face some sort of consequences—some sort of accountability—should such catch levels be exceeded.

And for a while, the management measures worked just that way.  More fish stocks were rebuild, and overfishing was largely controlled.  The problem was, some fishermen weren’t happy with the result, for while the law’s provisions promoted sustainable fisheries, they placed added restrictions on the number of fish that could be killed, and so placed some constraints on the recreational and commercial fishing industry’s profits.  Thus, for the last decade and more, the industry has been exerting political pressure on NMFS, seeking ways to exceed annual catch limits without being held accountable. 

Their efforts have spanned the gamut, from attempts to have responsibility for recreational red snapper management taken away from federal managers and handed over to the states, to passage of the so-called “Modern Fish Act,” which authorizes the use of “alternative management measures” rather than hard-poundage annual catch limits to manage recreational fisheries, to the creation and attempted creation of such alternative measures, including the adoption of the so-called “Percent Change Approach” by the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council and, eventually, by the agency itself.

The Percent Change Approach has been their most successful effort to date.  It allows NMFS to set Recreational Harvest Targets that exceed the sector annual catch limit and that, when combined with the commercial quota, would permit the overall annual catch limit, and sometimes the Acceptable Biological Catch, to be exceeded without meaningful consequences.  Supposedly, some sort of Accountability Measures would be invoked if catch exceeded the annual catch limit, but such Accountability Measures are often so weak that they are meaningless.  For example, in a staff memorandum dated November 8, 2023, Julia Beaty, a staff biologist for the Mid-Atlantic Council, wrote

“As described in more detail below, an Accountability Measure has been triggered based on an overage of the average 2020-2022 recreational Annual Catch Limit.  For stocks with biomass above the target level, as is the case for black sea bass, the regulations require adjustments to the recreational measures; however, they do not specify how the measures should be modified.  In a letter to the Council dated October 30, 2022, the NOAA Fisheries Greater Atlantic Regional Fisheries Office (GARFO) stated that no additional action is required in 2023 to address the recent black sea bass overages, given the reductions contemplated for 2023 as well as the improvements made to the [Recreational Demand Model] which will be used for setting recreational measures for 2024.  [emphasis added]” 

Thus, we find ourselves in a situation where the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act requires that fishermen be held responsible for exceeding the annual catch limit, NMFS regulations require adjustments to recreational fisheries management measures when the trigger for imposing accountability measures is tripped, but NMFS may nonetheless do nothing to hold fishermen accountable for their overage, if it can argue that other measures being taken are adequate to constrain future landings.

That’s hardly a disincentive to anglers who seek to overfish, nor does it disincentivize the angling industry representatives who might sit on the Mid-Atlantic Council from seeking to kill more fish than the scientific analysis recommends.  It guts the effectiveness of the provision in the Magnuson-Stevens Reauthorization Act that would hold fishermen accountable for overages, and thus hopefully dissuade them from exceeding the annual catch limit.

NMFS has been emboldened to push back against the annual catch limit and accountability language by a court decision in the case of Natural Resources Defense Council v. Raimondo, which permits NMFS to adopt management measures likely to cause the annual catch limit, and perhaps even the Overfishing Limit, to be exceeded in any given year, so long as the spawning stock biomass remains above the minimum level capable of producing maximum sustainable yield.  That decision effectively emasculated the provision of the Magnuson-Stevens Reauthorization Act that required regional fishery management measures to set annual catch limits below the level recommended by each such council’s scientific and statistical committee.

Recently, NMFS has issued another set of regulations governing the 2005 black sea bass fishery, that seem to ignore that provision.

In August, the Mid-Atlantic Council and the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Summer Flounder, Scup, and Black Sea Bass Management Board met jointly to address a new Management Track Stock Assessment for black sea bass, which found that the previous assessment had overestimated black sea bass biomass, as well as the biomass reference points, by more than 20 percent.  It also addressed a report of the Mid-Atlantic Council’s scientific and statistical committee that recommended a 20 percent reduction in the annual catch limit for black sea bass.

The Management Board refused to accept the conclusions of the stock assessment or the recommendations of the Council’s Scientific and Statistical Committee, but instead voted to leave 2025 black sea bass specifications—Overfishing Limit, Acceptable Biological Catch, Annual Catch Limit, Commercial Quota, and Recreational Harvest Limit—unchanged from those applicable to the 2024 fishery.  The Council, on the other hand, bound by the relevant language of the Magnuson-Stevens Reauthorization Act, followed the recommendations of its scientific and statistical committee, thereby setting up a situation where federally permitted vessels would be disadvantaged by having to abide by more restrictive regulations, including smaller commercial quotas, than state permitted vessels.

The regional administrator for GARFO stated that regulations allowed him to adopt measures that would hopefully avoid any such inequity in the black sea bass fishery, but admitted that the situation had never arisen before, and he wasn’t quite sure what the regulations allowed him to do.

The regulations that he referenced, 50 C.F.R. 648.143(e), reads

“State/Federal disconnect AM.  If the total catch, allowable landings, commercial quotas, and/or [Recreational Harvest Limit] measures adopted by the ASMFC Summer Flounder, Scup, and Black Sea Bass Management Board and the [Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council] differ for a given fishing year, administrative action will be taken as soon as possible to revisit the respective recommendations of the two groups.  The intent of this action shall be to achieve alignment through consistent state and Federal measures such that no differential effects occur to Federal permit holders.”

NMFS seemingly views that regulation as sufficient authorization for it to ignore the language in Magnuson-Stevens requiring the Mid-Atlantic Council to set annual catch limits at or below the recommendation made by its scientific and statistical committee, as the combined annual catch limits for the recreational and commercial sectors adopted by the Management Board, and apparently now by NMFS, would not only exceed the fishing level recommendation of the committee, which takes the form of the Acceptable Biological Catch, but the Overfishing Limit as well.

NMFS justifies its action by stating that

“Given the current status of the black sea bass stock, which is well above the [fishery management plan’s] definition of a biomass capable of producing maximum sustainable yield, and the potentially significant social and economic harm to Federal permit holders that would result from divergent state and Federal quotas, we are proposing to implement 2025 black sea bass specifications consistent with those adopted by the Commission.”

Such action may seem odd, and probably illegal, on its face, since a clearly-worded statutory provision should prevail in any conflict with an agency regulation.  

However, given the language in NRDC v. Raimondo, which seemed to elevate process and form over practical function when it allowed NMFS to adopt a Recreational Landings Target pursuant to the Percent Change Approach that is higher than either the Recreational Harvest Limit or the Annual Catch Limit, on the theory that NMFS fulfilled its obligation under the statute when it  merely set a value for the Annual Catch Limit, even if such Annual Catch Limit didn’t, in reality, do anything to limit the catch, it is possible that NMFS is now taking the position that the Council fulfilled the legal obligation established in Magnuson-Stevens when it set an Annual Catch Limit that complied with the scientific and statistical committee’s advice, and that nothing in the relevant provision obligates NMFS to endorse the Council’s action.

Instead, pursuant to the regulation, NMFS may argue that it was free to adopt specifications that conflict with the scientific and statistical committee’s advice.

If its action faced a legal challenge, NMFS might very well believe that a reviewing court would rely on the logic of the NRDC v. Raimondo decision to uphold the agency’s action.

But, once again, such decision would undermine the intent of Congress when it included such language in the Magnuson-Stevens Reauthorization Act.

And, while NMFS’ actions in the mid-Atlantic might be relatively inconsequential if limited to the seemingly very healthy black sea bass fishery, the notion of employing alternative management measures to manage the recreational fishery, as promoted in the Modern Fish Act and practiced in the mid-Atlantic, may be spreading to other regions along the coast.  At least one southern fishery management council is already investigating possible ways to adopt such alternative measures in its recreational fisheries.

And thus NMFS is slowly turning back the clock.

By finding ways to circumvent the intent of Congress when it passed the Magnuson-Stevens Reauthorization Act, NMFS is taking a step back to a period when annual catch limits and meaningful accountability for the recreational, as well as the commercial, sector did not exist, and overfishing was tolerated even in the case of depleted stocks.

So far, those steps back have been relatively small, but given the current legal environment, coupled with an agency philosophy that seems to be subordinating conservation and the long-term health of fish stocks to short-term exploitation, particularly with respect to recreational fisheries, NMFS’ strides backward could get longer at any time.

 

 

STRIPED BASS CONSERVATION: DEFEATING THE AXIS OF EVIL

 

According to Wikipedia,

“The phrase ‘axis of evil’ was first used by U.S. President George W. Bush and originally referred to Iran, Ba’athist Iraq, and North Korea.  It was used in Bush’s State of the Union address on January 29, 2002, less than five months after the September 11 attacks and almost a year before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and often repeated throughout his presidency.  He used it to describe foreign governments that, during his administration, allegedly sponsored terrorism and sought weapons of mass destruction.”

Never one to let a good phrase go to waste, I stole the ex-president’s phrase back in February 2021, to describe Delaware, Maryland, and New Jersey, states which, in my view,

“constitute an ‘axis of evil’ on the [Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Atlantic Striped Bass] Management Board, that will continue to threaten the long-term sustainability of the striped bass stock unless they are decisively defeated.”

Unfortunately, although those states have suffered a few setbacks in recent years, their decisive defeat has not yet occurred, while their performance at yesterday’s striped bass management board meeting made it plain that they still constitute a serious threat to the resource.

A newly released stock assessment update revealed that the striped bass stock remains overfished, although fishing mortality in 2023, the terminal year of the assessment, was only slightly above the fishing mortality target so the stock is not currently experiencing overfishing (even if it appears that the stock did experience a very modest degree of overfishing in 2022). 

Last week, Maryland and Virginia both released their 2024 striped bass juvenile abundance indices, and both were the worst in recent years, falling well below the 25^th percentile in the states’ respective young-of-the-year surveys.  In Maryland’s case, the 2024 index represented the sixth consecutive year of striped bass recruitment failure, and the lowest six-year average juvenile abundance index in the history of the state survey, which goes back to the late 1950s.

Next year, the 2018 year class, the last reasonably strong striped bass year class produced on the East Coast, will enter the recreational ocean slot size limit, and be vulnerable to recreational harvest, even though maximizing the abundance of the 2018s may be the key to rebuilding the spawning stock biomass by the 2029 rebuilding deadline.

So it’s clear that the striped bass stock is facing some serious challenges, and is in need of some help from fisheries managers.  But while many members of the Management Board are girding themselves to face those challenges, what was is also clear--at least to anyone who attended or listened in to yesterday’s Management Board meeting--is that the representatives of three "axis" states—Maryland, Delaware, and New Jersey—were doing all in their power to delay or derail efforts to rebuild and conserve the striped bass.

Yesterday’s Board meeting was a very drawn-out affair, with scientists and others presenting an broad array of information relating to the stock assessment update, the likelihood of rebuilding the stock by 2029, and the possibility of reducing the number of fish that die after being released.  It wasn’t until about 5:00 p.m., three and a half hours after the meeting began, that Nichola Meserve, a Massachusetts fishery manager, rose to observe that

“We are going to fall off our rebuilding timeline for 2029,”

state that

“The only error I see is not acting,”

and make a motion that read,

“Move to schedule a special Striped Bass Management Board meeting in December 2024 to consider Board Action in response to the 2024 Stock Assessment Update.  The Board will consider action to revise the 2025 recreational seasons or size limits and 2025 commercial quotas to achieve a 50% probability of rebuilding by 2029 under the “low 2024 removals with F increase in 2025 only” projection.”

Martin Gary, New York’s chief marine fisheries manager, seconded the motion, observing that holding a stand-alone Management Board meeting in December would provide time to obtain stakeholder input, and perhaps hold an Advisory Panel meeting; he said that he hoped that such meeting could be held in person.

Immediately, John Clark, a Delaware fisheries manager, announced his intent to oppose the motion, arguing that the spawning stock biomass reference points, which established both the biomass target and the threshold denoting an overfished stock, were “exceptionally high” (even though such reference points were thoroughly discussed during the 2021 debate over Amendment 7 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass, and supported by 2,668 of the 2,678—(99.6%)—stakeholders who commented on the issue).  He then made the remarkable statement that if no further management action is taken, the stock is still likely to be above the spawning stock biomass threshold,

“which is better than now,”

observed that fishermen are already facing more restrictions than they did when the stock crashed in the early 1980s, and called any further landings reductions an

“almost gratuitous cut,”

 earning his state a prominent place on the axis.

Not to be outdone, Michael Luisi, the Maryland fishery manager, then sought to delay management action by making a substitute motion that would maximize exploitation of the 2018 year class when it entered the recreational ocean slot in 2025:

“Move to substitute and initiate an addendum to address reducing total removals (harvest and discard mortality/recreational and commercial) in the coastwide striped bass fishery using the technical committee’s most likely projection scenario (F2024=Low Removals, F Increases in 2025 Only and Returns to 2025 Low Levels) and a 50% probability of achieving the spawning stock biomass (SSB) target level by 2029.  The intent of this addendum is to provide the Board with coastwide and regional alternatives for the recreational and commercial fishery for implementation on January 1, 2026.”

By January 1, 2026, when Luisi's proposed addendum would become effective, the 2018s would be moving out of the ocean recreational slot, and most of the damage would already be done.

Not surprisingly, the motion was seconded by Delaware’s Clark.

In making his motion, Luisi argued that the provision in Amendment 7, which was fully debated by the Board and which allowed the Board to take immediate action in response to unfavorable information in the stock assessment update “was an experiment,”  (although one would think that, as in any experiment, you need to fully carry it out to its conclusion in order to know whether or not it would yield a favorable result), and said,

“We owe it to the public to be heavily involved in the addendum process.”

To the best of my knowledge, he never also expressed the opinion that the Management Board owes it to the public to fulfill its obligation to rebuild the striped bass stock by 2029.  Instead, he stated that

“I’m concerned about the longevity and the durability of the actions that we take,”

which is a legitimate concern, for it’s certainly nice to have management measures that don’t change from year to year.  But it’s far nicer to have management measures that actually achieve their goals and provide the public with a fully rebuilt stock that, if the Management Board does its job, will be healthy and sustainable in the long term.

The debate on the substitute motion lasted a while, as supporters and opponents of the proposal motion rose to speak.  One of the most interesting comments came from Chris Batsavage, the North Carolina fishery manager, who opposed Luisi’s effort to delay action.  

He noted that the Management Board was running out of time, and needed to move faster given the likely increase in 2025 fishing mortality that it was facing.  He noted that North Carolina no longer has an ocean striped bass fishery, in part because

“There aren’t a lot of fish out there,”

and in so doing, pointed out that not taking action to rebuild the population has real consequences.

But Pat Geer, Virginia’s fishery manager, supported the substitute, largely for bureaucratic reasons, as his state was already well into the process of obtaining 2025 striped bass tags for its commercial fishermen.  He suggested that, while it might be appropriate to change recreational management measures for 2025, commercial measures should not be altered until 2026.

Max Appelman, speaking for the National Marine Fisheries Service, favored the substitute because it allowed for more “robust public comment.”

But others disagreed.  David Sikorski, the Legislative Proxy from Maryland, argued that

“It’s more responsible to act more quickly,”

and to stop “playing games” with the management process by adopting regulations that fall short of what is needed to achieve their goals.  He also objected to those who tried to cause dissention within the angling community by neatly dividing catch-and-release from catch-and-keep anglers, noting that anglers often release fish on one trip, while keeping fish on another.  He also noted that, because of existing regulations, anyone who fishes releases fish, even if they are focused on harvest.

Dennis Abbott, New Hampshire’s Legislative Proxy, also opposed the substitute, saying that it represented

“a dereliction of our duty to protect the 2018 year class.”

In the end, although it had the support of New Jersey, Maryland, and Delaware, as well as the support of NOAA Fisheries, Virginia, and the Potomac River Fisheries Commission, the substitute motion failed on a 6 to 9 vote, with Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, the District of Columbia, and North Carolina voting against, while the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service abstained.

At that point, Virginia’s Pat Geer, driven by the bureaucratic issues he faced, made another motion to substitute that read

“Move to schedule to substitute a special Striped Bass Management Board meeting in December 2024 to consider Board Action in response to the 2024 Stock Assessment Update.  The Board MAY consider action to revise the 2025 recreational season and/or size limits and 2026 commercial measures with an addendum for 2026 and beyond to achieve a 50% probability of rebuilding by 2029 under the low 2024 removals with F increase in 2025 only projection.”

Once again, Delaware’s Clark was more than happy to second the motion.

Mr. Geer explained that he made the motion because the states bordering the Chesapeake Bay couldn’t adopt amended commercial measures in time to provide tags to their fishermen before the fishing season began.

His plea drew some sympathetic comments, but Ms. Meserve noted, in a comment that probably expressed the views of the many people, both on the Board, in the audience, and on the water, who are concerned with the striped bass’ future, that

“I remain disappointed and frustrated that the states with writing on the wall”

are attempting to delay needed management measures.

Mr. Batsavage expressed his agreement with Ms. Meserves statement, and added,

“We shouldn’t let process get in the way of conservation of striped bass.”

Still, Mr. Geer’s motion almost attracted enough sympathy to pass, failing on a 7-7 vote, with the two federal agencies abstaining.  Along with the expected favorable votes of Delaware, Maryland, and New Jersey, it won the support of New Hampshire, the Potomac River Fisheries Commission, the District of Columbia, and Virginia, while Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina voted against.

Yet Delaware’s Clark made one more attempt to disrupt the process, moving to amend the original motion so that the phrase “commercial quotas” was replaced by “commercial measures.”  Mr. Sikorski seconded the motion, making clear that he did so only for the purposes of discussion.

Clark argued that, instead of reducing the commercial quota, the Management Board should require that all commercially-caught bass be tagged at the point of capture (as they already are in many states) instead of at the point of sale.  He alleged that such point-of-capture tagging would prevent fish from being sold to illicit buyers without being reported, and would reduce actual commercial landings more than a quota cut would.

Some Board members expressed opposition, arguing that there was no time to consider measures other than quotas, but once again, the motion failed on a tie vote, with eight in favor and eight opposed.

At that point, Ms. Meserve’s original motion was finally on the table.  14 jurisdictions voted in favor; even Maryland conceded defeat and voted its approval.  New Jersey was the sole state to vote against, while the Delaware delegation was split and, unable to reach a decision, cast a “null” vote.

Despite Delaware’s, Maryland’s, and New Jersey’s efforts to disrupt the process, in just a couple of months the Management Board will address 2025 management measures for both the recreational and commercial fisheries.  Hoipefully, it will make meaningful changes to the managment plan.

But based on other comments made at yesterday's meeting, the opposition to effective management action will not go away.

Even before Ms. Meserve made her original motion, opposition to such measures began.

Delaware’s Clark tried to argue that, ten years after the first halting measures to conserve the stock began, the spawning stock biomass appeared to be following “a natural population cycle," going up and down.  He claimed that 

“we can’t guarantee anything by keeping [the spawning stock biomass] at a very high level,” 

and fretted that

“People are going out of business,”

while asking

“Do we have any sense of whether the stock would recover if spawning stock biomass went down even further than it is now?”

a question that caused a member of the Technical Committee to remind him that biomass is what people are fishing on, that a decrease in biomass means that fewer fish are available to fishermen, and that poor recruitment will not support the current level of fishing pressure.  But such response had no impact, with Clark suggesting, as he had in the past, that the biomass reference points should be lowered to allow higher harvests, and that

“We have been very precautionary [about the impact of management on striped bass].  We need to be precautionary about what we are doing to people.”

The importance of a healthy striped bass stock to the people who fish for them apparently did not cross his mind.

Adam Nowalsky, New Jersey’s Legislative Proxy, took a different tack, trying to cast doubt on the data and the need for further management action.  

He first tried to question the importance of the juvenile abundance index, asking why the trends in the JAI data did not exactly track the trends in recruitment of Year 1 bass into the population.  After being told that the differences could be due to either “noise” (that is, uncertainty) in the data or to mortality events during the juvenile fish’s first year, he then tried to raise doubts about the Year 1 recruitment, noting that years with notably high recruitment, to which he attached the disparaging label “outliers,” skewed the time series mean upwards.  He asked if it was possible to adjust or remove such high recruitment years, apparently without regard to whether such estimates accurately reflected the recruitment in the relevant years, in order to reduce the time series mean, an action which would degrade the accuracy of the time series as a whole and, in a period of low recruitment, make the stock look healthier than it actually is.

He claimed he was questioning such data because he was

“Looking for another way to possibly interpret this information to…stabilize the fishery,”

a somewhat cryptic way of saying that he was looking for a way to keep management measures unchanged and avoid putting needed conservation measures in place.  Such intent to avoid adopting such needed became obvious later in the meeting, when Nowalsky asked,

“As we sit here today, does the management plan mandate a reduction in 2025?”

He was undoubtedly hoping for an answer of “No,” although the real answer to that question was, of course, up to the discretion of the Board, based on how it applied the information presented by the Technical Committee to the language in the management plan.

Thus did the Management Board members from Delaware, Maryland, and New Jersey attempt to prevent the Board from adopting new management measures for the 2025 season.

So far, their efforts have failed.  But when the Management Board next meets, to put needed rule changes in place, we can be certain that the three states will again try to frustrate the rebuilding effort, in order to provide their stakeholders with a few more dead bass for a few more years, until the stock buckles under the strain.

For in the world of striped bass, they represent the axis of evil, and that is what they do.

We must never let them prevail.