WHAT NOW? ANOTHER POOR STRIPED BASS SPAWN IN THE CHESAPEAKE BAY

 

If you follow striped bass management at all, you probably already know that the Maryland Juvenile Abundance Index for 2024 was announced last Thursday, and that it came in at just 2.0, marking the sixth consecutive year of recruitment failure in the Maryland portion of the Chesapeake Bay.

You might also know that the Virginia JAI was also announced last Thursday, and came in at 3.43.  That marked the fourth consecutive year that the Virginia Juvenile Abundance Index was below the 25^th percentile in the time series used to determine low recruitment, with the 2024 JAI the lowest in recent years.

And if that’s not bad enough, the average of the Maryland JAI for the last six years was the lowest in the history of the Maryland Juvenile Striped Bass Survey, which first sampled juvenile striped bass abundance in 1957.  The previous low, for the period 1980-1985, was 3.36.  The average for the years 2019-2024 was 2.62, about 22 percent lower.

Maryland produces about two-thirds of the striped bass spawned in the Chesapeake Bay, and a recent study confirmed that the Chesapeake Bay produces over 80 percent of the striped bass caught along the East Coast of the United States.  So with Maryland experiencing six consecutive years of failed spawns, and Virginia not doing much better over the past four years, it’s pretty clear that the striped bass stock is in trouble.

What’s not clear is what managers can do about it.

Maryland has stated that

“warm conditions in winter continue to negatively impact the reproductive success of striped bass, whose larvae are very sensitive to water conditions and food availability in their first several weeks after hatching.”

Fishery managers have generally accepted the proposition that cold winters followed by cool, wet springs favor strong striped bass spawns, while warm winters followed by warm, dry springs can lead to spawning failure.  By that measure, 2024 should have produced at least a mediocre juvenile abundance index, for while the winter of 2023-2024 was relatively mild, the spring of 2024 was cool and wet, with water flows and water temperatures similar to those which produced strong year classes in the past.  Based on those conditions, many of us were expecting at least an average spawn, and hoped for something a little bit better than that.

By midsummer, there were some rumors and other indications that the spawn wasn’t as successful as we had initially expected, but would still result in a Maryland JAI in the 6 or 7 range—below the long-term average of 11, but still the strongest since the somewhat above-average year class of 2018.

When we finally heard, last Thursday, that the JAI was just 2.0, we were floored.

So clearly, something else must be going on.

There has recently been thought that favorable temperatures and water flows may not be enough to ensure a successful spawn. In a paper titled “Climate effects on the timing of Maryland’s striped bass spawning runs,” which was written by Angela Giuliano and appeared in the November 20, 2023 issue of the journal, Marine and Coastal Fisheries, the author suggests that

“If temperatures continue to warm quicker in the latter portion of the spawning season, this could result in a reduced time period during which temperature conditions are ideal for Striped Bass survival…these temperature could affect the timing of larval Striped Bass relative to their zooplankton prey, a concept known as match-mismatch.  Large year-classes of striped bass tend to occur after cold and wet winters and [research] showed a potential mechanism for this, with the rate that copepods reach the adult stage over the winter being dependent on water temperatures.

“…With the shifting spawning window and potential changes in zooplankton availability due to rising water temperatures, it has been suggested that having a broad age range of spawning fish will make it more likely that some eggs and larvae will experience these ideal conditions.  Although fisheries managers cannot directly control the water temperature that larval fish will encounter, they can consider how management actions may affect the age range of fish available in the spawning stock in addition to the size of the spawning stock.  If these management goals are considered in tandem, the Striped Bass stock may be better positioned to adapt to the conditions expected under a changing climate.  [citations omitted]”

Perhaps in addition to water temperatures and flows, there is another factor—zooplankton availability, and the timing of that availability with the timing of the striped bass spawn that dictates whether a spawn will be successful.

That’s not good news, because fisheries managers have no control over climate or weather, or the timing of a zooplankton bloom.

At the same time, Ms. Giuliano’s paper provides some guidance on what the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board ought to do when it meets next Wednesday, particularly when read in conjunction with Dr. David Secor’s research, presented in “Spawning in the nick of time?  Effect of adult demographics on spawning behavior and recruitment in Chesapeake Bay striped bass,” which appeared in the ICES Journal of Marine Science in 2000. 

In that paper, Dr. Secor noted that

“large, old striped bass may spawn earlier than small and young individuals.  Increased age diversity in the spawning stock may increase the temporal and spatial frequency of spawning (spawning dispersion) and thereby increase the probability that some offspring will encounter favorable conditions…

“…Increased spawning dispersion may compensate for variable temperature conditions on the spawning grounds, which often results in patterns of egg production that are mistimed for optimal larval survival…The observation that larger striped bass tend to spawn early in the season suggests that spawning behaviours that vary with size or age might be an effective means to hedge bets against environmental stochasticity…

“…Striped bass epitomize periodic strategists, spreading risk of failed replacement through variability in spawning behavior over many spawning seasons…  [citations omitted]”

Dr. Secor also noted that

“Through a moratorium on Maryland State harvests in the Chesapeake Bay, the 1982  year-class was effectively protected and became a dominant [year-class].  Ironically, most egg production in 1982 was attributable to striped bass >10 years of age.  Old remnant females produced during the 1960s were a hedge against a long period of recruitment overfishing which occurred during the 1970s.  [citation omitted]”

Thus, even though the recent poor Maryland JAIs are driven by environmental factors—water temperature, water flows, perhaps a mismatch in timing between the striped bass spawn and the presence of the abundant zooplankton that the juvenile bass depend on for food—over which the Management Board has no control, the Management Board can still exert significant influence over the future of the striped bass, by 1) assuring that the spawning stock includes as many different age and size classes as possible, to take advantage of transient favorable spawning conditions that might occur over the course of a spawning season, and 2) by preserving the oldest and largest fish in the spawning stock, in order to preserve a pool of what Dr. Secor called “old remnant females” that can produce a strong year class on its own should favorable conditions arise.

The only way to achieve those two goals is to sharply reduce fishing mortality, which can best be done by sharply cutting back on recreational and commercial landings.

Under current conditions, there is little excuse for harvesting large female striped bass.  Recreational size limits in place in both the ocean and the Chesapeake Bay fisheries prohibit such harvest, but a number of states still do not place a maximum size on the bass that may be harvested by commercial fishermen; Massachusetts, for example, imposes a 35-inch minimum size on its commercial fishermen, with no cap on the size of the bass that might be landed. 

A maximum size limit for commercial fishermen was considered as a part of Addendum II to Amendment 7 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass, but because such measure would be difficult to implement (by imposing a maximum size limit on the commercial fishery, managers would have forced commercial fishermen to harvest more, but smaller, bass to fill their quota, and adjusting quotas to account for the cap would have been a time-consuming process that would have frustrated the Management Board’s intention to put such Addendum in place quickly) such a size limit was not included in the Addendum.  However, if commercial quotas were cut back sharply at the same time the maximum size was imposed, that issue would largely become irrelevant.

Ending the harvest of larger, older bass would increase the chances of such individuals’ survival, and make it more likely that such fish would be available to to spur a recovery of the striped bass stock when spawning conditions improve, even if there were few younger females in the population.

However, protecting the older females is not enough, if the striped bass stock is to be given its best opportunity to rebuild.  Managers must also protect the younger bass, in order to provide the age and size diversity needed if at least some striped bass are to be able to take advantage of more favorable spawning conditions whenever they occur during the spring spawning season.  That can only be done by sharply cutting back both recreational and commercial landings, through extensive recreational season closures and a much-reduced commercial quota.  It might even be necessary to prohibit all commercial and recreational harvest.

The need to protect the younger fish, in order to create a diverse spawning stock, also means that managers should reconsider present policies that allow both recreational and commercial fishermen to target immature striped bass in the Chesapeake Bay.  

Given the extremely small year classes produced in the Bay in every year since 2019, the 2.79 million pound commercial quota in the Chesapeake Bay allows commercial fishermen to remove a substantial share of each such year class before the fish have had a chance to spawn even once.  Similarly, the 19- to 24-inch slot limit for recreational fishermen within the Bay forces anglers to target and, if so inclined, land immature striped bass.  Such removals are contrary to the objective of including as many year classes as possible in the spawning stock.  

The Management Board should consider applying the same 28- to 31-inch slot size limit now in force in the recreational ocean fishery to the Bay fishery as well, in order to lessen the removals of bass from the smallest year classes.

There would certainly be substantial resistance to such proposals.  Recreational and commercial fishermen in the Chesapeake Bay would undoubtedly object if they were no longer able to harvest immature striped bass, commercial fishermen will oppose any reductions in quota, and the for-hire fleet is unlikely to support any additional restrictions on recreational landings.

Yet the bass is in serious trouble.

Adopting extremely restrictive regulations today may be the only way to avert something far worse from occurring tomorrow.

 

 

MARINE FISHING INDUSTRY AGAIN TRIES TO WARP THE MANAGEMENT PROCESS

 

It’s another presidential election year, so like clockwork, the recreational fishing industry is again pushing its political agenda on the public and the incoming administration, in the form of a document titled The Future of Sportfishing:  Policy Recommendations from the Recreational Fishing Community.

This year, their efforts raise particular concerns, for despite their usual attempts to undercut marine conservation and management, they have somehow convinced a couple of legitimate conservation organizations, Backcountry Hunters and Anglers and Trout Unlimited, to support their attempts to distort the goals of marine fisheries management in order to maximize industry profits, even if doing so puts marine resources at risk.

As it has done in the past, the American Sportfishing Association uses the commercial fishing industry as a foil, couching its policies as a necessary response to a pro-commercial management system and arguing that

“…Historically, preference has been given to the commercial fishing industry.  The sportfishing industry is an afterthought and saddled with antiquated, commercial focused, management plans and inaccurate data.”

They don’t provide any factual support for those assertions, of course, and the commercial fishing industry might well take exception, and complain about shrinking commercial quotas and the reallocation of a portion of those commercial quotas to the recreational sector, as has recently occurred in the case of summer flounder, scup, black sea bass, bluefish, gag grouper, amberjack, and other species.

In partial defense of the ASA, the National Marine Fisheries Service has discovered a flaw in the Marine Recreational Information Program, which is used to estimate recreational effort, catch, and landings, but it is actively working to correct the problem. 

Otherwise, the American Sportfishing Association’s rhetoric is an appeal to emotion, not rational debate.  For example, it makes the claim that saltwater anglers are

“contributing over 40 billion dollars to the economy, despite being responsible for only 2 percent of all marine fish harvest (with commercial fishermen being responsible for the remaining 98 percent).”

While those figures may be true, their truth hides a deeper deception on the part of the ASA, for most of the commercial landings are composed of fish that are not targeted by anglers; in 2022, commercial landings included 2.7 billion pounds of walleye pollock, as species that does not support any recreational fishing activity, along with 1.44 billion pounds of menhaden, a fish that neither strikes artificial lures nor bites at a baited hook.

Thus, when comparing commercial and recreational landings, neither species, which dominate the overall commercial landings, are really relevant to the discussion.

But when we start looking at fish of interest to anglers, it quickly becomes clear that recreational fishermen account for a lot more than 2 percent of the landings, and often kill the lion’s share.  Thus, in the case of striped bass, recreational fishermen are responsible for 89 percent of the overall fishing mortality; with recreational landings nearly five times the commercial harvest. 

Based on available NMFS landings data for the commercial and recreational sectors, in 2022, recreational fishermen on the Atlantic coast were responsible for 97 percent of all dolphin landings, 83 percent of the bluefish, 66.5 percent of the king mackerel, 63 percent of black sea bass and 59 percent of all scup landings—even though, in the case of the latter species, the recreational allocation was only 35 percent of the annual catch limit.  The foregoing are all federally-managed species.  When we look at species managed on a state or regional basis, along with the aforementioned striped bass, anglers were responsible for 97 percent of red drum landings, 95 percent of black drum, 94 percent of tautog, and 90 percent of all spotted seatrout landings.

So, while commercial fisheries do dominate landings for some species of interest to anglers—primarily groundfish that can be trawled in large numbers or pelagic forage species such as mackerel that are trawled or purse seined tens of thousands of pounds at a time—recreational fishermen take the greater share of many other fish stocks, enough to make it clear that the American Sportfishing Association’s efforts to cast recreational fishermen as victims fails in the face of the facts.

But then, the rest of the ASA’s document, at least as it applies to marine fisheries, also fails to stand up to any sort of fact-based analysis. 

Take, for example, the assertion that

“The Marine Recreational Information Program (MRIP) is the federal data collection system for recreational fishing.  However, the program has routinely been shown to be highly inaccurate, including a recent study that found the program overestimates recreational catch by 30-40%.  This has led to inaccurate stock assessments, lower quotas, and shortened seasons…”

Again, we find one truth—NMFS did find that MRIP was overestimating recreational effort, and so catch and landings—used in an effort to make multiple false statements appear valid.

To begin, MRIP has not “routinely been shown to be highly inaccurate.”  Instead, MRIP’s sampling and catch estimation procedures were hailed by a panel of the National Academy of Sciences as

“a vast improvement over the previous sampling and estimation procedures and reflect state-of-the-art methods in survey sampling.  [emphasis added]”

Somehow, the ASA seems to have left that part out of their report.  One might almost think that the omission might have been intentional.

The one instance in which MRIP was found to be inaccurate occurred when a recent study—because MRIP, unlike the various state data programs that ASA actively supports, does conduct ongoing quality control studies to better ensure the quality of its data—revealed that, probably because of how the survey’s questions were ordered, anglers were overstating the number of trips that they took, which translated into an overestimate of catch and landings.

However, contrary to the American Sportfishing Association’s assertions, such overestimates did not lead to “inaccurate stock assessments, lower quotas, and shorter seasons,” at least if, by “inaccurate stock assessments,” one means an assessment that does not accurately reflect the status of a stock.

In fact, just the opposite occurs.

To address the stock assessment issue first, the primary purpose of such an assessment is to determine whether stock abundandce is at a sustainable level, and whether that abundance is increasing, decreasing, or staying relatively stable.  The size of a stock is far less important than its status, for if the stock is healthy and being fished at a sustainable rate, its precise size is of little real concern.  To that point, when discussing the error in MRIP, NMFS noted that, because of the error and any subsequent corrections,

“the magnitude of historical estimates may change, but critical catch and effort trend information is expected to remain similar.  It’s important to note that stock status determinations are relatively consistent when trend information hasn’t changed.  [emphasis added]”

Thus, the ASA is not correct when it claims that MRIP data, even if it overstates landings, leads to “inaccurate stock assessments,” as estimates of stock status and trends remain valid.

The ASA is also incorrect when it argues that the errors in MRIP lead to “lower quotas, and shorter seasons,” for in reality, such errors lead to higher recreational (and commercial) catch limits and longer seasons—perhaps higher catch limits and longer seasons than the stock can easily sustain.

That’s because recreational catch data is one of the inputs used when stock assessments are prepared, and when such data indicates that anglers are catching a lot of fish, the population model assumes a larger stock size, because the fish the anglers are catching have to come from somewhere.  We saw this in the 2018 benchmark striped bass assessment, when a higher estimate of recreational landings was an important factor in driving the estimate of spawning stock biomass from 61,000 metric tons in 2012 to more than 68,000 metric tons in 2017, at the same time that the same catch estimate contributed to increasing the values for the biomass target and threshold.

Such higher estimates of spawning stock biomass lead to higher, not lower, quotas for both recreational and commercial fisheries.

Yet the ASA ignores such facts as it continues to press for more liberal regulations and higher recreational landings, in the hope that such regulations will generate higher profits for the recreational fishing industry.  Thus, its report calls for

“implementation of alternative management approaches authorized by the Modern Fish Act.”

An example of such “alternative management approaches” is the so-called “Percent Change Approach” being utilized by the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council, which allows NMFS to set recreational harvest targets that exceed the recreational harvest limit and even the sector annual catch limit, and which, if combined with the commercial quota, could lead to landings exceeding the overall annual catch limit, and even the acceptable biological catch and overfishing limit, effectively doing an end run around the conservative management approaches established by the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act.

But then, conservative management and long-term sustainability has never been the ASA’s lodestars.  The American Sportfishing Association is a trade association, and its purpose is to promote the interests of the recreational fishing business which, like any business, is all about maximizing profits.

Its willingness to turn its back on conservation concerns is made manifest in two of the other stated goals in the report,

“Withdraw North Atlantic right whale vessel speed rule and partner with industry on technology safety solutions,”

and

“Create a task force to develop mitigation protocols for shark depredation.”

Both deal with animals that are at low levels—in the case of right whales, critically low levels—of abundance, and neither make the animals’ welfare a priority, but rather elevate industry interests above conservation concerns.

The ASA’s position on the North Atlantic right whale is particularly callous.

The National Marine Fisheries service calls the North Atlantic right whale

“one of the world’s most endangered large whale species,”

and notes that

“human interactions still present the greatest danger to this species.  Entanglement in fishing gear and vessel strikes are the leading causes of North Atlantic right whale mortality…

“There are approximately 360 individuals remaining, including fewer than 70 reproductively active females…The number of new calves born in recent years has been below average.”

The whale is clearly a species in very serious trouble.

Yet the ASA would have the federal government withdraw proposed regulations that would require vessels as small as 35 feet in length—vessels the size of many recreational fishing boats—to slow to 10 knots in areas where and at times when right whales are likely to be present, in order to avoid whale-killing vessel strikes, because such regulations would hamper some fishing activities and might be a drag on recreational fishing industry profits.  The report argues that

“The recreational fishing community advocates for common sense solutions to conserving the North Atlantic right whale.  The 2022 Amendments to the North Atlantic Right Whale Vessel Strike Reduction Rule ineffectively applies a broad-brush management approach that will be costly to implement, practically impossible to enforce, and damaging to recreational boating, fishing, and coastal economies along the Atlantic coast.”

Now, I have no idea whether the proposed regulations would make any difference to the right whale population or not; I didn’t participate in the public comment period, because I lacked enough knowledge to form a meaningful opinion.  But it would seem that, given the state of the right whale population, it is not a “common sense solution” to allow fishing boats to rip through the species' nursery or feeding grounds at more than 30 knots, when vessel strikes—including strikes from recreational fishing boats—are known to have killed both adults and calves. 

“Common sense” would seem to demand that regulators err on the side of caution.                

If the ASA thinks that the proposed rules are too broad, and place too much of a burden on the recreational fishing community, then it is the Association’s burden to offer workable alternative solutions to the problem of recreational vessel strikes that can be put into effect now, not at some possible point in the future.  Merely saying that

“Several marine electronics companies have technologies that can detect NARW in real time and are hard at work at integrating how that information can be instantaneously communicated with boaters”

is not good enough. 

Eliminating regulations that may provide real protections today, in the hope that industry will someday develop a technology that might protect the whales, and that boaters, under no legal obligation to react to that information, will operate their vessels in a responsible manner when whales are in the vicinity, is wishful thinking, not a solution.

Hastening the extinction of a species such as the North Atlantic right whale, just so the recreational fishing industry might earn a few more dollars, is the height of irresponsible narcissism.

We see the same sort of narcissism, at a less critical level, in the ASA’s approach to shark depredation.  The issue, in a nutshell, is that anglers venture out on the ocean in search of fish that are the shark’s natural prey.  Such fish are hooked, struggle against the pull of the line, and their struggles are noticed by sharks that, doing what 400 million years of evolution have directed them to do, then make a meal of the distressed animal.  In response, anglers get upset that ab apex marine predator fed on the fish they wanted to play with, and perhaps eat themselves, and the issue of shark depredation is born.

Of course, shark depredation is nothing new.

If you read the books written by fishermen who ventured offshore in the years before the Second World War, anglers such as S. Kip Farrington, Van Campen Heilner, and Ernest Hemingway, you’ll learn that shark depredation was the norm back then, with marlin, bluefin tuna and other big fish regularly mutilated by sharks before they were landed.  Even in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when I was doing a fair amount of codfishing from Rhode Island-based party boats, it was pretty well accepted that, at some point during the day, one or more sharks would happen along and steal a few cod.  It was just the way things were.

But then shark populations became overfished, and anglers forgot what it was like to compete with sharks for the fish.  The anglers pretty well had things their way for a couple of decades, and when successful management actions began to rebuild some shark populations, those anglers resented having to compete with the big predators once again.  As Dr. J. Marcus Drymon, a marine fisheries ecologist at Mississippi State University explains,

“people gradually accept environmental decline.  Marine Biologist Daniel Pauly calls this habituation ‘shifting baseline syndrome.’  For fisheries, each new generation of fishermen accepts the current, often reduced, status of fish populations as the baseline and forgets that there was a time when these species were much more abundant.

“In this case, modern anglers are comparing increased numbers of sharks in the Gulf of Mexico to the past 30 years—a time when many shark populations were overfished.

“The recovery of populations that were once overfished can create an opposite situation, known as lifting baselines, with conservation and management efforts leading to population increases.

“Instances where populations have been overfished and then rebuilt can create a perception of overabundance.  When the species that’s recovering is a predator, that can lead to human-wildlife conflict.”

Thus, the “shark depredation” debate.  As some shark populations slowly rebuild, and as the number of anglers also increases, there is greater competition for the same prey species—grouper, snapper, cod, haddock, yellowfin tuna, and the like—and greater calls from the recreational fishing community, including the American Sportfishing Association, to “do something” about the shark “problem.”

The ASA complains that

“Shark depredation, when a shark bites or consumes the hooked catch as it is being retrieved, is increasing in prevalence and leading to poor quality fishing experience and concerns about fishery sustainability.”

Such statement ignores the fact that fish stocks had no problems dealing with sharks for hundreds of millions of years; it was only when fishermen—not only anglers, but commercial fishermen, too—came on the scene that sustainability became an issue.  And it never really addresses the fact that the sustainability of shark populations is important, too.

Still, it probably is possible to find a middle ground, for as Dr. Drymon writes,

 

“…The Gulf’s sportfishing industry has grown, and it is likely sharks learn to associate the presence of boats with an easy meal.

“Shark deterrents are available, and new versions are continually being developed.  Some fishermen are changing their practices to avoid sharks—for example, shifting locations frequently and never anchoring or fishing offshore to avoid coastal species such as bull sharks…

“In my view, measures like these, along with better data about which sharks are taxing anglers and where, are the most promising ways to help anglers coexist with sharks in the Gulf.”

And if that’s all the ASA wants to do, perhaps there isn’t a problem.  The report notes that

“Legislation introduced in the 118^th Congress, called the Supporting the Health of Aquatic Systems through Research, Knowledge, and Enhanced Dialogue (SHARKED) Act, would create a task force to research technologies and other methods that can reduce the prevalence of shark depredation,”

and so long as the efforts to reduce depredation focus on technology and changing angling practices, all should be well. 

However, the phrase “other methods that can reduce the prevalence of shark depredation” call all too easily be interpreted to include “other methods that can reduce the prevalence of shark depredation by reducing the prevalence of sharks.”  I sit on NMFS’ Highly Migratory Species Advisory Panel, and it is very clear from their comments at Panel meetings that a number of industry representatives believe that shark numbers are already too high—such members being confused by the “lifting baseline” mentioned by Dr. Drymon—and support and sometimes actively call for adopting measures that will halt the restoration of some shark stocks and reduce the abundance of others, even though biologists like Dr. Drymon tell us that

“As reports of depredation increase, so do calls for culling shark populations…

“Studies show, however, that predator removal is rarely an effective strategy.  It’s particularly ineffective for species such as sharks that move around a lot and will readily recolonize areas that have been culled.  Predator culls also pit people with different values, such as fishing boat operators and conservationists, against each other.”

Should the debate over shark depredation get to the point that culls are seriously considered, it’s not hard to figure out which side the American Sportfishing Association and its allies would support.  After all, it already supports

“reducing pinniped [seal and sea lion] populations in the river systems”

of the Pacific Northwest in order to prevent them from preying on salmon valued by anglers.  Going from there to reducing shark populations in order to lessen shark depredation on hooked sportfish is not a very long journey.

The ASA report addresses other issues, but in such cases the theme remains the same:  Giving lip service to conservation, while promoting policies that subordinate good science and thoughtful conservation practices to policies that will provide short-term economic benefits to the sportfishing industry, while putting the long-term health of marine resources in doubt.

The American Sportfishing Association, as a trade organization and as the voice of the recreational fishing industry, has every right to promote policies likely to help its members’ bottom lines, but recreational fishermen should never make the mistake of thinking that the ASA is looking out for them, just as policymakers should never make the mistake of thinking that the ASA speaks for recreational fishermen, instead of the fishing industry.

ASA speaks for itself.  It speaks for its members.  And those concerned about the long-term health of our nation’s living marine resources should not be pleased with much of what it has to say.

 

 

 

STRIPED BASS ASSESSMENT UPDATE: SOME ADVICE, BUT SUBSTANTIAL UNCERTAINTY

 

The 2024 update to the 2018 benchmark striped bass stock assessment has been released.  It offers some guidance on the status and trajectory of the striped bass stock, but is clouded with substantial, if unavoidable, uncertainty.

The clear guidance is presented in the Executive Summary, which states, in part:

“…Total removals from 2022-2023 averaged 6.18 million fish, a 20% increase from 2021, the terminal year of the last assessment.  From 2022-2023, recreational release mortality made up 40% of total removals, with recreational harvest making up 49%, commercial harvest making up 10%, and commercial discards making up 0.5% of the total.  This is a change from 2018-2021, where recreational release mortality made up 50% of total removals and recreational harvest accounted for 37%...

“Because the recruitment trigger in Amendment 7 was tripped based on 2021-2023 data for the New Jersey, Maryland, and Virginia abundance indices, the biological reference points were calculated using the low recruitment regime assumption.  This resulted in a lower F target and F threshold compared to the benchmark assessment.

“In 2023, the Atlantic striped bass stock was overfished.  Fishing mortality was above the F target, but below the F threshold, indicating overfishing was not occurring…Total fishing mortality in 2023 was estimated at 0.18 which is below the updated F threshold of 0.21 per year, but above the updated F target of 0.17 per year.  Although the stock is not experiencing overfishing, these results trip the F target trigger in Amendment 7 since F has exceeded the F target for two consecutive years while [Spawning Stock Biomass] is below the SSB target…

“Projections were run to determine the probability of SSB being at or above the SSB target by 2029, the rebuilding deadline.  If F is reduced to the F target by 2025, and F target is maintained through 2029, there is less than a 5% chance that the stock will be rebuilt by 2029.  [emphasis added]”

So a few things are clear.

With the movement of the 2015s into the slot limit, anglers are taking home more striped bass, and recreational harvest, rather than release mortality, is now the predominant cause of fishing mortality.  In fact, over the past two years, the impact of the two sources of mortality have switched places since the last stock assessment update.  

Recreational release mortality’s contribution to overall fishing mortality has fallen from 50 percent in the 2022 update to 40 percent in the most recent document, while recreational harvest’s contribution has increased from 37 percent in the earlier update to 49 percent in recent years.  

Given such changes in the impact of the two major contributors to fishing mortality, it will be interesting to see whether the Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board’s focus on reducing fishing mortality, as opposed to reducing all sources of striped bass fishing mortality, will abate to any degree.

The various indicators used to gauge the health of the striped bass stock are all pointed in the wrong direction.  The stock remains overfished.  The recruitment trigger, newly added to the management plan by Amendment 7, has been tripped not just by three consecutive years of unusually poor recruitment in a single key region, but by such extremely sub-par recruitment in three of the four major spawning areas. 

And while the striped bass stock is not experiencing overfishing, fishing mortality has risen high enough, for a long enough time, to trip another management trigger, which requires the Management Board to reduce fishing mortality to the target level within one year.

Given that fishing mortality is only marginally above the fishing mortality target, that should be easy to do.  However, even if the Management Board puts such reduction in place, there is no realistic chance that fishing at the target fishing mortality rate will rebuild the stock by the 2029 deadline.  

Further action is needed.

But just what that further action might be isn’t clear.  That’s where the uncertainty comes in.

“The F rate necessary to have a 50% chance of being above the SSB target by 2029 (F_rebuild) depends on the extent of the reductions realized by Addendum II, implemented in 2024.  The [Technical Committee] initially predicted that Add. II measures would result in a 13.7% reduction in total removals relative to 2022, equivalent to 5.86 million fish…In this scenario, F in 2024 is estimated to be 0.20, while F_rebuild=0.11 for 2025 onward.  To achieve F_rebuild in 2025, total removals would have to be reduced to 3.46 million fish, a 46% reduction from the predicted removals in 2024.  However, the preliminary MRIP numbers for 2024 Waves 2-3 are 36% lower than the Waves 2-3 numbers for 2023.  Expanding the preliminary 2024 Waves 2-3 estimates to the full year, based on the proportion of total landings that occurred in those waves in earlier years, and accounting for a 7% decrease in commercial removals relative to 2023 due to the quota reduction, resulted in total removals of 3.89 million fish in 2024.  In this scenario, F in 2024 is estimated to be 0.13, and fishing at this rate each year through 2029 would result in a 50% probability of being above the SSB target in 2029.  In order to maintain this F rate in 2025, a 4% reduction from estimated 2024 removals would be needed.  The [Technical Committee] considers the low 2024 removals scenario based on preliminary MRIP numbers to be more likely than the high 2024 removals scenario.

“However, in 2025, the above-average 2018 year-class will be age-7, the same age the strong 2015 year-class was in 2022, and just entering the 28-31” slot in the ocean fishery.  When the 2015 year-class entered the ocean slot, total removals increased by 32% from 2001 to 2002, and F in 2022 was 39% higher than 2021…F in 2023 under the Emergency Action slot limit was still 17% higher than in 2021.  If F in 2025 increases by the same percentage seen in 2022 or 2023 and remains there, the probability of rebuilding under that F rate is well under 50%.  Historically, an increase in F due to a strong year-class recruiting to the fishery has been followed by a decrease in subsequent years, although the rate of change has been variable.  If F increases only in 2025 and decreases to the level estimated for 2024 as the 2018 year-class moves out of the slot, the probability of rebuilding by 2029 is 43%.

“The level of removals in 2024, 2025, and subsequent years is a major source of uncertainty in these projections.  Although predicted removals for 2024 based on preliminary 2024 MRIP data for Waves 2-3 can support rebuilding by 2029, it is likely that removals will increase in 2025 and the Board should be prepared to respond to this eventuality.  [emphasis added]”

While the assessment update accounted for many sources of significant uncertainty based on hard data, there are additional sources of uncertainty that folks on the water have seen.  For example, one of the big contributors to Wave 2-3 striped bass effort, catch, and landings in recent years has been the spring fishery in Raritan Bay, which borders New York and New Jersey.  That fishery peaked in 2021, when New Jersey anglers caught slightly over 4 million bass during Wave 2.  The New Jersey catch fell to about 1.7 million bass in 2022 and 2023, then dropped again, to just a bit over 1 million bass in 2024.  That’s a 41% drop between 2023 and 2024, and given that New Jersey catch and landings dominate the ocean fishery during Wave 2, was undoubtedly a big contributor to the 36% drop in Wave 2-3 landings mentioned in the assessment update.

The Raritan Bay fishery is largely driven by the abundance of menhaden that typically aggregate there in the spring.  In the spring of 2024, those menhaden, for reasons unknown, were largely absent from Raritan Bay, but if they reappear in 2025, striped bass catch and landings could spike back toward 2022-2023 levels.

In addition, 2024 was a very atypical year in terms of weather.  The late spring—the time when a large body of bass migrates through New York and southern New England waters—was windy and wet, keeping boats off the water and also keeping water temperatures unusually low.  During late June and early July, a dense plankton bloom stretched the length of Long Island, dropping underwater visibility to just a few inches and negatively impacting fishing in the ocean.  And in September, traditionally a time when bass fishing begins to heat up again, incessant east winds, coupled with big swells from offshore storms, again chased boats off the water and severely impacted fishing effort.

Thus, the Technical Committee’s conclusion that “the low 2024 removals scenario based on preliminary MRIP numbers to be more likely than the high 2024 removals scenario” may well prove accurate, but 2024 removals may also prove anomalous, so much so that 2025 landings, propelled by more typical conditions on the water as well as the 2018 year class entering the coastal slot limit, could drive 2025 removals even higher than the assessment update suggests.

Thus, this may be one of those occasions when the Management Board would be well advised to follow the old advice to hope for the best and plan for the worst, the worst not necessarily being the 46% reduction indicated if 2024 landings were assumed to replicate those of 2023, but certainly something far less benign than the 4% reduction based on preliminary MRIP data for the first waves of this year.

At the least, it would probably be wise for the Management Board to assume that there is no better than a 40% probability that the stock will rebuild by 2029 under current management measures, based on both the 2025 fish entering the slot and the assumption that 2025 and subsequent years will see more favorable fishing conditions, and set new management measures accordingly.

Adding a bit of additional precaution to those assumptions certainly wouldn’t hurt, but might be a bit much to ask of the Management Board, which has never shown an institutional appreciation of the need for caution, and has on more than one occasion chosen the riskier road instead of the prudent course.

With the bass facing real problems, including an inevitable decline in the spawning stock once the five failed year classes reach spawning age, we can only hope that on this occasion, prudence will reign.

RECREATIONAL BYCATCH: IT'S REAL

 

Some words bring very clear pictures to mind.

In a fisheries context, the word ‘bycatch’ evokes images of industrial-scale commercial fisheries, where miles-long pelagic longlines take an unintended toll of sharks, billfish, and even marine mammals, while factory trawlers sweep the ocean floor with vast nets that scoop up anything that happens to lie, crawl, or swim in front of their gaping maws.

But one image that doesn’t immediately come to most people’s minds is that of a recreational fisherman, using nothing more than a single hook and line, threatening the health of a fish population by accidentally catching and killing too many members of an overfished stock.

Yet that scenario can occur, and it’s happening right now off the southeastern coast of the United States, where anglers targeting grouper and other reef fish are causing real, if unintended harm to the red snapper stock.

The South Atlantic stock of red snapper has been overfished for quite a long time. Stock assessments completed in 2009, 2010, 2017, and 2021 have all found the stock to be overfished and experiencing overfishing. The South Atlantic Fishery Management Council (Council) has put a rebuilding plan in place, and it appears that the stock is currently on track to rebuild by the 2044 rebuilding deadline. To achieve such rebuilding, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) established a 2024 annual catch limit (ACL) of 85,268 pounds for the commercial fishery, along with a commercial limit of just 75 pounds (gutted weight) of red snapper per trip, and a recreational ACL of 21,167 fish, paired with a recreational bag limit of one fish, of any size, per day.

To keep commercial landings within the commercial ACL, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) monitors such landings, and if they exceed, or appear likely to exceed, the commercial ACL, the commercial fishing season is closed for the rest of the year.

To keep recreational landings within the recreational ACL, NMFS establishes a recreational fishing season that it believes will be short enough to prevent an overage. In 2024, the recreational red snapper season in the South Atlantic region lasted for only one day.

However, seasons and ACLs only dictate when fishermen may keep red snapper; they have little impact on when red snapper can be incidentally caught and unintentionally killed. It is those incidentally killed red snapper, most of which are killed by the recreational fishery, that are making it particularly difficult for the Council and NMFS to rebuild the South Atlantic red snapper stock. As the Council has noted:

Since initial implementation of the rebuilding plan, red snapper fishing has been limited by few days of recreational harvest allowed annually and a low annual catch limit (ACL) for the commercial sector with a season beginning each year in July until the ACL is met. These measures, combined with growing effort in the South Atlantic snapper grouper fishery, particularly from the recreational sector, have led to a drastic increase in the number of red snapper that must be released after being caught. The increase in releases has, in turn, led to an increase in the number of fish that die after being caught and released, despite efforts from management and fishermen to improve survival after release through best practices and use of descending devices. The number of dead red snapper far outnumbers fish removed from the population by harvest.

Large numbers of releases limit managers’ ability to prevent overfishing and reduce the number of fish that can be landed by the fishery. Overfishing occurs when the number of total removals exceeds the overfishing limit. If more of these removals occur from fish dying after release, fewer fish may be landed.

It is thus in the best interests of both the red snapper and red snapper fishermen to reduce the number of fish that die after release, so that red snapper mortality may be reduced at the same time that red snapper landings might be increased. However, that is a far easier thing to describe than to achieve.

The Council tried to rein in recreational red snapper bycatch in 2022, when it initiated Regulatory Amendment 35. The Decision Document for such amendment spelled out the problem the Council was facing when it printed comments made by the Council’s Scientific and Statistical Committee (SSC), which observed that

To significantly reduce discard mortality, reducing encounters and effort is paramount. Long-term management strategies need to focus on these reductions in order to enable greater harvest to occur…

In the short-term (for this regulatory amendment), the SSC recommends pursuing temporal/spatial reductions (possibly wave-based) in bottom fishing. Seasonal differences among regions within the South Atlantic should be considered when developing these regulations, if possible. The bulk of recreational discards of red snapper are occurring off the East Coast of Florida; thus, spatial closures may be most effective in this area… [formatting omitted]

What the SSC was, in essence, suggesting was that the Council implement closed seasons and/or closed areas for all bottom fish, in order to reduce anglers’ out-of-season encounters with, and so their bycatch and release mortality of, South Atlantic red snapper. Anglers quickly rejected the idea. The Council reported that ‘much of the [Snapper Grouper Advisory Panel] was opposed to giving up access to other species to potentially increase ability to retain red snapper.’

The Snapper Grouper Advisory Panel (AP) itself provided a statement that read:

For Regulatory Amendment 35, the AP was asked to provide suggestions to further reduce red snapper interactions while fishing for other species. The AP was asked to consider punitive actions that may include bottom fishing closures and altered or shut down seasons for other species in order to avoid red snapper interactions.

The AP presented opinions and suggestions in the best of faith. However, the overriding opinion and feeling of the AP is that red snapper are recovered. This is based on the collective on-the-water experience of the AP members. The AP overwhelmingly feels they were asked for suggestions to solve a problem that no longer exists.

The red snapper is highly abundant. The biomass of the species is largely assumed by the AP as recovered and sufficient in abundance and range to begin a pathway to more liberal regulation of the species.

After the AP proved unwilling to even consider the scientific advice, and instead stubbornly maintained a position that no additional management actions were needed to reduce recreational bycatch and release mortality, and after recreational fishing organizations also expressed strong opposition to such measures, it was probably not surprising that, in the end, the Council did not forward Regulatory Amendment 35 to NMFS for approval.

But that did not end the debate over recreational red snapper bycatch.

On May 15, 2024, Tilman Gray, a commercial fish buyer in Hatteras, North Carolina, and Slash Creek Waterworks, Inc., a commercial fishing operation also located in Hatteras, brought a lawsuit against the Secretary of Commerce and the National Marine Fisheries Service, challenging ‘the failures of Defendants Gina M. Raimondo, in her official capacity as Secretary of Commerce, and the National Marine Fisheries Service (‘NMFS’), to promulgate regulations to stop overfishing on the South Atlantic stock of red snapper, as required by the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, 16 U.S.C. 1801-1891d…’

The complaint in that suit noted that, on July 23, 2001, NMFS notified the Council that the South Atlantic stock of red snapper was both overfished and experiencing overfishing; that the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (Magnuson-Stevens) requires regional fishery management councils to develop plans to end overfishing within two years of such notification; and that if a regional fishery management council fails to take such action within two years, Magnuson-Stevens requires NMFS to promulgate regulations intended to achieve such goals within the following nine months.

The complaint then alleges that both the Council and NMFS failed to fulfil such statutory obligations, and that both Tilman Gray and Slash Creek Waterworks have been harmed as a result.

NMFS must have recognized the validity of the plaintiffs’ claims, for on August 22, 2024, the parties to the lawsuit entered into a settlement agreement, in which the defendants agreed, among other things, to ‘complete and submit to the Office of the Federal Register for publication by June 6, 2025, a final rule implementing a Secretarial Amendment to stop overfishing on the South Atlantic red snapper stock under 16 U.S.C. [section] 1854(c) & (e).’

The defendants would be relieved of their obligation to file such Secretarial Amendment if, prior to the June 6, 2025 deadline, the Council has filed ‘a plan amendment or proposed regulations’ to end overfishing of South Atlantic red snapper, and defendants have submitted a final rule reflecting such Council’s action.

Thus, federal fishery managers are now being forced to address the issue of recreational bycatch, and the resultant discard mortality, in the South Atlantic red snapper fishery, whether or not the recreational interests who arguably dominate the Council wish to do so.

On September 20, 2024, NMFS notified the Council that it would be preparing the agreed-upon Secretarial Amendment, but has not yet said what such amendment would look like. However, in the notice published on its website, the agency stated:

The most recent scientific information indicates the South Atlantic red snapper stock is recovering consistent with rebuilding goals owing to higher than average recruitment of young fish in recent years, yet too many red snapper are being caught and discarded dead to sustain this recovery if recruitment decreases back to more historical levels. The magnitude of these dead discards is causing overfishing of the red snapper stock and preventing the more abundant, younger fish from surviving to the older ages necessary to sustain the population in the long term. Management measures that reduce dead discards may serve to both end overfishing of the stock and increase the number of red snapper that can be retained by fishermen.

NMFS’ focus on reducing dead discards both as a means to end overfishing and as a way to convert dead recreational discards into red snapper landings is very reminiscent of some of the language found in Regulatory Amendment 35, which was ultimately rejected by the Council. It would thus seem likely that the remedies considered in Regulatory Amendment 35, including the use of closed seasons and closed areas to reduce angling effort and anglers’ encounters with out-of-season red snapper, will be included in the final Secretarial Amendment.

But perhaps more importantly, the Secretarial Amendment may represent NMFS first effort to constrain bycatch-prone recreational fishing activities; in doing so, it would create an important precedent.

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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/

FORAGE FISH CONSERVATION BILL AGAIN BEFORE CONGRESS

 

On September 26, Representatives Debbie Dingle (D-MI) and Brian Mast (R-FL) announced the reintroduction of the Forage Fish Conservation Act, a bill that was initially introduced over three years ago, in the 117^th Congress.

In explaining their rationale for introducing the bill, Reps. Dingle and Mast noted that its purpose was

“to strengthen key protections for fisheries and promote responsible management of forage fish.  The Forage Fish Conservation Act improves protections for forage fish—including herring and shad—that support marine ecosystems as well as other recreationally and commercially important species such as tuna, salmon, and cod.  These populations have experienced substantial decline because of human activity, which threatens the stability of marine ecosystems as well as opportunities for recreational fisherman [sic].  Currently, there are few management measures in place to address this decline.”

One of the most comprehensive forage fish protections now in place is the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council’s Unmanaged Forage Omnibus Amendment, which was embodied in a final rule adopted by the National Marine Fisheries Service on August 28, 2017.

Because the Omnibus Amendment was just that—an amendment to all of the other fishery management plans overseen by the Mid-Atlantic Council--one of the criteria for a species being listed in, and protected by, such Amendment was that a fish, mollusk, or crustacean not only served as forage, but that it either served as forage for one or more of the species managed by the Mid-Atlantic Council or was caught as bycatch in one of the fisheries overseen by that council.  Thus, the National Marine Fisheries Service disapproved the proposed inclusion of bullet and frigate mackerels in the Omnibus Amendment, for

“While the amendment includes some information suggesting that these species are consumed by large pelagic species such as tuna, billfish, and sharks, it is not clear what portion of the diet of these species that bullet mackerel and/or frigate mackerel represent…[E]ven applying the lower forage thresholds used by the Council…there is no scientific evidence presented in this amendment that indicates bullet and frigate mackerel are forage for [Council] managed species…

“While there is evidence that a small amount of bullet mackerel was caught with bottom trawl gear that resulted in the landings of species managed by the Council, the information and analysis indicate co-occurrence that is not necessarily indicative of systematic bycatch in those fisheries…With no dealer reported landings of bullet mackerel and an average of less than 7,500 lb.…of frigate mackerel reported landed each year between 1996-2015…there is limited information to support that these species are caught as bycatch in managed fisheries…”

In the end, the Omnibus Amendment extended its protections to ten families and one species (the Atlantic saury) of fish, to pelagic mollusks (other than sharptail shortfin squid), and an array of zooplankton and other animals that attain a maximum length of less than one inch.  Landings of all such forage species must be recorded, only NMFS-permitted vessels may legally land them, and vessels are limited to a 1,700 pound possession limit of all designated forage species, combined.

However, to some extent, such protections are illusory, as the Omnibus Amendment also allows

“use of an experimental fishing permit…to support any new fishery or the expansion of existing fisheries for Mid-Atlantic forage species.  The Council would consider the results of any experimental fishing activity and other relevant information before deciding how to address future changes to the management of fisheries for Mid-Atlantic forage species.  Pursuant to existing regulations…the Regional Administrator already consults with the Council’s Executive Director before approving any exemption under an EFP request.”

Thus, although the Council’s stated intent in adopting the Omnibus Amendment was

“to prohibit the development of new and expansion of existing directed commercial fisheries on certain unmanaged forage species in Mid-Atlantic Federal waters,”

And even though

“The Council intends to prohibit such fisheries until they have had an adequate opportunity to assess the scientific information relating to any new or expanded directed fisheries and consider potential impacts to existing fisheries, fishing communities, and the marine ecosystem,”

the exempted fishing permit process provides fishermen with a potential opportunity to do an end run around the protections that the Omnibus Amendment would seem to provide.

Data on unmanaged forage species is necessarily limited, as funding for stock assessments is directed toward managed species, as are the human resources needed to produce such assessments.  Thus, there may often be little or no scientific information available on the status of forage fish stocks, or on the impacts of increased harvest of forage species on the species itself, on existing fisheries, or on marine ecosystems.  Yet under such circumstances, the exempted fishing permit process could frustrate any efforts to apply precautionary principles to forage fish management, and allow the directed harvest of such species without any knowledge of what then consequences of such harvest might be.

Fortunately, that hasn’t happened so far. 

The only request for an exempted fishing permit that might open up a fishery for an unmanaged Mid-Atlantic forage species was made in 2021, when three New Jersey companies sought permission to purse seine 6.6 million pounds of Atlantic thread herring (a/k/a “threadfin herring”).  The herring are a data-poor species, with so little scientific information available that the exempted fishery itself would be used to collect biological data.

NMFS Greater Atlantic Regional Fisheries Office was willing to take a long, hard look at the application before issuing an exempted fishing permit.  It noted that the proposed purse seine fishery could pose a threat to sea turtles and possibly Atlantic sturgeon, which are included on the list of threatened and endangered species.  It also noted that there are currently no purse seine fisheries operating in the Mid-Atlantic region, so the proposed thread herring fishery could not be covered by existing endangered species consultations, but instead would require a new consultation, along with the concomitant biological opinion and incidental take statement, along with possible measures to minimize the number of such incidental takes.

Mid-Atlantic Council staff have noted that

“GARFO staff are focused on other fishery management priorities, therefore, they are currently unable to assist with additional analyses to ensure compliance with [the National Environmental Policy Act] and [the Endangered Species Act].  The same is true for Council staff.  The applicants are currently considering the possibility to develop the necessary documents with assistance from contractors.”

Thus, it is unclear whether an exempted fishing permit for threadfin herring will ever be issued.  It is also unclear whether, if the fact pattern had been a little different and staff at the Council or regional office had a little more time to consider the application, an exempted fishing permit might have been issued, despite the lack of information regarding its possible impacts.

And given that only the Mid-Atlantic and Pacific fishery management councils have adopted relatively broad protections for forage species, directed fisheries for forage fish could be developed along much of the United States’ coastline with virtually no consideration for such species role in the ecosystem.

Thus, the Forage Fish Conservation Act addresses an important issue.

No copy of the bill’s text has yet been made readily available to the public.  However, assuming that it resembles the bill introduced in 2021, it will create basic protections for forage species by requiring each regional fishery management council’s scientific and statistical committee to provide advice on

“maintaining a sufficient abundance, diversity, and localized distribution of forage fish populations to support their role in marine ecosystems,”

while also requiring each such council to

“develop a list of unmanaged forage fish occurring in the area under its authority and prohibit the development of any new directed forage fish fishery until the Council has considered the best scientific information available and evaluated the potential impacts of forage fish harvest on existing fisheries , fishing communities, and the marine ecosystem; determined whether conservation and management of the forage fish fishery is needed; if a determination is made that the conservation and management is needed, prepared and submitted to the Secretary a fishery management plan or amendment…; and received final, approved regulations from the Secretary…”

Such explicit requirements would better protect forage fish everywhere in United States waters, and also make it less likely that the exempted fishing permit process could be used to work around existing forage fish protections.

The bill’s further requirement that

“when setting annual catch limits for forage fish fisheries, assess, specify, and reduce such limits by the diet needs of fish species and other marine wildlife, such as marine mammals and birds, for which forage fish is a significant part of their diet,”

would help to assure that, in managing forage species, maintaining their ability to fulfil their role in marine ecosystems would take priority over economic concerns. 

Unfortunately, while the Forage Fish Conservation Act is a good bill that deserves passage, the odds of it actually being signed into law sometime this year are vanishingly small.  There is no Senate companion, and no strong indication that any Senator is willing to champion such legislation.  To add to the headwinds militating against the bill’s passage, 2024 is an election year, and members of Congress will spend all of their time this October trying to maintain their seats for another term, and will not be paying particular attention to their legislative duties.  

In the likely event that Congress reconvenes for a lame duck session, legislators will be addressing higher-priority items, including appropriations bills for all branches of government, rather than legislation with a narrower focus, such as the forage fish bill.

However, the fact that some legislators are still willing to champion the forage fish issue should provide some reason to hope that forage fish legislation will eventually get the attention that it deserves, perhaps sometime after the new Congress convenes next January.