THE BOY WHO CRIED "SHEEP!"

We’ve all heard the story of The Boy Who Cried “Wolf!”  It’s a time-tested parable warning of the risks of creating a crisis where none exists, and it’s something that everyone who deals with conservation issues must keep in mind.  Because if we decide to say that everything is a crisis, even when it is not, no one will believe us when a true crisis really appears.

I kept that parable in mind a couple of weeks ago, when I wrote a blog warning of troubles that might lie ahead for the striped bass.  In many ways, that blog was premature, as it was based on a preliminary stock assessment report that had not yet been finalized, much less released, and on some rumors and second-hand stories that I could not verify with any certainty.

Normally, I need more than that when I sit down to write. 

I try to give all of my readers the straight scoop on things, so I’m hesitant to base any thoughts and reporting on less-than-definitive sources.  Thus, I hemmed and hawed a bit before writing that bass piece, and when I finally went ahead, I didn’t only consider the boy who cried out when the wolf wasn’t there, but the other lad watching the meadow, who just yelled “Sheep!  There’s no danger,” even though he had more than enough reason to believe that something hungry and large was lurking, not quite seen, in the brush at the edge of the meadow.

Crying “Sheep!” goes back a long way.

A lot of serious striped bass fishermen have been worried that at least one wolf, and maybe quite a few more, has been stalking their favorite fish for close to ten years, but the folks in charge of the stock kept on telling them that everything was OK. 

At the February 2009 meeting of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board, G. Ritchie White, the Governor’s Appointee from New Hampshire, was already expressing concern.  As he said on the record,

“…I come away this afternoon with a lot of uncertainty.  I see a disease issue that we don’t have a handle on that could make a major impact.  We hear about a law enforcement issue that could be substantial; we don’t know.  The 2008 numbers I understand are not good.

“You have issues in the northern range that are trending down substantially.  Maine and New Hampshire, especially Maine, a good chunk of those anglers didn’t see any striped bass this year.  I guess I don’t see things quite as positively as some, and I think it’s time for caution.  We have had a number of proposal come forward and each one has a little impact on mortality, but I haven’t seen anything that has combined them all…”

At the time he said that, the Management Board was debating an addendum to the management plan that would increase the commercial harvest.  Vito Calomo, the legislative proxy for Massachusetts, supported the increase, and tried to reassure his colleagues on the Management Board that there was no wolf out there, and so no need to worry, because

“[The striped bass are] in the ocean, they’re on the ocean side, not in state waters like they have been for years.  There are more people who want to open up the EEZ because they’re in the ocean.  You take an airplane ride, you can see them in the ocean.  There are people that sneak out there and know they’re in the ocean.  That is where the majority have migrated.  Reasons; I am not the scientist; I don’t disagree with that, but they’re in the ocean.  There is an abundance of them in the ocean…”

In the end, the commercial increase, failed to pass, but on a tie vote, and the issue was revived again at the May 2009 meeting.  Six months later, it was finally defeated, but even then, there were folks out there reassuring the sheep that they were fine and all would be well.

Still, there were some good shepherds who kept scanning the edge of the forest; in January 2011, their diligence seemed to pay off when one wolf stepped into the open, in the form of an update to the stock assessment, which found that recruitment of young fish into the population had been low, and warned that, whether recruitment remained low or returned to average levels,

“Female [spawning stock biomass] will fall below the threshold [meaning that the stock will become overfished] by 2017 under both recruitment scenarios.”

That was enough to convince the Management Board that there really were threats in the offing, and in March 2011, it initiated an addendum to reduce striped bass harvest.  But final action on the addendum was delayed until November, and by then, the wolf had faded back into the forest, and it seems that the Management Board’s memories of the threat the wolf posed had faded away, too.

When they met in November, many members of the Management Board suggested that since the stock wasn’t yet overfished, and since overfishing wasn’t yet taking place, there was no reason to take any action.  Unlike federal managers who, pursuant to the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, are required to take remedial action if the stock is likely to become overfished within the next two years, those at ASMFC have no duty to act to avert a crisis, and may wait until the soft, smelly stuff has really and truly hit the fan before they begin to talk about what they might have to do.  As a result, the Management Board halted all efforts to reduce harvest until after the next stock assessment.

Before that meeting, some members of ASMFC’s Atlantic Striped Bass Advisory Panel warned that the wolf was still waiting, just out of sight, and advised against such delay.  But other Advisory Panel members sought to soothe the sheep, and tell them that there was no danger. They said that harvest should be maintained at then-current levels, and cited

“a bad economy, adequate stock abundance, stable commercial landings, more pressing management issues, natural changes in distribution, mycobacteriosis, scare tactics, multispecies considerations, and not tripping any of the triggers as reasons for the northern recreational problem [of low abundance] and/or reasons for status quo.”

The notion that “no triggers were tripped” was a reference to a provision in Amendment 6 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass, which requires managers to take certain actions if the health of the striped bass stock declines. 

Two of the triggers are tripped if the stock becomes overfished, or if overfishing occurs.  But there are also two triggers that trip when the situation is less dire.  

One requires the Management Board to reduce fishing mortality if it finds that the fishing mortality rate is above the target (but not the threshold) for two consecutive years, and the female spawning stock biomass drops below the target (but not the threshold) in one of those years; the other requires the Management Board to draw up a plan to rebuild the biomass to target levels within ten years, should the biomass fall below target for two consecutive years, and fishing mortality rise above target in one of those years.

Since Amendment 6 was adopted more than fifteen years ago, fishery managers have assured anglers that they didn’t have to worry about the health of the stock, because if any of those triggers were tripped, managers would have to take action.

Things didn’t turn out that way.

When the 2013 stock assessment report was released, it turned out that the latter two triggers, which dealt with violating the targets, but not the thresholds, had both been tripped.  The Management Board did act to reduce fishing mortality, but made no effort to initiate a rebuilding plan, even though Amendment 6 clearly required that they do so.

And that brings us to where we are today.

As I noted in this blog two weeks ago, the striped bass assessment for 2018 suggests that bass are facing problems.  Two different models indicate that the stock is overfished and that overfishing is taking place on the coast; they only disagree on how severe those problems might be. 

That assessment is being peer reviewed.  The peer review committee has not yet issued its report on the assessment, and it is possible—perhaps not likely, but surely possible—that such report will either disapprove both models, or otherwise moderate the assessment’s finding that, yes, the “stuff” has now hit the fan.

An angler who has been long involved with striped bass conservation wrote a piece warning fellow fishermen that not just one wolf, but a whole pack, was getting ready to feed.  It’s possible that he was wrong, and crying “Wolf!” in vain, but there is also a very good chance that he’s pretty much dead on target.

The reaction to what he wrote was intriguing.  

A number of anglers, taking up the alarm, forwarded his piece to their friends.  At least one used it as a base for his own video.  There was considerable buzz.

But then the sheep-soothing began.

A writer down in Maryland got onto Facebook and chided all of the folks who started talking about the assessment, saying that it was wrong to start discussing possible problems until the peer review report was completed and formally released. 

From the standpoint of science, that was good advice; from the standpoint of fisheries politics, maybe not.  

The folks who don’t want to see more restrictive regulations are aware of the assessment’s conclusions, too; if anglers do nothing, those folks could have a three-month head in the fight for the hearts and minds of the Management Board, a head start that could prove impossible to overcome.

Last week, a local fishing publication put out similar advice.  It began with the very rational message that

“early indicators do show we may be facing new management decisions on striped bass in the very near future.  But preliminary is the key word here, meaning its probably too soon to react to sensationalism from either side just yet.

“At least until February!”

February is when the Management Board will next meet.  But the peer review report itself will be out before that, likely in early January.  Once it comes out, anglers will know where the striper stands.  

If the final report confirms that the bass is in trouble, anglers ought to be actively contacting their ASMFC reps before the February meeting, to make sure that their views on the subject are known.

Waiting until February would give folks who aren’t so concerned with the striper’s future months to argue, unopposed, that managers should ignore the Amendment 6 triggers, as they ignored one of those triggers in 2014, and not worry about a rebuilding plan.  

They could use the time trying to convince Management Board members to change the reference points that define overfishing and an overfished stock, and so increase landings of an already overfished resource, while anglers just sat on their hands.  There has already been talk about making such changes at ASMFC.

That sort of thing should be cause for concern.  

While the article contained no glaring falsehoods, and even admitted that striped bass abundance was in a 12-year decline, its reasonable, low-key tone seemed to hide an underlying bias. 

It noted that

“There are members of the ASMFC who believe that certain biological reference points are too conservative; for example, lowering the target and threshold to accommodate new modeling approaches, environmental factors, migration shifts or updated recreational harvest (MRIP) methodologies could actually remove the ‘overfished’ and ‘overfishing’ by way of a penstroke.”

and tried to reassure anglers that

“As for the trawl surveys and where researchers collected striped bass samples used in the overall stock analysis, questions remain as to whether or not the spawning class fish are truly gone, or if they’ve traveled farther east into deeper offshore grounds in the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) or even into Canadian waters.”

Fair enough.  That’s all true, at least sort of (the best evidence shows, as the article suggests, that bass that do run offshore soon return again to state waters, while the striped bass up in Canada come from local populations that don’t migrate far from their natal rivers.)

But what’s missing is the other side of the equation.  There are quotes from folks saying that bass might be in the EEZ, and that there is no reason to worry, but there is no discussion of things like the impacts of a lowered biomass target on spawning stock structure, and no quotes from the many people who fear that we may be facing a serious problem.

In honesty, I know of fishery managers, from more than one state, that are sending a similar message, so I can’t say the article’s message was out of line.  But it makes me uneasy.

Sleep, little sheep, you are safe, don’t you worry—and should the wolves come, we can at least hope that they do their job fast…

That message poses a problem.

Some of us instinctively want to protect the sheep.  We spend our time looking out for wolves, trying to catch that first whiff of scent, the first stealthy sound, that first glimpse of something not clearly seen, that warns us that danger is out there.  It’s our nature to worry.

And when we see people trying, far too hard, to convince the sheep that there’s no danger, it starts to set off alarms.

Maybe we’re wrong.  Maybe we are crying “Wolf!” just a little too often, and a little too loud.

But folks crying “Sheep!” make us nervous.  Things just didn’t go well when we heard them do that before.