2020 FISHERIES ISSUES: THEY LOOK A LOT LIKE THOSE OF 2019

Folks who have been following this blog for a while know that at this time of year, I take a look at the fisheries issues that are likely to crop up in the upcoming year.  As I began pulling my thoughts together to do that again, one thing quickly became clear.

The fisheries issues that we’re going to face in 2020 are going to look a lot like those that we dealt with in 2019.

Ending striped bass overfishing, and rebuilding the overfished striped bass stock, was arguably the hottest fisheries issue of 2019.  That’s probably going to be the case in 2020, too.

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission adopted Addendum VI to Amendment 6 to the Atlantic Striped Bass Interstate Fishery Management Plan in October 2019, which was intended to end overfishing.  However, because of a poorly thought out “conservation equivalency” provision included in the Addendum, it is unlikely to reduce fishing mortality to the target level.  

We won’t know just how far the states will deviate from the 28- to 35-inch slot limit adopted in the addendum until the asMfC meets again in february, and its striped bass Technical committee provides advice on each state’s supposedly “equivalent” measures.  However, from the rumors currently circulating—most states haven’t been willing to reveal the proposals that they’ve submitted for Technical Committee approval—the chances of Addendum VI achieving the needed 18 percent reduction in fishing mortality are very low.

states are expected to submit multiple, alternative sets of supposedly equivalent proposals, so once the Technical Committee has spoken, the debate will then return to each state, where the management measures will ultimately be decided.  Right now, instead of the universal 28- to 35-inch slot limit recommended in addendum VI, we are likely to see a hodgepodge of state regulations that change from jurisdiction to jurisdiction and, in the end, will not achieve the Addendum’s goal.

And it’s possible that, for the striped bass, things could head downhill from there.  

Despite clear language in Amendment 6 to the management plan directing that, if the stock became overfished, the Management Board had to rebuild that stock within 10 years, Addendum VI doesn’t address such rebuilding obligation.  At last August’s meeting of the ASMFC’s Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board, that Board decided to move forward with a new Amendment to the management plan, beginning in May, which presumably will deal with the rebuilding mandate. 

At that meeting, G. Ritchie White, the Governor's Appointee from New Hampshire noted that

“I’ve been certainly getting a lot of e-mails about don’t start an amendment; it will mean that you’re going to be less conservative.  An amendment doesn’t mean less or more conservative, and I’m certainly going to support an amendment, and I’m going to support an amendment to be more conservative.

“…We’ll look at more structural parts of striped bass management in an amendment, and hopefully it will be more conservative so we won’t have to undergo issues we’re undergoing now.  Put something in place so the stock stays in a good situation.”

Mr. While has long been one of the foremost champions of striped bass conservation on the Management Board, and I hope that the majority of his fellow board members share his sentiments.  But there is reason to believe that he might have been overly optimistic—something that he tacitly admitted when he said that any new amendment will “hopefully” be more conservative—because there are others on the Management Board who have expressed an intent to weaken the ASMFC’s management program in order to permit higher landings in the short term.

Maryland state fishery manager Michael Luisi has probably been the most consistent advocate for liberalizing the striped bass reference points (to permit a higher fishing mortality rate and lower the female spawning stock biomass target) in order to allow higher landings.  At the October 2017 Management Board meeting, where that possibility was being discussed, he said

“I’m happy to hear that these reference points are something that is being raised to this level of importance.  I’ve always been one that has thought that the current targets that are set for spawning stock biomass or set to a point where they’re unachievable.  They may be achievable, but we’re unable to maintain them.

“It sets a false expectation for fishermen along the coast…”

In summarizing Management Board members’ thoughts about an amendment, Max Appelman, the Fishery Mamagement Plan Coordinator, noted at the May 2018 Management Board meeting that

“we’ve heard some concerns from members around this table that the current reference points may be too conservative and/or are restricting fishing unnecessarily; which has raised questions about whether the [Fishery Management Plan] objectives have changed since the implementation of Amendment 6, and maybe those acceptable risk levels have changed as well—an example being the balance between preserving biomass versus allowing fishing…”

So it’s pretty clear that there are a lot of people who don't share Mr. White's vision of a more conservative amendment.  

But there is one truism in the fishery management process  It is always easier to influence that process at the beginning, before any particular options are set in stone.  The Management Board is likely to release the Public Information Document that will kick off the comment process later this year—if I was to guess, I’d say after their August meeting—and anglers need to stand ready to get involved in order to help assure that Mr. White’s vision of the final amendment has a chance to prevail.

The February ASMFC meeting will also see the Atlantic Menhaden Management Board discuss a new benchmark stock assessment for that species.  It’s going to be an interesting meeting, not only because it will be the first meeting held after the Secretary of Commerce found Virginia out of compliance with the management plan, and announced that he will impose a moratorium in June if Virginia doesn’t comply by then, but also because the Management Board will get its first chance to consider “ecological reference points” that would, if adopted, see menhaden managed in a way that allows it to fulfill its role as a forage species, and not merely for sustainable harvest.

So with menhaden, we’ll have two things going on at once.

The bigger issue, in the long term, is 1) whether the Management Board will take the big step and begin the process of managing menhaden in accordance with ecological, rather than traditional single-species, reference points and 2) whether those ecological reference points will have a substantial impact on annual harvest limits and the current allocations.

The other issue, which is limited to Virginia but can have impacts elsewhere on the coast, is whether any legislation to bring Virginia into compliance with the management plan will be narrowly drafted, and merely lower the cap on reduction harvest in Chesapeake Bay, or whether it will be broader, and grant the Virginia Marine Resources Commission full management authority over the species, and thus bring menhaden management in line with the management of all other marine species in the state.  

There is little doubt that Omega ProteinCorporation, the biggest menhaden harvester on the East Coast, will be seeking the narrowest possible landings, so that it can still exert its considerable political influence to have menhaden managed in the way most favorable to Omega.

Which is precisely why a more broadly-worded bill is badly needed.

With striped bass and menhaden out of the way, the next big issue for 2020 will probably be bluefish.  That stock, too, is overfished, and the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council and the ASMFC have begun the process of preparing a rebuilding plan.  Scoping hearings on that plan, along with some allocation issues, will probably be held in January and February; the plan itself will have to be completed and in place before the 2022 season in order to meet the requirements of federal law.

The bluefish management plan will present anglers with the unique opportunity to argue that when managing a fishery that is dominated by recreational fishermen, who release far more fish than they retain, maintaining an abundance of fish in the ocean is more important than maximizing the number of fish that may be killed.  So everyone who’d like to see that outcome ought to be ready to show up and speak when the scoping meetings are held.

In the meantime, the Mid-Atlantic Council and ASMFC have reduced the recreational bag limit from 15 bluefish to 3 (5 for anglers fishing from for-hire vessels) in order to prevent overfishing.  That reduction, based on 2018 landings, probably won’t be enough.  For all of 2018, anglers landed about 10.2 million bluefish, weighing a little under 13.3 million pounds.  Right now, the 2019 landings figures only include the first 10 months of the year; we won’t see the November and December numbers until mid-February.  But even so, landings through October 31, 2019 already exceed bluefish landings for all of 2018, at 11.6 million fish weighing more than 15.8 million pounds.

That means that the odds favor anglers overfishing in 2020, and if we do, we’re going to get hit with a double-whammy:  First, we’ll be facing a harvest reduction to prevent overfishing occurring again in 2021, and on top of that, because bluefish are overfished, we’ll be looking at a pound-for-pound payback of the 2020 overage in the following year.

Don’t be surprised to see a 1-bluefish bag limit in the 2021 season, and don’t be surprised if the December joint meeting of the Mid-Atlantic Council and ASMFC’s Bluefish Management Board becomes somewhat heated as a result.

The other Mid-Atlantic Council-managed species important to anglers—summer flounder, scup and black sea bass—will also be in the news, as the Council and ASMFC work on an allocation amendment that, based on revised recreational effort, catch and landings figures, could increase the recreational (and decrease the commercial) allocation for all three species.  

Such reallocation would be the most significant, and is the most badly needed, in the case of scup, as recreational scup landings have exceeded the recreational harvest limit at the same time that commercial fishermen have been chronically underfishing their quota.

Both the Council and the asmfc have recommended status quo management for all three species in 2020.  However, in the case of scup, that would lead to anglers exceeding the recreational harvest limit and catching far more than the 22 percent of the total catch allocated to them in the management plan.  In the case of black sea bass, it would probably result in anglers landing more than their recreational harvest limit, and an overall catch that exceeded the acceptable biological catch established by the Council's Scientific and Statistical Committee.  The latter situation poses a real legal issue for NMFS, which isn’t allowed to set harvest limits above the fishing level established by the SSC.

Thus, there is a chance that NMFS will fail to approve the Council’s recommendation on black sea bass, and a smaller but not trivial chance that NMFS will reject the scup recommendation as well.  Should one or both of those recommendations be sent back to the Council for further action, those discussions are likely to be very heated, as well.

Offshore, other issues loom, none more serious than the serious decline of the shortfin mako shark.  

Efforts to end all retention of shortfin makos were frustrated at the 2019 meeting of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas, with opposition from the United States and European Union being the primary reason for the impasse.  ICCAT, understanding the need for further action, has scheduled a meeting to address only shortfin mako issues during the summer of 2020, where management measures will hopefully be adopted.  However, any further management measures will certainly face strong opposition from the European Union, and probably also from elements of the U.S. sportfishing industry.

Beyond that lies the biggest sportfishing issue of all.  

Towards the end of 2019, Rep. Jared Huffman (d-ca), Chair of the House Natural Resources Water, Oceans and Wildlife Subcommittee, has been holding “listening sessions” in advance of introducing legislation to reauthorize the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act.  Such listening sessions will continue into early 2020, at which point we can expect a reauthorization bill to be introduced in the House.  

Given Rep. Huffman’s history on conservation issues, that bill is very likely to maintain a strong Magnuson-Stevens, with improvements suggested by stakeholders, and will need the support off concerned anglers as it makes its way through the legislative process.

And that’s about it.

New issues will probably crop up when least expected, and there is always the possibility that some of the current issues will fade a bit, and not be as controversial as had predicted.

But one way or another, as new issues arise and old ones are resolved or fade, 2020 is likely to be a busy year.