STRIPED BASS AMENDMENT 7--NAVIGATING THE PID: PART 1, GOALS AND OBJECTIVES

 

As most readers already know, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board has voted to move forward with a new Amendment 7 to its striped bass management plan.  Earlier this month, as its first formal step toward adopting the new amendment, the Management Board approved the Public Information Document For Amendment 7 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan For Atlantic Striped Bass, and released it for public comment.

This is a big deal, for the new amendment has the potential to radically alter the course of striped bass management. 

As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, there are members of the Management Board who are seeking to increase striped bass landings in the short term by reducing the female spawning stock biomass target and the threshold for determining when the stock is deemed to be overfished.  If they succeed, they will permanently reduce striped bass abundance, and will threaten the long-term health of the stock.

There are also Management Board members who see the new amendment as a way to improve the striped bass management process, perhaps by providing a better scientific footing, and make it less likely that, should the stock be restored, it will ever become overfished again.

The Public Information Document doesn’t champion either of those different visions of the striper’s future (although, as I’ll describe in this and future posts on the topic, it does reflect some unfortunate biases).  Instead, it is similar to a scoping document in the federal fisheries management process, allowing all stakeholders to weigh in and provide their views on how the resource should be managed. 

Because of that, the Public Information Document is the public’s last, best chance to get Amendment 7 headed in the right direction, and to hamper efforts that might significantly impair the long-term health and stability of the striped bass stock.

Right now, everything is on the table.  

Once public comment on Amendment 7 has been made, and the preliminary draft of the amendment is put together, Amendment 7 will begin to acquire a sort of institutional inertia; after that, it will be ever more difficult to divert it from the Management Board's chosen course.  Now, before everyone’s views hardened and various Management Board members’ personal prestige has become wrapped up in provisions of the draft amendment, the public has its last, best opportunity to influence the drafting process.

The problem is that, because the Public Information Document contemplates many different aspects of striped bass management, it is a very dense document that asks many questions, but provides very little background information; it’s very difficult for an angler who doesn’t stay on top of striped bass issues on a near-daily basis to understand just what they’re being asked to comment on, or what the implications of the various options might be. 

Thus, today’s edition of One Angler’s Voyage, and the next two or three that follow, will attempt to break down the Public Information Document into its key sections, and explain how those sections might affect the health, and so the future, of the striped bass stock.

It’s always best to start at the beginning, and it just so happens that the first issue raised by the Public Information Document, “Fishery Goals and Objectives,” provides a very good place to start, for such goals and objectives should guide all of the other management decisions included in Amendment 7, as the remaining provisions ought to be crafted to achieve the Objectives, and so attain the Goal.

The current Goal for striped bass management, as set forth in Amendment 6 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass, is

“To perpetuate, through cooperative interstate fishery management, migratory stocks of striped bass; to allow commercial and recreational fisheries consistent with the long-term maintenance of a broad age structure, a self-sustaining spawning stock, and also to provide for the restoration and management of their essential habitat.”

That is already a worthwhile Goal.  It seeks sustainable fisheries, a sustainable striped bass stock, and the protection of essential fish habitat.  As a mission statement for the ASMFC’s Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board—which is what the Goal, in essence, is—it would be tough to come up with improvements.

Amendment 6 also contains seven Objectives, which might be deemed the strategies devised by the Management Board to carry out its stated mission.  Those Objectives include

“Manage striped bass fisheries under a control rule designed to maintain stock size at or above the target female spawning stock biomass level and a level of fishing mortality at or below the target exploitation rate.”

“Manage fishing mortality to maintain an age structure that provides adequate spawning potential to sustain long-term abundance of striped bass populations.”

“Provide a management plan that strives, to the extent practical, to maintain coastwide consistency of implemented measures, while allowing the States defined flexibility to implement alternative strategies that accomplish the objectives of the [fishery management plan].”

“Foster quality and economically viable recreational, for-hire, and commercial fisheries.”

“Maximize the cost effectiveness of current information gathering and prioritize state obligations in order to minimize costs of monitoring and management.”

“Adopt a long-term management regime that minimizes or eliminates the need to make annual changes or modifications to management measures.”

“Establish a fishing mortality target that will result in a net increase in the abundance (pounds) of age 15 and older striped bass in the population, relative to the 2000 estimate.”

On the whole, those are also reasonable Objectives, although some are more worthy than others.  

It wouldn’t be hard to argue that the striped got into trouble because the Management Board failed to diligently seek to perform some of the most substantively important Objectives over the past decade, while slavishly adhering to others that were of a more procedural sort.

The Public Information Document, in seeking comment on the Goals and Objectives, says

“The status and understanding of the striped bass stock and fishery has changed considerably since the implementation of Amendment 6 in 2003.  As a result, both managers and stakeholders have expressed concern that the existing goals and objectives of this management program may be outdated, and no longer fully reflect current fishery needs and priorities.  Some of the objectives may need to be refined, while other priorities may be missing entirely.  The Board identified management stability, flexibility, and regulatory consistency as guiding themes for future striped bass management, and discussed the desire to balance these principles to the extent practical.  [emphasis added]”

That paragraph raises what may be the single most important issue of the Amendment 7 process.

Remember that the striped bass stock is currently overfished, and as of the last stock assessment, was experiencing overfishing.  Addendum VI to Amendment 6 to the Atlantic Striped Bass Interstate Fishery Management Plan was intended to end fishing overfishing and reduce fishing mortality to or below the target level; however, because COVID-19-related concerns severely crippled the recreational data gathering process last year, no one knows how close Addendum VI came to achieving its goals.

Under such circumstances, one might think that the biological needs of the stock—rebuilding it back to the spawning stock biomass target, so that, in accord with the current Goal, commercial and recreational fisheries are managed in a manner “consistent with the long-term maintenance of a broad age structure,” and also in accord with the Objective to manage “fishing mortality to maintain an age structure that provides adequate spawning potential to sustain long-term abundance of striped bass populations.”

After all, maintaining a healthy and sustainable stock should always be the first priority of striped bass managers.

But that’s not what we’re seeing.  Instead of concerning themselves with the biological needs of the striped bass stock, we see in the Public Information Document that the Management Board is prioritizing the bureaucratic convenience of striped bass managers, “identifying management stability [and] flexibility…as guiding themes for future striped bass management.”  (I left “regulatory consistency” out of the previous sentence, as that can would actually be good for the bass.)

Never forget that “management stability” and “flexibility” are, once you strip away that bureaucrat-speak, just nice-sounding language designed to let managers off the hook for doing nothing when decisive action is called for.  “Management stability” and “flexibility,” even if not expressly condoned in a management plan, are already hallmarks of how the ASMFC typically does business, and are a big part of the reason that striped bass became overfished once again.

Let’s look at how that actually played out.

We’ll look at “management stability” first.  That’s the notion that it’s better to keep regulations consistent from year to year, rather than to change them in response to every vacillation in fishing mortality or striped bass abundance.

That notion isn’t completely wrong.  Stable regulations do allow fishing-related businesses to plan farther ahead.  They also improve regulatory compliance, because fishermen don’t have to constantly stay on top of frequently changing rules.  And they can help scientists, for when regulations are consistent, biologists can better calculate whether changes in stock abundance are due to fishing or to naturally-occurring conditions.

But a mindless devotion to regulatory stability also leads to management inaction when action is clearly called for, and does real harm to the striped bass.  Consider what happened in November 2011, after an update to the striped bass stock assessment warned that, if regulations went unchanged, the stock would become overfished by 2017.

According to what was then the best available science, the Management Board had six years to act, and prevent the stock from becoming overfished.  That was plenty of warning, and had the Managtement Board acted right then, the striped bass stock probably wouldn’t be as bad off as it is today (although no one, including the Management Board, knew that recreational fishermen were killing as many fish as they were back then, and that the situation was even worse than the science had, to that point, revealed).  

But instead of acting, the Management Board sat on their hands.

It declared that striped bass remained a “green light” fishery, and decided that acting in accord with the scientific advice would constitute “overmanaging.”  It elevated the concerns of the fishing industry above the needs of the fish.  Tnat was demonstrated in the comments of one Management Board member, Vito Calomo, the legislative proxy from Massachusetts, who said,

“in this economy, we have real big problems, and allowing people to fish, whether commercial or recreational, doesn’t mean anything to me.  I just look at the jobs.  The jobs are needed real bad in the history of my lifetime as they are today.  [sic]  The green light, red light, yellow light, right now fishing is still good.  They’re seeing plenty of fish…

“Erring on the side of caution in times that are good and the economy, I would say maybe that’s the way to go.  At this time I think we need to continue fishing…

“I don’t believe the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission should lose sight of their position.  They should revert back to where they came from, their history of making decisions that were good for the fishing and the fishermen.  [emphasis added]”

In the end, the Management Board focused on the fact that, “right now fishing is still good,” that fishermen were, “right now…seeing plenty of fish,” and that the striped bass hadn’t fallen on hard times yet, and elected for “management stability,” rather than for meaningful action to prevent the stock from declining further.

We’re still living with, and trying to undo, the consequences of their inaction today.

The same can be said about “flexibility.”

When the 2013 benchmark stock assessment effectively confirmed that the striped bass stock was in decline and that management actions were needed, the Management Board dithered.  Two “management triggers” contained in Amendment 6 required the Board to reduce fishing mortality to the target level within one year, and to initiate a rebuilding plan to restore the stock to target in 10 years or less.

The Management Board adopted Addendum IV to Amendment 6 tothe Atlantic Striped Bass Interstate Management Plan in 2014, but ignored Amendment 6’s clear direction that the Board “must” initiate a rebuilding plan, too.  And when the 2019 benchmark assessment that found the stock overfished and triggered another provision of Amendment 6 which said that the Board  “must” rebuild the stock, the Management Board ignored that provision, too.

The Management Board has already ignored two separate provisions of the management plan, both saying that it “must” take action to rebuild the stock, within a mere 5-year period. One can only sit back and wonder how much worse it would treat the striped bass resource if it was given even more “flexibility” to do nothing when the stock was in need, and such inaction was specifically condoned in the management plan.

So, getting back to the Goal and Objectives, striped bass anglers would do well to reject the notion that “management stability” and “flexibility” ought to govern Amendment 7’s outcome.  Instead, they ought to insist that Amendment 7’s Goal and Objectives—and all of Amendment 7, for that matter—emphasize restoring and maintaining the long-term health of the striped bass stock.

And the best way to do that may be to leave the goals and objectives largely the same as they are in Amendment 6, particularly that part of the Goal which talks about “the long-term maintenance of a broad age structure,” and the Objectives that seek “to maintain an age structure that provides adequate spawning potential to sustain long-term abundance of striped bass populations” and “a fishing mortality target that will result in a net increase in the abundance (pounds) of age 15 and older striped bass in the population.”

Here’s why that’s important.

Striped bass spawning success is dependent upon environmental conditions in the spawning rivers.  Cold winters followed by wet springs lead to successful spawns and usually, one year later, by strong recruitment of young fish into the populations; warm winters and dry springs, on the other hand, lead to less successful spawns and below-average recruitment.

A look at Maryland’s annual juvenile striped bass survey will show that, in most years, striped bass spawns fall into the below-average range, but that in about one-third of the years, the survey index rises well above the 11.7 average.  It’s those strongly above-average spawns that keep the striped bass stock healthy and able to support commercial and recreational fisheries.

No one can predict, years in advance, when the above-average spawns will occur.  Sometimes, as occurred during the years 1993-2003, very strong recruitment can occur every few years (in that case, in 1993, 1996, 2001, and 2003).  But sometimes, just the opposite happens, and striped bass recruitment stays low for a very long time.

Back in the 1970s and ‘80s—the years which include the last collapse of the striped bass stock—the Maryland juvenile index remained below 11 from 1973 through 1988, and only rose above even half that level—5.5—in just five of those sixteen years.

Back then, there was no effective striped bass management at all, and the fishing mortality rate was far too high to maintain an appreciable number of older, larger fish in the population.  With few large, fecund fish remaining in the spawning stock, and few younger females entering the striped bass population to eventually bolster the younger end of the spawning stock biomass, the collapse, in retrospect, was inevitable.

Managers should never allow the striped bass stock to find itself in such a situation again.

That is why the current Goal and Objectives, which recognize the need for an abundance of fish, for broad age structure, and for maintaining an adequate number of older, larger fish in the population, should remain largely unchanged.

The only exception to that recommendation is the sixth Objective which, as currently written, could be read to elevate “management stability” and “flexibility” above the health of the striped bass stock.  That one should be amended to read:

Adopt a long-term management regime that minimizes or eliminates the need to make annual changes or modifications to management measures; provided, however, that the Board shall act quickly and decisively when the best available scientific information indicates that the current management regime is inadequate to prevent a decline in the striped bass stock.

Other than that, the response to the Public Information Document’s “Issue 1” should be “No change is needed; the current Goal and Objectives are needed to adequately protect the long-term health and sustainability of the striped bass.”  

Then explain why.

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On Thursday, One Angler’s Voyage will look at another important issue in the Public Information Document, Issue 2:  Biological Reference Points.  That issue is intimately related to the goals and objectives, for the reference points finally adopted by the Management Board could determine the fate of the striped bass stock for the next twenty years.