WHAT DO THE RESULTS OF THE GREAT RED SNAPPER COUNT MEAN?

The National Marine Fisheries Service has issued its final report on the so-called “Great Red Snapper Count,” a comprehensive, state-of-the art survey designed to determine the red snapper biomass in the United States’ portion of the Gulf of Mexico.

As I reported last fall, when the preliminary report on the Count came out, researchers had determined that there are about three times as many Gulf red snapper than previously believed, largely due to the fact that about two-thirds of the fish are found on low-profile, sand or mud bottom, and not on the high-profile pieces where most people fished, which were the focus of previous surveys.

Now, the big question is figuring out what the new data means.

NMFS expressed cautious optimism, saying

“The discovery of additional biomass is good news which may help ease some management restrictions.  [emphasis added]”

Others have expressed more certainty.  Senator Bill Cassidy (R-LA), a co-sponsor of the bill that appropriated 9.5 million dollars for the Count and, along with universities’ matching funds, made the research possible, declared that

“This study shows that there is three times more red snapper in the Gulf than previously thought.  This new information should translate into greater access and longer fishing seasons for families.”

Rep. Garret Graves (R-La) made an even more aggressive prediction.  The (Raleigh, North Carolina) Herald-Sun has reported that Rep. Graves is

“hoping for a substantial increase in quotas for red snapper in the Gulf,”

and has said that

“Anything less would be a disservice to the American public.”

Those legislators could be right. 

But…

Everyone needs to remember that, while the results of the Count represent very valuable data, that’s all they are—data to be used in a stock assessment, and not an end in themselves.  As noted by Dr. Greg Stunz, the lead researcher on the Great Red Snapper Count project,

“This is just the beginning of future assessment meetings and activities with managing agencies, Scientific and Statistical Committees, the NOAA Southwest Fisheries Science Center, and the Gulf of Mexico Fisheries Management Council.  These activities will facilitate direct incorporation of these data into the management process.”

That sort of cautious, science-forward approach may not please all red snapper stakeholders.

The Coastal Conservation Association, an “anglers’ rights” group that is based in Houston, Texas and has members throughout the Gulf, has long clashed with federal scientists over red snapper management.  CCA is already challenging, without factual basis, efforts to calibrate state recreational red snapper data into a “common currency” that will allow it to be used in conjunction with the federal Marine Recreational Information Program.  The organization was one of the prime movers behind getting federal funding for the Great Red Snapper Count, and clearly wants to use the results of the Count in a way that allows anglers in some Gulf states to avoid being held accountable for exceeding their states’ red snapper allocations.

That became clear in comments made by CCA Vice President Ted Venker who, before the final Count report was released, was already saying,

“The hope is between now and April, NOAA will manage to plug the new numbers into an interim analysis to avoid penalizing Mississippi and Alabama so severely in the short run.  Using the new data to prop up NOAA’s broken system is not how the results of the count should be used, but it could help solve NOAA’s latest self-manufactured crisis.  There is a lot of flexibility to avoid crushing those two states that the agency seems unwilling to use.”

And it’s not impossible that, when the Count data is incorporated into the current stock assessment model, it will allow the recreational harvest limit to be substantially raised, and reveal that none of the states actually exceeded their recreational red snapper quotas.

But it’s not certain that will happen, either.

According to Clay Porch, the Director of NOAA’s Southeast Fisheries Science Center, the Count data is currently being peer reviewed, and scientists will present their findings to the Gulf of Mexico Fisheries Management Council next month.  After receiving the data, the Council might well decide to revise red snapper quotas, although anyone hoping that quotas will triple are very, very likely to be disappointed.

Right now, no one is guessing how large any quota increase—assuming that there is one—might be.

There are a number of reasons for that.

Red snapper management is based on maintaining an adequate spawning potential in the population.  Biologists previously believed that red snapper had a relatively high level of fecundity—that is, they believed that a fairly small snapper population was able to produce enough eggs to not only withstand the current level of landings, but also increase snapper abundanceer at the same time.  

If the population of adult red snapper is actually three times as large as previously believed, it follows that the species might also be less fecund than previously believed.  If it takes more fish to sustain the current level of removals, then the target fishing mortality rate—the level of fishing mortality that will produce maximum sustainable yield—may well be significantly lower than believed as well. 

If that is the case, any increase in quota will probably not be as large as people expect.

In addition, tripling the estimated number of adult red snapper doesn’t necessarily translate into a tripling of spawning stock biomass.  An “adult” red snapper is defined in the Count as a fish that is two or more years old, and many of the newly discovered red snapper are apparently younger, smaller individuals.  While some two-year-old fish may be sexually mature, most red snapper don’t reach maturity until four years old, and both spawning frequency and egg production increase with age.  A pamphlet issued by the State of Louisiana states that a young female may only produce 30,000 eggs, while an older fish may produce 75,000,000.

If most of the snapper “found” by the Count are smaller, younger individuals, then they may represent far less spawning potential than anglers and legislators expect.

And there is also the possibility that anglers currently hoping for a big quota increase won’t be too happy if they get what they wish for. 

Right now, under the current recreational quota, most fishing takes place on high-profile reefs, banks, and artificial structures such as oil rigs, which are easy for weekend fishermen to find; all they need is one of the publicly-available compilations of fishing spots, a depthfinder, and a GPS.  But the majority of the fish are spread out over various, small

“remnant oyster reefs, salt domes, holes scoured out by currents, shipwrecks, fallen shipping containers, and other bottom features”

that, in many instances, might only be a few feet across, aren’t marked on any NOAA or commercial charts, and only rise a very small distance above, or fall the same distance below, the general bottom contours, making them difficult to spot on a depthfinder screen in a hundred or more feet of water.

Thus, it’s likely that even if the quota is substantially increased, most recreational fishermen will continue to target the red snapper that relate to obvious structure, a behavior that could see most of the fish, and particularly the larger individuals, quickly stripped off such structure once the season begins.

The Herald-Sun revealed that Southeast Fisheries Science Center Director Porch has already warned that

“A big quota increase could deplete the natural and artificial reefs where most fishing occurs,”

and noted that the fish found on the scattered, low-profile structure won’t immediately move to repopulate the depleted reefs.

The same concern was echoed by Sepp Hekubo of the Environmental Defense Fund, a conservation group, who reported that even under the current quota, recreational fishing pressure is already depleting the number of snapper on frequently-fished structure.

“At the end of last year’s season a lot of popular fishing spots were pretty beaten down…If you showed up at the beginning of the season there was great fishing, but by the end people couldn’t catch fish big enough to keep.”

Thus, the impacts of the Great Red Snapper Count aren’t as easy to predict as some people would like to believe.  The Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council’s Scientific and Statistical Committee will meet with independent experts later this week, in an effort to formulate some guidance that can be provided ahead of the next Council meeting.

Right now, it’s impossible to predict what such guidance might be. 

Whatever it is, one thing remains true.

The Great Red Snapper Count represents a big step forward in scientists' understanding of the Gulf red snapper resource.  And good science, which it certainly seems to be, is always a good thing, even if it doesn’t lead to the results that some people had hoped for.

 

 

 

 

 

 

OPTIMUM YIELD ANALYSIS MISSING FROM MOST REGIONAL FISHERY MANAGEMENT COUNCIL DEBATES

 The Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (MSA) requires that “Conservation and management measures shall prevent overfishing while producing, on a continuing basis, the optimum yield from each fishery for the United States fishing industry.”

MSA also states, in part, that “The term ‘optimum,’ with respect to the yield from a fishery, means the amount of fish which (A) will provide the greatest overall benefit to the Nation, particularly with respect to food production and recreational opportunities, and taking into account the protection of marine ecosystems; [and] (B) is prescribed as such on the basis of the maximum sustainable yield from the fishery, as reduced by any relevant economic, social, or ecological factor… [internal formatting omitted]”.

Given that language, one might think that, before establishing annual catch limits for all managed species, the regional fishery management councils would engage in meaningful discussion of how to achieve optimum yield from each fishery.

In the real world, that doesn’t happen.

The Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council (MAFMC) does a very good job of explaining how annual catch limits are calculated. Using the 2020 summer flounder specifications as an example, calculations begin with the overfishing limit. The MAFMC’s Scientific and Statistical Committee, reducing that figure to account for scientific uncertainty, then sets the acceptable biological catch (ABC), which is then allocated to the commercial and recreational sectors. Each sector’s expected discards then deducted from its allocation, to establish the commercial quota and the recreational harvest limit.

 

Both the MAFMC’s staff and the biologists who sit on the Summer Flounder, Scup, and Black Sea Bass Monitoring Committee (Monitoring Committee) prepared detailed reports outlining how they made such calculations; neither report even employed the term “optimum yield,” much less discussed it in detail, despite its relevance to the annual catch limit.

 

Such lack of optimum yield analysis is typical, not only at the MAFMC, but also at all of the regional fishery management councils. The focus is always on harvest; despite being specifically mentioned in the MSA, considerations like increased recreational opportunities, or social and economic considerations that might lead to reduced landings, are rarely considered.

It’s hard to place blame for the lack of meaningful optimum yield analysis on the regional fishery management councils. NOAA Fisheries’ website includes a page “Setting an Annual Catch Limit,” which is subtitled “Learn how annual catch limits are set for U.S. fisheries.” That webpage sets out a process indistinguishable from that used by the MAFMC.

 

The NOAA Fisheries web page doesn’t even mention the concept of optimum yield, even though the MSA directs that producing optimum yield is the goal of fishery management measures.

As a practical matter, omitting a detailed optimum yield analysis probably makes sense for summer flounder, as well as for other species, such as cod and the various groupers, which are targeted by both commercial and recreational fishermen because they are valued as food. While summer flounder, for example, might be fun for anglers to catch, those anglers pursue them because they want to bring them home for dinner, and not just for the sport of catching them, and then letting them go.

In such situations, there are no economic, social, or environmental considerations that might justify reducing optimum yield below maximum sustainable yield; the key considerations of maximizing food production and recreational opportunities are best addressed by keeping both the commercial quota and recreational harvest limit at the highest sustainable levels.

That isn’t the case with recreational fisheries that include a significant catch-and-release component. For those, an optimum yield analysis is needed, but very rarely performed. Regional fishery management councils instead still focus on yield, with little or no thought given to the economic and social considerations that might justify setting optimum yield well below maximum sustainable yield, or the benefits that might accrue to the nation if a recreational species were managed for abundance and recreational opportunity, rather than solely for landings and food production.

Such issues have emerged in connection with the Bluefish Allocation and Rebuilding Amendment (Bluefish Amendment) that is being prepared by the MAFMC.

While bluefish support a small commercial fishery, their oily and often strong-tasting flesh cause them to be less popular table fare than white-fleshed fish such as summer flounder, black sea bass, or cod; they command a much lower price when brought to market. The scoping document for the Bluefish Amendment reported that between 2013 and 2017, fishermen received, on average, only 71 cents per pound for bluefish, far less than the four dollars per pound that markets paid for striped bass and summer flounder at that time.

 

Many recreational fishermen also dislike eating bluefish but very much like to catch them because of the fight that they put up when hooked. As a result, more than 60 percent of all bluefish caught by recreational fishermen are released. In such a fishery, “the greatest overall benefit to the Nation” comes not from focusing on food production, but on maximizing recreational opportunities.

 

And maximizing recreational opportunities means maximizing the abundance of live bluefish in the water, not the number of dead bluefish lying on the dock.

Estimates of angler effort, provided by the Marine Recreational Information Program (MRIP), make that very clear. Bluefish were relatively abundant In 1985, when anglers made about 13,890,000 directed bluefish trips, including about 465,000 trips made by the for-hire sector. As bluefish abundance declined, trips declined, too.

 

By 2000, in response to low abundance; directed trips had fallen to 5,110,000, including just 154,000 made by the for-hire fleet. Then, as abundance rose modestly, angler effort showed a modest increase as well, rising to 7,530,000 directed bluefish trips in 2010. Then, as the population fell to near time-series lows in 2019, trips fell again, to 5,330,000 trips, with fewer than 46,000 of those made on for-hire vessels.

With such a clear correlation between bluefish abundance and directed recreational bluefish trips, the MAFMC seems obliged to consider whether the optimum yield for bluefish should be reduced well below maximum sustainable yield, in order to capture the economic and social benefits conferred by an abundant bluefish population and the recreational opportunities that such abundance would provide.

Yet the MAFMC has given, at best, only cursory consideration to the issue. The MAFMC website provides 20 separate documents relating to the Bluefish Amendment, created over the course of 38 months, that include two scoping documents, one public hearing document, a MAFMC staff memo, and the summaries of three bluefish fishery management action team meetings.

 

Across all of those documents, despite its importance in the MSA, the term “optimum yield” appears only twice, once in a summary of comments that I made at the first scoping meeting, and the other in a presentation to the MAFMC which stated why the Bluefish Amendment is needed.

 

But the MAFMC never took a good look at what managing for optimum yield would look like in the bluefish fishery.

MAMFC staff did acknowledge that, at the first scoping meetings, recreational fishermen argued that “Recreational management should focus on maximizing abundance over landings,” and also argued that managers should “Offer consideration to the economic and intrinsic value of bluefish to the recreational fishery.” Such concerns were included in a Supplemental Scoping and Public Information Document released late in 2019, after an operational stock assessment found the stock to be overfished.

 

But the MAFMC members gave those concerns little consideration, and instead focused on maintaining bluefish landings, rather than bluefish abundance. At a May 2020 joint meeting of the MAFMC and the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Bluefish Management Board, Dustin Leasing, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Bluefish Fishery Management Plan Coordinator, noted that “A lot of comments [at the scoping hearings] talked about identifying the intrinsic value of fish left in the water, as well as the catch and release aspect of the fishery. A lot of people called for maximizing abundance…”

 

That was the last time that the word “abundance” was uttered at the meeting.

Thus, it’s hardly surprising that, when the Public Hearing Document for the Bluefish Amendment was released in February 2021, the analysis of the social and economic impacts were heavily skewed toward food production, and ignored recreational opportunities.

 

The Public Hearing Document’s discussion of different commercial/recreational alternatives notes that “an increase in allocation to the recreational sector could allow for the liberalization of [management] measures, potentially providing positive social impacts.” It only considers the “positive social impacts” that might be generated if anglers are able to keep additional fish; nowhere in the document is there mention of the positive social impacts generated by greater abundance, that would allow anglers to catch, but not necessarily harvest, more bluefish.

 

Yet any comprehensive analysis of optimum yield should demand that such benefits be considered.

The Public Information Document’s economic impacts section shows the same bias, considering only the impacts of landings, and not of abundance. The document states that “Increases in bag limits might increase angler satisfaction as well as recreational for-hire and independent angler trips which would result in increased expenditures and effort,” completely ignoring the MRIP data that strongly links recreational effort, in both the private and for-hire sectors, to abundance, not to bag limits.

The Public Information Document also says, “In theory, if the decision to transfer [recreational quota to the commercial sector] is based on a pattern of underutilization by the recreational sector, negative socioeconomic impacts to the recreational sector from such transfer may not be realized,” again equating the concept of “utilizing” a fishery with harvesting, and not merely catching, fish. No mention is made of the negative socioeconomic impacts of reduced abundance that might result, at either a coastwide or local level, from a transfer of fish that would otherwise go unharvested, in the form of reduced recreational opportunity and a reduction in fishing effort linked to lower bluefish availability.

In what may be the most tone-deaf passage in the entire Public Hearing Document, the MAFMC states that recreational management measures “are frequently adjusted in order to strike an appropriate balance between conservation and angler satisfaction,” a statement that completely ignores the fact that in the recreational bluefish fishery, conservation that leads to greater abundance increases both angler satisfaction and angler participation in the fishery, as demonstrated by the MRIP effort data.

A rigorous optimum yield analysis would reveal that truth, for bluefish and for other primarily recreational species. But to regional fishery management council members who are focused only on yield, such a concept is seemingly beyond their comprehension.

Optimum yield is arguably the core concept of the MSA, the hinge around which all of the laws’ other provisions pivot. Yet it is also a concept that is given little more than lip service in council discussions and in fishery management plans.

If the nation’s living marine resources are to be managed properly, and in full compliance with the law, that needs to change.

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This blog first appeared in “From the Waterfront,” the blog of the Marine Fish Conservation Network, which can be found at http://conservefish.org/blog/

 

FISHERIES MANAGEMENT: TIME TO PUT THE PROS IN CONTROL

Fisheries management is a demanding discipline. 

The people who do it right have gone through years of higher education, have earned graduate degrees, and have spent years in the trenches performing the surveys, crafting the regulations, and dealing with the people necessary to effectively manage marine fish stocks.

But saltwater fisheries management is still a little strange, because despite the presence of people who have dedicated their lives and their labor to the discipline, many of the most critical decisions are made by people who have no scientific background or education, never took the time to gain even an informed layman’s understanding of the stock assessment and management process, and often have a financial or other interest in the fisheries that they oversee.

The Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act has imposed tight enough bounds on the regional fishery management councils’ exercise of their discretion that federal fish stocks are largely healthy and fairly well managed.  But when the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission meets, and there are no legal boundaries to limit what the various management boards may do, amateur hour reigns, and the fish, and the fishing public, suffer as a result.

Now, don’t get me wrong.

There are a lot of real professionals working at the ASMFC, and I always fear that, when I criticize the Commission, they are getting undeservedly tarred by the same brush used to color the management boards.  The staff and scientists at the ASMFC are as talented and dedicated a group of people that you’re likely to find in any management body; the biologists on the ASMFC’s technical committees are producing plenty of good science to inform fishery management decisions.

The problem is that when that science gets handed down to the management boards—to the people who are actually charged with making the decisions—it is too often ignored and/or dismissed by the people who are supposed to use it.

Consider an Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board discussion that occurred back in May 2014. 

To set the stage, there had been a benchmark stock assessment completed in 2013, which found that the female spawning stock biomass for the striped bass, while not overfished, had declined well below the target level, while the fishing mortality rate had risen well above its target, although overfishing had not yet occurred. 

Amendment 6 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass, which was in effect in 2014 and remains in effect today, states that when such conditions are found to exist, the Management Board “must”—and I repeat that injunction, “must”—return fishing mortality to target within one year, and initiate a rebuilding plan to return the spawning stock biomass to its target in no more than ten years.

The stock assessment in question was a massive effort, put together by the biologists on the ASMFC’s Atlantic Striped Bass Technical Committee working in conjunction with their counterparts at the National Marine Fisheries Service’s Northeast Fisheries Science Center.  Once it was completed, it was peer-reviewed by a panel of internationally-recognized fisheries scientists, all with PhDs and all with years of experience in the fisheries arena.

Such a peer-reviewed stock assessment, of a data-rich species such as striped bass, represents the gold standard in fisheries management science.  And the data it contained suggested that, in order to reduce fishing mortality to its target level, a substantial reduction in fishing mortality was required.

If such an assessment was presented to one of the regional fishery management councils that are responsible for managing federal fisheries, it would have been accepted as “the best scientific information available,” and the needed reductions put in place.

There might have been some heated debate about how to make the reductions, and perhaps about which sector of the fishery ought to bear the burden of the management measures, but the expertise of the scientists doing the work would have been respected—in part because, if NMFS allowed a council to set a management measure that wasn’t based on such science, it would very probably find itself on the losing end of a lawsuit.

But when the stock assessment was received by the Striped Bass Management Board, the reception wasn’t quite so cordial.  At least a few members—members who, it should be pointed out, have no academic credentials in fisheries science, much less the advanced degrees of those who prepared and reviewed the benchmark assessment—claimed that the science was wrong.  Perhaps foremost of those was the Governor’s Appointee from New Jersey, Tom Fote, who argued

“I remember years ago people panicking—and this was way before.  It was like 2004 when basically we weren’t seeing eight-year-old fish; and all of a sudden New Jersey was forced to put in a slot limit, and basically we went through all the permutations, and we did the regression analysis and three years later we basically said, oh, by the way, since we took away your producing area status so you can’t use the conservation there and we’re no long [sic] at that—you have to go with two at 28 [inches minimum size].  I mean, there are people who have been yelling for us to do something on striped bass for 15 years, even when the numbers were really high…

“…this stock isn’t overfished and overfishing is not taking place.  If came here on summer flounder [sic] and said the projections at three years from now that we basically might be over and we might have to do a reduction, so we should go to two fish on summer flounder right now with 20 inches [as a minimum size]; I would be laughed and hung at the table; but to take a 33 percent reduction—so I’m saying if we’re going to base this on science, we’ve really got to base it on the whole science problem on how to deal with it.  I’m looking at this and if we want to do something, let’s do it incrementally because two years from now when the regression analysis says we’re not even close to mortality, I don’t have to sit here and say I told you so.”

Granted, that’s not the most coherent comment that has ever been made—although not particularly incoherent, either, considering other things that have been heard at management board meetings—but the notion that the speaker was apparently trying to convey was that, despite the peer-reviewed stock assessment warning that overfishing and/or the stock becoming overfished could occur within three years, and despite the fact that the management plan itself required that fishing mortality be returned to the target level within one year, the management board should ignore the science and the dictates of the management plan and phase in mortality reductions over two years, if at all, because the stock wasn’t overfished or subject to overfishing yet, and anyway, New Jersey might have been required to make an unnecessary harvest reduction once, a decade or so ago, so it naturally follows that the science is probably wrong again (although nothing indicates that was the case), and taking action isn’t necessary this time, either.

If I were an ASMFC staffer, particularly a staff scientist, I suspect that I’d be heading straight to the bar at the close of the meeting, after hearing my work dismissed with a comment like that.

Despite such comments, that time the management board did cut the fishing mortality, and did so in a single year, but the quote gives you an idea of the sort of comments that are regularly made around the management table, once the amateur hour begins.

At least one-third of every ASMFC management board is comprised of state fisheries professionals, who have a very positive effect on the conversation, but one-third doesn’t make a majority, so the amateurs can--and often do--still get their way.

While the above example is nearly seven years old, the same sort of thing is still going on.

For example, at the August 2019 meeting, another fishing mortality reduction was being considered, just a few months after a new benchmark stock assessment found that striped bass had become overfished.  Despite the assessment’s ominous findings, Russell Dize, the Governor’s Appointee from Maryland, commented on what he alleged was an abundance of young striped bass in the Chesapeake Bay, saying

“amongst this gloom and doom, I’m going to say I’m a commercial waterman, 60 years on the Chesapeake Bay.  I’ve never seen in all of my life as many small striped bass…”

According to Mr. Dize, the bass he was seeing were 8 to 14 inches long, which means fish that were spawned no earlier than 2017, with the 8-inchers probably young-or-the-year fish.  If we look at the Maryland striped bass juvenile abundance index for those years, we find indices of 13.19 and 14.78—both slightly above the long-term average of 11.7—for 2017 and 2018, respectively, and a well below-average 3.37 for 2019.

Compare those with indices of 38.76 in 1993, 59.39 in 1996, 50.75 in 2001, 25.75 in 2003 and, more recently, 34.58 in 2011 and 24.20 in 2015—all years well within Mr. Dize’s 60-year career on the Chesapeake Bay—and you quickly realize that Mr. Dize either happened upon an unusually dense aggregation of young bass, that didn’t reflect overall abundance or, perhaps didn’t remember just how abundant bass used to be ten or fifteen years ago.

Either way, his observation illustrates why letting amateurs manage fish stocks creates a big problem; they tend to give too much credence to their own perceived experiences, and not enough to the hard data that drives the professionals’ actions.

In the end, fish are just another form of wildlife, making amateurs’ role in their management even more inappropriate.

Compare the way the ASMFC manages fish, for example, with how the United States Fish and Wildlife Service establishes bag limits and seasons for ducks and other waterfowl.  In that case,

“The U.S. and Canada are divided into four administrative flyways; the Atlantic, Mississippi, Central, and Pacific.  Each flyway has a Flyway Council consisting of representatives from state and provincial wildlife management agencies…

“The [Flyway] Councils are advised by flyway technical committees consisting of state and federal biologists.  These technical committees evaluate species and population status, harvest, and hunter-participation data during the development of the Council recommendations.  Supported by those biological evaluations, the Councils recommend hunting regulations to the [Fish & Wildlife] Service…

“The Service’s Migratory Bird Program, with input from biologists in the Service’s Regional Offices, evaluate the Council recommendations, considering species status and biology, cumulative effects of regulations, and existing regulatory policy.  The Division of Migratory Bird Management then develops their recommendations, which may support Council recommendations or may differ from them, based on their assessment of likely impacts of the proposed regulations.

“The Division and the Councils present their recommendations to the Service’s Regulations Committee, which…considers both the Council and Migratory Bird Program recommendations, then forwards its decisions on annual migratory bird hunting regulations to the Service Director and the Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Fish, Wildlife, and Parks for approval.”

In the case of waterfowl, decisions are based on biology and made by professionals.  Nowhere in the process do duck hunters, or hunting guides, or sporting goods retailers sit on a panel that can overrule professional decisions because they think that it should be easier for hunters to take a few ducks home, worry that restrictions on harvest might reduce hunting guides’ incomes, or keep bag limits too high in order to increase the sale of shotgun shells. 

In the case of ducks, biological decisions are made by biologists based on current data; you don’t have people arguing that they remember what hunting was like in their favorite marsh back in 1962, and trying to base management decisions on that, the way you hear ASMFC management members talking about managing striped bass for the people who fished off the Canarsie Pier around the middle of the previous century.

Most big game, small game, upland birds, and even freshwater fish are managed more like ducks—by biologists, based on the facts—than like saltwater fish, where amateurs, relying on little more than instinct and opinion, can dictate the health of a stock,.

It would be refreshing to see that change.

Imagine giving the ASMFC’s Technical Committees the lead in setting regulations, based on landings data and the science contained in stock assessments, the way that data and science drives federal fisheries management decisions.

Imagine ASMFC management boards that weren’t allowed to tolerate overfishing, and were forced to rebuild overfished stocks, just like federal managers are, with their actions dictated by the science that professionals provided.

Imagine an ASMFC that put such science first, and limited management boards’ discretion to adopt regulations based on other, competing factors.

Imagine holding the ASMFC legally responsible if it adopted management measures that were likely to fail.

Imagine an ASMFC that worked.

It’s not an impossible dream.  The talent and know-how are already there.

Only the amateurs on the management boards, and a broken process, stand in the way.

WHAT SHOULD THE PUBLIC EXPECT FROM FISHERIES MANAGERS?

Sometimes it seems that, no matter what they do and how hard they try, fisheries managers just can’t win.

If they try to properly manage as stock and provide for its long-term health, they are criticized by those in the fishing industry who seek to maintain short-term profits, even if the means that the fishery is likely to decline in future years.

If managers give in to such demands, and manage a fishery for short-term landings rather than long-term sustainability, they find themselves slammed by conservation-minded fishermen and various environmental organizations.

And if they try to steer a middling course, adopting regulations that aren’t stringent enough to rebuild a stock, but are restrictive enough to reduce both landings and fishermen’s incomes, they find themselves in everyone’s line of fire, drawing flak from fishermen who grow tired of the burden of regulations that grow incrementally tighter, but never seem to improve the health of the stock or allow bigger harvests, as well as by a conservation community that calls out failure upon failure, attributable to management measures that never achieve their aims.

So when you get right down to it, what should the public expect from fisheries managers?

The Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council may have come up with the answer.

I was reading its Public Hearing Document to the Bluefish Reallocation and Rebuilding Amendment the other day and, in its description of the social impacts of various bluefish management alternatives, came upon this remarkable statement:

“Alternative 4a is the status quo alternative under which no action would be taken to initiate a rebuilding plan and therefore the bluefish stock would remain in an overfished state.  It is likely that there would be negative social impacts from the no action alternative due to the negligence of the [Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council] to comply with its legal obligation to develop a rebuilding plan when the stock is overfished.  This would likely lead to an erosion of trust and confidence among stakeholders across user groups in the ability of the [Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council] to handle its responsibilities to ensure the equitable sustainability of the bluefish resource…  [emphasis added]”

It’s hard to describe what I felt when I read those words. 

Elation isn’t quite right; nor is satisfaction.  Instead, it was the sort of feeling you get after a long, frustrating debate that started heading towards nowhere a long time ago when, suddenly and unexpectedly, you  see a startled expression on the guy sitting on the other side of the table, that look of dawning awareness that wants you make you yell out “Finally!  Somebody gets it!”

Or, because maybe they knew it a long time ago but were hesitatant to admit it in public, something more like “Someone finally said it out loud!”

Because what the vast majority of the public wants from fishery managers is pretty simple:  They just want them to do their jobs.

That means managing fish to prevent overfishing and, if overfishing somehow occurs, it means putting an end to it without delay.  It means reacting to changing conditions within the ocean and within individual fish stocks, to keep them from becoming overfished and, if one becomes overfished, to restore it to health as quickly and as efficiently as reasonably possible.

I’m not going to say that everyone feels that way—there are some fishermen out there whose idea of long-term thinking extends out maybe two weeks, who seem incapable of focusing on consequences that might occur sometime beyond that, and there are certainly folks in the angling press who, in efforts to please their advertisers, encourage that sort of thing—but by and large, fishermen understand that without fish, they’re not going to have much to do, and they want fisheries managers to perform well enough to keep them on the water.

In that vein, it shouldn’t be surprising that it was the Mid-Atlantic Council which admitted that is the case.  

Ever since being rebuked by the court in Natural Resources Defense Council v. Daley back in 2000, the Mid-Atlantic Council has generally been in the forefront of good fishery management (despite making a couple of questionable calls in 2019 and 2020); for many years, it was the only regional fishery management council that was not presiding over at least one stock that was either overfished or subject to overfishing.  While that is no longer true—in recent years, stock status updates revealed that both bluefish and Atlantic mackerel had become overfished, and that Atlantic mackerel was also experiencing overfishing—the Council is taking prompt and seemingly effective action to bring all of its managed stocks back to health.

Some fishermen might not agree with everything that the Mid-Atlantic Council has done; for example, the Bluefish Public Hearing Document reveals that

“the majority of commercial crew and hired captains reported that they believe the regulations in their primary fishery are too restrictive and fewer than half agree that the fines associated with breaking the rules are fair,”

but it’s rare to hear someone complain that the Council isn’t being a responsible steward of the resource, and fails to respond when a stock becomes overfished or is threatened by overfishing. Virtually no one would argue that the Mid-Atlantic Council was losing stakeholders’ “trust and confidence” in its ability to maintain sustainable fish stocks.

On the other hand, such complaints are frequently heard with respect to the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, and it’s easy to understand why. 

Right now, out of 251 federally-managed stocks where the fishing status is known, 49—just under 20 percent—are overfished.  The status of 209 stocks is unknown.  I you put all the numbers together, federal managers are responsible for 460 different stocks of fish.  202 of those stocks (about 44 percent) are not overfished, 49 (under 11 percent) are overfished, and the status of the rest (a little over 45 percent) is unknown.

The ASMFC’s record on maintaining and rebuilding fish stocks is a little different.  Of 16 stocks of known status that are managed solely by the ASMFC, eleven—nearly 69 percent—are listed as either “overfished” or “depleted.”  Of all 23 stocks managed solely by the ASMFC, just 5 (less than 22 percent) are not overfished or fully rebuilt, while 11 (nearly 48 percent) are overfished and the health of the other 7 (about 30 percent) is unknown.

When the number of overfished stocks under the ASMFC’s management outnumbers the healthy ones by a ratio of more than 2:1, it’s not hard to understand why the public might deem the ASMFC negligent in its failure to rebuild more stocks, and lose trust and confidence in its ability to perform its duties as the primary steward of coastal fisheries.

And it doesn’t stop there.

As of December 31, 2020, the regional fishery management councils have rebuilt 47 once-overfished stocks, a little over 10 percent of all of the stocks that it manages.  The ASMFC, on the other hand, has never once successfully rebuilt an overfished stock, and then maintained that stock at sustainable levels.

It came the closest with the striped bass, which itsuccessfully rebuilt in the closing years of the last century.  However, it has since allowed that stock to become overfished, and subject to overfishing, again.

Given that simple fact, it’s hardly surprising that striped bass fishermen are probably the stakeholders who have the least trust and confidence in the ASMFC’s ability to manage coastal fisheries, and believe that the ASMFC has been negligent, and perhaps even grossly negligent, in its management of the striped bass resource.

And the ASMFC keeps taking actions to further reinforce such beliefs.

In November 2011, the ASMFC’s Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board refused to take action in response to a stock assessment update which advised that the stock would become overfished by 2017.  Management Board members argued that the stock was still above the spawning stock biomass target, and that the fishing mortality target had not yet been exceeded.  They noted that the triggers for management action, contained in the management plan, hadn’t be tripped, and strongly implied that should those triggers be tripped, action would be taken.

But when the time came, the same group of managers did not keep their word.

The 2013 benchmark stock assessment indicated that spawning stock biomass had fallen below its target, and remained there for a few years, while fishing mortality had risen above target during the same period.  That combination of events tripped two management triggers, one requiring fishing mortality to be returned to target within one year, and one requiring that a 10-year rebuilding plan be put in place.

Only the former action was taken; no rebuilding plan was ever adopted.  The seeming excuse was a comment from the then-fishery management plan coordinator Michael Waine that there was too much uncertainty involved in projecting stock rebuilding over a 10-year period—even though federal managers successfully adopt 10-year rebuilding plans on a regular basis.

So the Management Board’s promise to the public was broken; the stock was not rebuilt, but instead was allowed to decline further.

And even the modest actions that were taken didn’t have the intended effect; when anglers in Maryland failed to reduce fishing mortality by 20.5 percent, as the Management Board intended, but instead increased it by more than 50 percent, the Management Board let it happen, and did nothing to protect the bass.  As a result, the big 2011 year class, which managers were depending on to rebuild the stock, suffered excessive fishing mortality before the females ever had a chance to mature and spawn for their first time.

And then, after the 2019 benchmark stock assessment revealed thatthe Management Board had allowed the striped bass to become overfished andsubject to overfishing once again, what did that Management Board do?

Less than it did in 2014.

Once again, two management triggers were tripped, one requiring that fishing mortality be reduced, one requiring that the stock be rebuilt.  Once again, the Management Board acted to reduce fishing mortality, and ignored its obligation to rebuild.

But this time, the Management Board didn’t even adopt management measures that were likely to work, but instead approved measures with a 58 percent probability of failure.

And the Management Board looked at what it had done, and decided that it was good.

Which, of course, is the problem.  Because at this point, the Management Board is so disconnected from its obligation to the public that it has embarked on a new amendment to the management plan, which has, as its priorities, maintaining regulatory consistency and providing management flexibility, so that the Management Board can do even less to rebuild the stock than it has done in the past.

It is also considering lowering the rebuilding target, making it easier to declare the striped bass stock “recovered” not too far down the road, adopting a new normal that would permanently reduce striped bass abundance, and allow the Management Board to declare its idea of success without working too hard to achieve it.

So it’s not too surprising that, at the last Management Board meeting, one New England fishery manager noted that stakeholders were “losing faith” in the ASMFC’s ability to manage striped bass.

After the ASMFC has failed to respond to a decline in the striped bass stock, failed to honor commitments for management action that are explicitly stated in its own striped bass management plan, failed to require states to adhere to agreed-upon management actions, allowed the striped bass to become overfished once again and, two years after that fact was revealed in a benchmark stock assessment, has still not made rebuilding the stock it’s most important priority—or, from what it has said and done so far, any priority at all—is it hard to believe that stakeholders have lost faith?

The ASMFC has done everything that the Mid-Atlantic Council’s Bluefish Hearing Document suggests that fisheries managers should avoid.

It has been negligent in its stewardship of the striped bass stock, in its failure to rebuild, and in its failure to even begin stock rebuilding.  It has lost the trust and confidence of stakeholders that it is able to live up to its responsibilities to maintain a sustainable striped bass stock.  It has done nothing in the past few years to suggest that it even wants to abandon its current track record of failure.

So what should the public expect from fisheries managers?

The public should expect, and demand, that they do their job to maintain healthy and sustainable stocks of fish, which are, in the end, a public resource and not the private domain of any particular sector of the fishery, or even the fishery as a whole.

If managers do just that much, the public should not, and probably would not, complain.

STRIPED BASS AMENDMENT 7: SO DO WE AGREE, AT LEAST ON THE KEY POINTS?

 The Striped Bass Amendment 7 process is moving forward. 

By now, we’ve largely figured out what issues the Public Information Document For Amendment 7 to the Interstate Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass (PID) is asking us to address, and most of us have also figured out which of those issues is most important to the bass, and what direction Amendment 7 ought to take.

A few public hearings have already been held (if you want to know when a hearing will be held in your state, you can find it in a schedule on the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s website), and some recreational fishing organizations have published their positions, so this is a good time to call a brief halt and evaluate where things stand right now, to provide some understanding of how the striped bass might fare in the upcoming debate.

Right now, it looks like recreational fishermen, and the more involved recreational fishing organizations, are more-or-less on the same page.  Some are standing staunchly on the center crease, while one is edging a bit too close to the margins, but none have taken up a position so far from the center that they can be deemed opposition, although I suspect that might change when some industry voices from New York, New Jersey and Maryland begin to chime in.

But right now, it looks like most people and organizations are, to a greater or lesser degree, putting the needs of the striped bass first.  I didn’t get a chance to listen to any of the hearings that have been held so far, in New Hampshire, Maine, and Virginia, but from what I’ve been told, the public comment generally supported the striper, particularly in northern New England, where a strong conservation ethic has long prevailed.  I have only received a couple of reports from Virginia, but from what I’m hearing, anglers were also supporting conservation-oriented measures there.

The various angling-related organizations are also generally staking out pro-bass positions, particularly on the goals and objectives of the management plan and the biological reference points.  In that regard, the American Saltwater Guides Association’s commented that

“We believe that the current goals and objectives of the Atlantic Striped Bass [Fishery Management Plan], as stated in Amendment 6 [to that plan], continue to be appropriate for striped bass management.  A robust spawning stock characterized by a broad age structure is critical for reducing recruitment variability for a species whose spawning success largely depends on favorable environmental conditions.  Such a diversity of age classes promotes long-term stock health and stability, which in turn supports the health and stability of commercial and recreational fisheries…”

With respect to the biological reference points, the Guides’ Association said that

“…We continue to believe that 1995 is an appropriate reference year [on which to base the spawning stock biomass target and threshold] given the abundance and broad age structure of the striped bass population at that time, in accordance with Amendment 6’s goals and objectives…”

The Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership's postion was similar, saying, in part, that

“The number one priority of Amendment 7 should be to restore and maintain an age structure that provides adequate spawning potential to sustain long-term abundance of striped bass populations…

“The current biomass reference points are based on verifiable observation and represent the best science currently available.  There are no viable model-based alternatives available to managers at this time, and potential replacements for the current reference points are restricted by data and modeling limitations.  Modifying the reference points has no scientific basis and it is inappropriate to weaken the standards without any new science to support the change…”

Coastal Conservation Association Maryland, which is probably reflecting the position of most or all of the CCA’s few chapters on the striper coast, and the American Sportfishing Association, which represents the fishing tackle industry, were generally on the same page, but hedged their comments to some degree.

CCA Maryland, for example, said that the ASMFC should

“Manage striped bass as primarily a recreational fishery, which means manage them for increased abundance and age structure,”

retain the current biological reference points, and

“Focus on maintaining fishing mortality to rebuild the stock and avoid future declines in the population.”

But it also starts getting into “cut the baby in half” territory with recommendations that the ASMFC also

“Balance the needs of catch and release anglers with those who like to take a fish home.”

and

“Stabilize the fishery with regulatory consistency across space and time.”

Those are troubling comments because the “needs” that Amendment 7 ought to be concerned with are the needs of the striped bass--setting reference points that will maintain abundance and a broad age structure, and best assure the long-term health of the stock.  For in the end, striped bass anglers don’t have “needs,” they have desires.  No catch-and-release angler needs to catch a bass; no bass angler needs to take a fish home.

When managers start giving equal weight to fishermen’s desires and the needs of the resource, and trying to manage for both, they usually fail to achieve either goal.  Instead, all should learn from the words of the late Art Neumann, founder of Trout Unlimited, who said

“Take care of the fish, and the fishing will take care of itself.”

Beyond that, the CCA Maryland position is internally inconsistent.  On one hand, it recommends that the striped bass stock be managed for abundance and a broad age structure, and states that that the ASMFC should focus on maintaining fishing mortality and avoid further population declines.  But on the other hand, it supports the notion that the fishery—and not the striped bass stock—be stabilized with “regulatory consistency across…time.”

Those suggestions embrace conflicting approaches to striped bass management. 

To successfully manage for abundance and age structure, maintain fishing mortality, and avoid population decline, managers must stand ready to change regulations, as and whenever needed, when fishing mortality gets too high or abundance begins to drop.

On the other hand, to maintain regulatory consistency over time, managers must ignore increases in fishing mortality or decreases in abundance, and maintain consistent regulations until the problem gets so bad that it can no longer be ignored.

We saw that happen in November 2011, when the management board decided that reducing landings, in response to a stock assessment update that warned the stock would be overfished within six years, constituted “overmanaging” because striped bass fishery was still “a green light fishery” and hadn’t run into serious problems yet.

We can see, to our sorrow, where such “regulatory consistency over time” got us today…

The same comments that apply to CCA’s Maryland’s position also apply to the position taken by the American Sportfishing Association, although ASA hedges its bets even more.  While it acknowledges that

“The current goals and objectives of Amendment 6 (outlined in the PID) provide a strong foundation for striped bass management,”

and states that

“We support the current [biological reference points] because they are adequate to achieve the current fishery goals and objectives,”

it also includes the two problematic recommendations made by CCA Maryland, and adds a third, that the ASMFC

“Achieve the conservation goals while still allowing sustainable fishing access.”

“Access,” of course, is one of those undefined weasel words that can be used to disguise its intended meaning.  

To surfcasters in the northeast, “access” means the ability to drive their vehicles on, and fish from, the beach and other shorelines.  To most bass fishermen, it means the ability to utilize—to fish for—the striped bass resource.  But based extensive comments made by the American Sportfishing Association with respect to the Gulf of Mexico red snapper fishery, “access” has a different, and quite specific meaning to ASA—the ability to not only fish for, but to retain, the fish in question.

So what they’re really talking about is splitting the baby again, supporting meaningful conservation while also killing—who knows how many, but judging from the red snapper debate, probably quite a few—striped bass.

At this rate, that poor baby won’t just be split in half; it’s likely to end up in quarters…

That doesn’t mean that there’s anything wrong with taking a bass or two home, so long as it’s done correctly:  First, managers figure out what regulations the bass need, to keep the stock healthy in the long term.  Then, they consider the inevitable release mortality.  Only after that’s done, should they calculate how much of the rest goes to harvest.

Approach things that way, rebuilding biomass to the target, and there will ultimately be plenty of fish available to put in folks’ coolers.

The other key issues, management triggers and rebuilding times, see the same sort of disparity between the organizations.

The Guides Association supports most of the current management triggers, which require action within one year when overfishing either looms or too much fishing mortality coincides with a drop in abundance, and instituting a 10-year rebuilding plan when biomass drops and the stock either becomes overfished or the biomass falls below target while fishing mortality rises too far.  However, the Association does recommend revisiting the recruitment trigger, which sets the bar for poor recruitment so low that it has never been tripped, and even if it had been, does not compel management action.

With respect to the rebuilding timeline, the Guides Association clearly states that

“We strongly believe that the 10-year rebuilding timeline currently specified in Amendment 6 should be maintained.  A longer rebuilding timeline would not only extend the period during which the stock is not at the target level, but would also inject greater uncertainty regarding the outcome of the rebuilding process.”

That latter concern is well-rooted in history, for after the 2013 benchmark stock assessment triggered the 10-year rebuilding requirement, the management board took no action, on the advice of then-fishery management plan coordinator Michael Waine, who advised that a 10-year rebuild involved too much uncertainty, and that the stock would eventually recover just from a reduced fishing mortality rate.

For the record, the stock didn’t rebuild, and instead went the other way.  It seems that there was too much uncertainty involved with not setting a 10-year deadline, too.

The management board shouldn’t be allowed to make that mistake again.

The Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership’s position on triggers and rebuilding is in harmony with that of the Guides Association; it simply states that

“The management triggers and rebuilding timelines are consistent with the biological understanding of the species and should be maintained.”

Like the Guides Association, the TRCP believes that the recruitment trigger should be revised.

Again, when we get to CCA Maryland and the ASA, we see similar basic positions, but we see more hedging, too.

CCA Maryland states that

“Management should focus on a set of triggers that recognize a decline in abundance that so that [sic] corrective action could be taken,”

and would like to see the ASA

“Utilize a 10-year rebuilding plan that focuses on maintaining [fishing mortality] at its target level.”

In those regards, it is in line with the Guides Association and TRCP.  But then the hedges start.

CCA Maryland endorses “the value of regulatory stability” again, and suggests that the ASMFC should

“Allow for flexibility in the rebuilding timeline if the Technical Committee determines that factors other than [fishing mortality] have contributed to a slow recovery for striped bass.”

Unfortunately, granting such “flexibility” to the management board is like handing a fifth of Scotch to a hard-core alcoholic, and expecting him to take one--and only one--small sip.  Given the opportunity, the management board would always find that there was always a factor “other than” fishing mortality that “contributed,” at least a little, to slow striped bass recovery, and would use the “flexibility” provided to set a recovery date that falls somewhere between “eventually” and “never.”

Given the management board’s track record, that is, sadly, not an exaggeration.

At the same time, there is good reason for CCA Maryland’s concerns.  As it noted,

“Beginning in the late 2000s, striped bass have undergone a prolonged period of below average recruitment, which is one of the primary reasons we are in the predicament we are in today.”

That’s very true.  Fishery managers can only control fishing mortality; they can’t control striped bass spawning success.

But where CCA Maryland goes astray is in the conclusions that it draws from that fact, believing that

“It will be difficult if not impossible for striped bass to rebuild to the current [spawning stock biomass] target level if the below average recruitment regime continues...”

History shows us why that statement is probably wrong.

When the striped bass collapsed in the late 1970s, recruitment levels fell through the floor.  From 1975 through 1988, the Maryland juvenile striped bass abundance index, probably the best gauge of striped bass recruitment, ranged between 1.22 and 8.45, compared to a long-term average of 11.7; it only rose above 5 twice, 1n 1975 and again in 1982.  Yet fishery managers, relying on the relatively healthy 1982 year class (8.45), adopted Amendment 3 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass late in 1985, and were able to rebuild the then-collapsed stock back to health by 1995—within 10 years.

Their success was remarkable, given how little they had to work with.  

According to the 2109 benchmark stock assessment, most striped bass mature when approximately 6 years old, with some not maturing until the age of 8.  That means that the youngest striped bass to be included in the 1995 spawning stock were from the 1989 year class, which returned a relatively high 25.20 in the Maryland juvenile index.  Yet 1989 was an exceptional year, and it takes more than one year class to make a successful recovery.  The 10-year average for the years 1980-1989, which included the all-important 1982 year class, was a little under 5.70—less than half of the current long-term average.

But the stock was rebuilt despite that.

We can’t know when, or if, the ASMFC will ever initiate a striped bass rebuilding plan, and we have no way of knowing what recruitment will be in then future.  Yet if we look at the past 10 years of spawning success, which includes the lowest Maryland JAI index ever recorded, we find that managers now have a lot more to work with than they did the last time that they managed to successfully rebuild the stock.

The years between 2011 and 2020 saw both very good and very bad recruitment occur, with Maryland JAI ranging from 0.89 in 2012 to 34.58 in 2011.  There were six years when the JAI exceeded 5, five years when it exceeded 10, and four years when it exceeded the long-term average; the 10-year average of the most recent JAI figures is 11.25—just slightly below the average recruitment figure.

While there is no guarantee that recruitment over the next ten years will resemble that of the past decade, it’s clear that if rebuilding began now, managers would have far more to work with than they had in 1985, and should be able to more than duplicate their previous 10-year rebuilding success.

There is no reason to believe that a rebuilding delay—“flexibility”—would be needed.

Still, the last time the stock was rebuilt, it was only to threshold, not to the target, which is 25 percent higher.  So what about CCA Maryland’s question”

“what happens when managers have maintained [fishing mortality] at the target level for 10 years and the stock does not rebuild?”

The answer to that question is very, very simple:  While the fishing mortality target ought to be able to sustain the spawning stock biomass at or around its target level, in order to rebuild the spawning stock within ten years, the fishing mortality rate will probably have to be a little lower.  It’s hard to predict what that rate would be, but it will almost certainly be necessary to forego a little more yield, compared to yield at the fishing mortality target, in order to get rebuilding done in time.

But it can be done.  It will only take the moral and political courage to make hard decisions to get then job done.  No “flexibility” would be required.

Again, the American Sportfishing Association’s comments parallel CCA Maryland’s, and then add a few quirks that make them a bit worse.  In this case, ASA claims that

“Finding a balance between being precautionary to ensure a healthy population and while also maintaining stability in the fishery is the sweet spot for management triggers.”

In doing so, the ASA seems to suggest that “stability in the fishery” somehow conflicts with, and needs to be balanced with, ensuring a healthy striped bass population.  Nothing is further from the truth.  If one wants to maintain a stable striped bass fishery, one must first maintain, to the extent possible, a stable striped bass population, even if that means changing the regulations on a regular basis to ensure stock health.

Even a cursory examination of Marine Recreational Information Program data will demonstrate that angler effort is directly tied to striped bass abundance; more anglers fish, and anglers fish more often, when there are a lot of fish around to catch.  Between the years of 1995 and 2014, recreational striped bass regulations remained largely unchanged, with a 2-fish bag limit and 28-inch minimum size, yet angling effort varied widely throughout the period, in direct response to the abundance of striped bass, and to the abundance of larger individuals. 

The goal of “stability in the fishery,” and the goal of a healthy striped bass stock are complimenbtary; a healthy and abundant striped bass stock is likely to stabilize angler effort at a relatively high level, maximizing both recreational opportunity and the economic benefits to the ASA’s members, even if regulations need to change a bit in order to keep abundance near target.

But after those comments about stability came the big kicker, which was not only the worst of the ASA’s ideas, but the worst of any Amendment 7 proposal that I’ve heard up to now:

“Consider stocking of hatchery-raised fish from wild brood stock in major producer areas if recruitment continues to be poor.”

Hatcheries don't provide the solution to any of the problems facing the striped bass.  In the end, they represent nothing less than an tacit admission that fishery management has failed.  

While fish hatcheries have existed in the United States for more than 150 years, there is little or no evidence that such hatcheries, created to allow fishing to continue after a fish stock became depleted, has ever successfully restored a wild fish population to sustainable levels of abundance.  In the Pacific Northwest, where salmon have been heavily stocked for more than a century, many runs of salmon, despite such stocking, are at historically low levels of abundance, and are listed under the federal Endangered Species Act.

Instead, hatcheries have proven to be an excuse to abandon serious management efforts, replace natural reproduction with industrial-scale fish production, all to justify harvest levels far beyond what a natural stock could sustain.  Natural fish populations are forced to compete with hatchery fish that are less fit to live in the wild, but nonetheless take up resources—both food resources and essential feeding, spawning, and nursery habitat—that wild fish need.

And there is a difference between wild fish and hatchery fish from wild brood stock.  Research with steelhead (sea-run rainbow) trout has demonstrated that gene expression in even the first generation of hatchery fish differs from that in their naturally-spawned parents.  In that study, the expression of genes affecting wound healing, immunity and metabolism all changed from those in wild-spawned fish, possibly because the crowded conditions in the hatchery require different genetic responses.

The fish were already becoming more domesticated, and less suited to the wild.

There is still more than enough time to rebuild striped bass without the need for hatcheries; should things ever start getting so bad that hatcheries might be required, a moratorium on all striped bass fishing ought to be imposed before artificially produced fish are even considered.  Hatcheries should be, and remain, the management measure of last resort, and should never be a tool used to avoid making difficult conservation decisions.

And that bad idea probably provides a good place to end.  There are five other topics in the PID, but this essay has already run too long.  We’ve already looked at the issues that matter most.

The good news—and it is good news—is that on the key issues of goals and objectives, biological reference points, management triggers and rebuilding times, there is widespread, essential agreement on the need to maintain a broad age structure and high striped bass abundance, to retain the current reference points, to employ effective management triggers and to try to rebuild the stock within ten years.

The bad news is that some folks still don’t understand that Mother Nature can’t compromise, and that when managers seek to strike some sort of balance between the needs of the fish and the wants of the fishermen, the fish—and in time, the fishermen, too—will always lose.

Let’s just hope that, going into Amendment 7, the good news wins out.