“Everything in war is very simple, but the simplest thing is
difficult.”
The same can be said about striped bass management.
I was thinking about that just a few days ago, after reading
an
editorial titled “The Solution is Simple” in The Falmouth Enterprise, a
newspaper that has been published on Massachusetts’ Cape Cod since 1895. The topic was striped bass, and the article
noted
“There is a good deal of concern about striped bass these
days. It is evident that the numbers of
these popular fish are down, especially with big fish, which makes the striper
the most popular sport fish on the East Coast.
“Amendment 7 [to the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries
Commission’s striped bass management plan] is being developed to address this.
“Fisheries managers have a knack for making an easily defined
problem very complex. That much is clear
in the commission’s motion to develop its new striped bass amendment [which contemplates
an amendment that addresses nine different, and individually complex, issues].
“It’s mind-numbing.
“The simple truth is that the way to protect striped bass, or
any species, is to protect their habitat and kill fewer of them. The problem arises when there are competing
interests…”
Thus, von Clausewitz’s quote. For it’s those “competing interests” that
makes that very simple way to conserve and rebuild striped bass—killing fewer
of them—so very hard to accomplish.
As I started to think about von Clausewitz a little bit
more—and, believe it or not, when your undergrad degrees are in History and
English, and you’ve kept up those interests in the decades since, idly thinking
about folks like von Clausewitz is the sort of thing that you do—I realized
that some of his other thoughts on war were also very relevant to the fisheries
arena.
Like
“There are very few men—and they are the exceptions—who are
able to think and feel beyond the present moment,”
for nothing makes the simplest aspects of
striped bass management more difficult to execute than too many
stakeholders’—and too many fishery managers’—excessive focus on the short-term impacts
of the management measures needed to assure the long-term health and stability of
the striped bass stock.
There are numerous examples. One that I frequently cite is the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board’s response to a 2011 stock assessment update, which found that the stock would become overfished by 2017.
The threat to the striped bass
stock was clear. There was plenty of
time for the Management Board to take action to avoid the problem. It even went so far as to prepare a suite of prophylactic
measures. But in the end, it did nothing to halt the stock's decline.
“Amendment 6 [to the striped bass management plan] gives you
two major triggers. We haven’t hit
either one of them to meet that action yet…
“…we’re managing fishermen, we’re affecting livelihoods. Yes, I understand that there is a tremendous
amount of money driving the economy by partyboats and charterboats going out
and fishing on these fish.
“We’ve created a bonanza for folks who have a vessel who have
got a captain’s license, but how of you [sic] are taking three striped bass
trips a day? We have charterboat guys in
New York who are taking three a day with six guys on each vessel. And, oh, by the way, they can take two
greater than 28 [inches]. Read the
fishermen magazine in your backyard and tell me that you don’t see what the
implications are.
“The minimum size is typically 28 inches. What the heck did we expect to happen? You’ve got all the states fishing greater
than 28 except for those that have made changes where they allow for a third
fish or a slot-size fish, but the reality is that’s what you’re fishing
for. You’re fishing for eight-year-old
fish and older. Wake up and smell the trees—the
roses…
“…If there is an aberration in the stock and the
myco[bacteriosis, a disease fatal to striped bass] goes forward and destroys
the population in the Chesapeake, we’ve got an issue. There will be a trigger [requiring management
action when the stock’s condition gets worse] and we will take action, but I
think we’ve got to be realistic in goals and desires to protect the most
protected specie of fish in the ocean that we many [sic]; and to do it at the
demise of other species of fish that are also costing livelihoods and having a
negative economic impact in several states along the coast, shame on us.”
In other words, the Management Board knew that there was an incipient problem
with the striped bass stock, and it knew that too many fish were being killed, but
in order to prevent adverse short-term economic impacts on the fishing
industry, it chose to take no action until things got worse, until a crisis occurs (“myco goes
forward and destroys the population [emphasis added”) and it was forced to do something.
And things did get worse, but the Management Board did too
little, even then, ignoring clear requirements to
begin rebuilding the stock included in its own management plan.
That stock, as we now, is now overfished, and still the
Management Board has failed to initiate rebuilding. But then, as von Clausewitz noted,
“War is such a dangerous business that mistakes that come
from kindness are the very worst.”
Fishery management may not be physically dangerous—at least,
not most of the time—but they still make "mistakes that come from kindness," seeking to manage a depleted striped bass stock while avoiding short-term pain to stakeholders. And such mistakes are dangerous, as they throw open the door to failure.
“…to introduce into the philosophy of war itself a principle
of moderation would be an absurdity.”
Yet such absurdities abound in striped bass
management, particularly with respect to the practice of “conservation
equivalency,” which allows states to adopt management measures
other than those chosen by the Management Board, provided that such alternate
measures, in theory, provide the same conservation benefit.
Unfortunately, the Management Board’s desire to moderate the
impacts of striped bass management—the greatest of its “mistakes the come from
kindness”—cause its management efforts to fail, and leads to management travesties
such as the
recently-adopted Addendum VI to Amendment 6 to the Atlantic Striped Bass
Interstate Fishery Management Plan, which was intended to reduce fishing
mortality to the target level but, primarily because
of conservation equivalency concessions the Management Board was willing to
make to Maryland and New Jersey, faces a 58 percent probability that it will not achieve its goal.
In the end, there is only way to successfully manage striped
bass, and that is for the Management Board to, again in the words of von
Clausewitz,
“Pursue one great decisive aim with force and determination.”
And for the Management Board, such “one great decisive aim” can
only be the full restoration of the striped bass spawning stock, and then maintaining the restored stock at healthy and sustainable levels in the
future.
For if they fail to achieve that biological goal, the
subsidiary goals of maximizing the economic, social, and recreational benefits that flow from the bass fishery shall forever remain out of reach.
Which brings us back, full circle, to where this began, with
the editorial in The Falmouth Enterprise, which concluded that
“[Needed fishery management measures] won’t be popular with
everyone. But it’s not about the
fishermen, it’s about the fish.
Fisheries managers must look beyond competing interests if they are
going to protect this important game fish.
[emphasis added]”
If the Management Board can accept that truth, and adopt the
mindset and the principles necessary to achieve success, the striped bass
spawning stock, and the striped bass fishery, can and will be restored.
But if it equivocates, tries to appease competing interests, and fails to understand that, in the
end, the needs of the fish, not of fishermen, must come first, the Management
Board’s efforts will fail.
Once again.
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