NO EXCUSES

On May 7, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission issued what may prove to be one of the most significant press releases in the history of the ASMFC.  While the release merely announced that the Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board was moving forward with its proposed Amendment 7 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass, it contained a paragraph that addressed the entire array of ASMFC-managed species:

“Prior to the Board’s deliberations, Commission Chair Patrick Keliher provided opening remarks urging the Board to take action to address the downward trend of the Commission’s flagship species.  He stated, ‘While we are not at the point we were in 1984, the downward trend in this stock is evident in the assessment.  For many of the Commission’s species, we are no longer in a position to hold hope that things will revert to what they have previously been if we just hold static.  The change is happening too fast and action needs to be taken.’  He further requested the Board to consider ‘what is best for this species, and also what is best for the future of the Commission.’  [emphasis added]”

If the first step toward curing a problem is, as some say, just acknowledging that it exists, then Chair Keliher’s recognition that the ASMFC’s overly passive management of “many of the” species it manages, including striped bass, is inadequate to get the needed job done could well herald the approach of a new era, in which the Commission finally lives up to its potential as an institution that can properly conserve and manage inshore fish stocks.

The very fact that the ASMFC chose to include his comments in a press release could be seen as a signal that the ASMFC has heard the criticisms leveled at the Commission, took such comments to heart, and intends to take a new and more effective tack on fisheries management.   I’ve known Patrick Keliher for quite a few years, long enough to know that he has is personally committed to effective fisheries management for striped bass and other coastal species.  I can easily see him, as the ASMFC Chair, trying to steer the Commission in that direction.

Doing so will require a significant change in the ASMFC’s current course.  Unfortunately, the ASMFC is a big, cumbersome organization, which has generated a substantial level of institutional inertia that will tend to keep it on its current path.  While the outcome of the May meeting of the Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board meeting demonstrated that there were many commissioners who understood the need for meaningful conservation measures, the comments of others made it clear that some were still committed to the old, ineffective way of doing business, and to subordinating conservation to short-term socioeconomic concerns.

Although such commissioners appear to be in the minority, they will certainly do what they can to prevent the much-needed course change, and will undoubtedly seek excuses that they might use to convince their colleagues on various management boards to delay or avoid taking needed actions, just as they have in the past.

One of the excuses that regularly surfaces is that the ASMFC isn’t to blame for the decline of fish stocks, because such declines are driven by climate change or other environmental factors, not by anything that a management board could address.

There is a grain of truth in such claims, at least if one looks at Atlantic sturgeon. 

All of the Atlantic sturgeon stocks are badly depleted, with four of the five distinct population segments on the “endangered” species list while the fifth, in the Gulf of Maine, is merely “threatened.” Although the ASMFC is responsible for managing the species, it can’t be blamed for the sturgeon's problems.  The Atlantic Coastal Fisheries Cooperative Management Act, which gave the ASMFC the authority to manage inshore fish stocks, was passed in late 1993, and by 1998 the Commission had adopted Amendment 1 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Sturgeon, which was designed keep the sturgeon fishery closed for the indefinite future.

There’s not much more that the Commission could do begin the rebuilding process.  The threats now facing the sturgeon, including things such as being unintentionally caught as bycatch in gear set for other fish, dams blocking access to traditional spawning grounds, and habitat degradation, are beyond the ASMFC’s control. 

But once we get past the sturgeon, the ASMFC runs out of excuses. 

Certainly, environmental factors are affecting the health and movements of fish stocks.  But when faced with scientific uncertainty brought about by shifting ocean conditions, it only makes sense for managers to take a more conservative, precautionary stance when adopting management measures.  That’s something that the ASMFC has historically failed to do.

Consider the two stocks that might have fared the worst as a result of a warming ocean, northern shrimp and the southern New England stock of American lobster.  Both have seen recruitment plummet as a result of increased water temperatures.  Yet such declines weren’t unexpected; biologists gave the ASMFC ample advice on how to manage both species, but such advice was generally ignored.

Northern shrimp like their water cold, and don’t come any farther south than the Gulf of Maine.  Unfortunately, the Gulf of Maine is one of the most rapidly warming patches of water on Earth, and that didn’t bode well for the shrimp.   

In addition, northern shrimp have a life history that makes them particularly vulnerable to overfishing.  The shrimp are hermaphrodites that transition from male to female when 2 ½ years old, so individuals have to escape harvest for at least that long before they can even begin to spawn.  The mature females then carry their fertilized eggs on their bodies until they hatch sometime in mid-winter; under normal conditions, about half of the eggs will hatch by February 15.

In 2011, northern shrimp were both overfished and experiencing overfishing.  So for the 2012 season, the ASMFC’s Northern Shrimp Technical Committee recommended that

“If managers wish to achieve a fishing mortality rate of no more than F=0.32, the [Technical Committee] recommends a 2012 shrimp catch level at or below 1,834 [metric tons]…

“…Protecting egg-bearing females prior to egg hatch, which usually occurs during February and/or March, is also recommended…”

Despite that advice, the Northern Shrimp Section, which then functioned like a management board, set the quota at 2,211 metric tons, and allowed trawlers to begin fishing on January 2, assuring that the maximum possible number of egg-bearing females would be caught.  After the season had closed, biologists determined that fishing mortality had risen to 1.08, compared to an F_target of 0.36, an F_threshold of 0.46, and an F_limit—the point when management action had to be taken—of 0.60.

Northern shrimp were in a very bad place, with the entire spawning stock biomass estimated to be just 1,500 metric tons—substantially less than the 2012 quota.  Given that, the Technical Committee advised,

“Given the current conditions of the resource (overfished and overfishing occurring) and poor prospects for the near future, the [Technical Committee] recommends that the Section implement a moratorium on fishing in 2013.  If a fishery is allowed in 2013, the [Technical Committee] recommends a highly conservative approach, including fishing below F_target and starting the season after at least 50% of shrimp have hatched their brood. In recent years the midpoint of the hatch has been around February 15.”

Once again, the ASMFC’s Northern Shrimp Section ignored the biologists’ advice, opened the season on January 23, and set a quota of 625 metric tons.  But by that time, the stock collapse was well underway, and the entire quota could not be caught.  By the time the season was over, spawning stock biomass in 2013 was estimated to be a mere 500 metric tons—less than the quota for that year.

Ever since then, the fishery has been closed, and when the topic of northern shrimp comes up, ASMFC spokesmen are quick to blame climate change for the stock collapse.  Perhaps, in the end, they are right.  Perhaps nothing that they did could have avoided the current stock condition.

But it is impossible to wonder whether, if the ASMFC had been willing—or, if unwilling, had been legally required—to prevent overfishing, rebuild overfished stocks, and follow the best scientific advice, things would have gotten this bad, or whether a healthier stock might have been more resilient, perhaps resilient enough to ward off the worst impacts of a warming sea, and still survive as a viable component of the Gulf of Maine ecosystem.

We can ask the same thing about southern New England lobster.

In April 2010, the ASMFC’s American Lobster Technical Committee released a report titled “Recruitment Failure in the Southern New England Lobster Stock.”  The report noted that

“The southern New England stock is critically depleted and well below the minimum threshold abundance.  Abundance indices are at or near time series lows, and this condition has persisted.”

It also recommended that

“Given additional evidence of recruitment failure in [the southern New England stock] and the impediments to stock rebuilding, the Technical Committee now recommends a 5 year moratorium on harvest in the [southern New England] stock area.”

That recommendation didn’t go over well with lobstermen in the southern New England region, and in response, the ASMFC’s American Lobster Management Board called a special meeting, in which it decided to look at three options:  a 75% reduction in landings, a 50% reduction, or no reduction at all.

It didn’t seriously consider the moratorium recommended by the biologists.

However, it did authorize an independent peer review of the Technical Committee’s report and recommendation.

When the peer review was completed, it vindicated the Technical Committee’s position.  Of the three scientists on the peer review panel, one said that

“Environmental changes rather than fishing mortality are implicated in the recent stock decline and lower recruitment levels...However, the [Technical Committee] identifies fishing mortality as an impediment to rebuilding the stock.  Given other pressures on larval production and successful settlement…removal of fishing mortality is the one opportunity available to managers to influence the likelihood of rebuilding the stock… 

“…I would assess…the risk of failing to rebuild if the moratorium is not imposed as high. [emphasis added]”

A second member of the peer review panel said that

“A moratorium on exploitation would be the most effective strategy to rebuild the stock.”

The third member of the peer review panel did not necessarily see the need for a moratorium, but he did clearly state that

“the current effort in the fishery is too high and is approximately 50% higher than when the abundance was a similar level in the early 1980s.  A 50-75% reduction in effort is recommended immediately…  [emphasis added]”

Thus, the best available scientific information called for nothing less than a 50% reduction in fishing effort, with strong support for completely shutting down the fishery.  But, as was the case with northern shrimp, the management board decided to ignore the science, and merely cut the number of pots in the water by 10%.

Thus, it shouldn’t have come as a surprise when a 2015 benchmark stock assessment found that

“the southern New England stock is severely depleted and in need of protection,”

and observed that

“…the Technical Committee and [peer] Review Panel believe that the stock has little chance of recovering unless fishing effort is curtailed…[By] any reasonable standard, it is necessary to protect the offshore component of the stock until increased recruitment can be observed.”

Again, the management board chose to ignore the scientific advice.

That led to the most recent stock assessment, released in 2020, advising that

“The Southern New England (SNE) stock was significantly depleted as the three-year average abundance from 2016-2018 was considerably below the abundance threshold.  The stock was at record low abundance, and stock projections conducted as part of the assessment show a low probability of the condition changing in most credible scenarios.  Trends in exploitation in SNE have been more variable than trends in lobster abundance.  However, the stock was not experiencing overfishing as the three-year average exploitation was between the threshold and target levels.”

That fits very well with a comment made by an ASMFC representative during the New York webinar/hearing on the Public Information Document For Amendment 7 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass, in response to criticism that the ASMFC wasn’t rebuilding depleted stocks, to the effect that the Commission was successfully ending overfishing, but wasn’t able to rebuild stocks for climate-related reasons.

And again, as with northern shrimp, that may be true, given how far the ASMFC has allowed the stock to decline.

But what we will never know is whether, had the ASMFC acted promptly in 2010 to prohibit or seriously reduce landings, in response to the Technical Committee recommendation and subsequent peer review, the southern New England lobster stock might have been just healthy enough to allow for slow rebuilding.

That possibility was forever foreclosed when the Commission chose not to act.

Now, all we have are excuses.

And, as Patrick Kelliher’s comments serve to remind us, and will hopefully remind the management boards, excuses are the poorest sort of substitute for effective action.