STRIPED BASS AMENDMENT 7--CONSIDERING OUR OPTIONS: PART I, MANAGEMENT TRIGGERS

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission has released Draft Amendment 7 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass For Public Comment.  The public comment period on the draft amendment is now open, and will continue through April 15.  Public hearings will be held, probably in a webinar format, in most states hosting significant striped bass fisheries during the month of March, although a hearing schedule has not yet been finalized.    

It's important that stakeholders take the time to provide their thoughts on the draft amendment.  The current Amendment 6 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass was adopted in 2003, and will have been in place for nearly two decades when it is replaced by Amendment 7 in January 2023.  Amendment 7 has the potential to survive just as long, so it is important that everyone takes some time to make sure that the ASMFC gets it right.

Of course, before someone provides comment on the draft amendment, they ought to understand what management options are being considered, and how such options might affect both the striped bass and the striped bass fishery.  Thus, beginning with this edition of One Angler’s Voyage, I will address the four issues addressed in Draft Amendment 7 one at a time, describing the options being considered, as well as some of the pros and cons that accompany each one.

The draft amendment first addresses the management triggers that determine when, and to some extent how, the Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board must respond when faced with a threat to the striped bass stock.  It is arguably the most important of the issues addressed in Draft Amendment 7, even more important than rebuilding the striped bass stock, for if a management trigger requiring the Management Board to rebuild the stock is never triggered, such rebuilding might never occur.

Management triggers are also the most complex issue addressed in the draft amendment.  Thus, this will be the longest of the four installments addressing the options contained in Draft Amendment 7.  To make reading and understanding easier, it is broken down into sections discussing each aspect of the issue.

The rationale

When the Management Board decided upon the issues to be addressed in Amendment 7 at its May 2021 meeting, a motion was made to eliminate the topic of management triggers, except for the single trigger which addressed striped bass recruitment.  However, that motion did not pass, as the majority of Management Board members felt that all five of the current management triggers should be reviewed.  

As the draft amendment explains,

“The management triggers are intended to keep the Board accountable and were developed at a time when the stock was thought to be at historic high abundance and well above the [spawning stock biomass] target.  However, as perceptions of stock status and fishery performance have changed, shortfalls with how the management triggers are designed have emerged.  When female SSB is below the target level, the variable nature of fishing mortality can result in a continued need for management action.  Additionally, the shorter timetables for corrective action are in conflict with the desire for management stability, and the use of point estimates does not account for an inherent level of uncertainty.  Furthermore, the Board is sometimes criticized for considering changes to the management program before the stock has had a chance to respond to the most recent set of management changes.  Lastly, the observed long period of below average recruitment which contributed to recent declines in biomass has raised questions about the recruitment-based trigger and whether it is designed appropriately.”

That’s a wide-ranging rationale, that includes some good points and some dubious assertions, most of which will be addressed in the discussion below.

Fishing mortality management triggers

Amendment 6 created two fishing mortality triggers.  One sought to remedy what might be deemed a crisis situation, when the stock was already experiencing overfishing.  The other trigger sought to avert such crisis before it occurred, by requiring management action when the fishing mortality target, but not the threshold, was exceeded at a time when the biomass was in decline.

Both triggers, if tripped, require that the Management Board reduce fishing mortality to or below the target level within one year.

Option A:  Timeline to reduce fishing mortality to the target

Fishing mortality triggers were tripped only twice in the near-twenty-year history of Amendment 6, once when the 2013 stock assessment revealed that, for a number of years, fishing mortality had risen above its target while a declining spawning stock had breached its target as well, and again when the 2018 stock assessment found that overfishing was occurring and that the stock was overfished.  On both occasions, the Management Board was able to successfully reduce fishing mortality not only to, but below, the fishing mortality target within one year.

Thus, it is puzzling why Fishing Mortality Option A-2, which would allow the Management Board two years, rather than one, to reduce fishing mortality to target, is even in the draft amendment.

The Management Board has demonstrated on two separate occasions that it is capable of reducing fishing mortality to the target level within one year, and does not need a second year to get the job done.  Given that the entire point of reducing fishing mortality to target is to maintain a sustainable fishery over the long term, the same regulations needed to return fishing mortality to its target level must remain in place to keep such mortality from creeping up again, it makes little sense to phase regulations in over two years, rather than get the job done in a single, decisive step.

Fishing Mortality Option A-1, the one-year status quo, is clearly the better choice.

Option B:  Fishing Mortality Threshold Triggers

Right now, if fishing mortality, in any one year, exceeds the fishing mortality threshold, the stock is experiencing overfishing, and the Management Board must act.  Fishing Mortality Option B-2 would drag out that process, and require that

“If the two-year average [fishing mortality] exceeds the [fishing mortality] threshold, the striped bass management program must be adjusted to reduce [fishing mortality] to a level that is at or below the target…The two-year average [fishing mortality] should not include data under different management actions…”

Such option, if selected by the Management Board, could allow overfishing to continue for several years before the Management Board needs to take any action.

Admittedly, under the right seto of circumstances, it wouldn’t insert any delay at all.  For example, the 2018 stock assessment found that overfishing had been occurring since 2010, so requiring fishing mortality to be averaged over two years would have had no impact on the speed of the Management Board’s response.  It would have still had to fix the problem by the start of the 2020 season (not 2019, because the 2018 assessment wasn’t accepted for management purposes until May 2019). 

But that was an ideal situation.

Had overfishing first occurred in 2017, the terminal year of the last stock assessment, rather than in 2010, and had Fishing Mortality Option B-2 been in place at that time, the Management Board wouldn’t have been required to adopt management measures that would end overfishing by the start of the 2020 season.  Instead, not only could overfishing be continuing today, it might well have continued until the beginning of the 2024 season.  

That's because there hasn’t been a stock assessment performed since 2018, so there will be no second year of fishing mortality data available to managers until the 2022 stock assessment update is released next October.  A management action to end overfishing wouldn't be have been initated until 2023.

Because stock assessments aren’t performed every year, Fishing Mortality Option B-2 would not merely cause one year of additional delay before the Management Board would be compelled to end overfishing.  Under the real-world circumstances we are experiencing today, when there will be a four-year giap between the 2018 assessment and the 2022 update, such Option B-2 could easily have allowed overfishing, on the already overfished stock, to continue for four full years, shrinking the spawning stock biomass even more and making stock collapse an ever more likely possibility.

Even assuming that the ASMFC manages to perform stock assessment updates every two years, should overfishing occur in the terminal year of the initial assessment, it could continue for another two years before the needed second year of data needed to compel Management Board action is available.

For those reasons, Fishing Mortality Option B-1, which maintains the one-year status quo, would best protect the striped bass stock.

Option C:  Fishing Mortality Target Triggers

Today, the fishing mortality target trigger requires the Management Board to act if fishing mortality rises above the target in any two consecutive years, and female spawning stock biomass falls below its target in one of those years. 

Such trigger makes sense; if striped bass are abundant, with spawning stock biomass at or above the target level, fishing mortality rising above its target isn’t going to do appreciable harm.  On the other hand, if fishing mortality continues above target, and the biomass goes into decline, it probably makes sense for the Management Board to take some sort of action to stabilize the situation and keep things from getting worse.

However, Draft Amendment 7 contains two options that would change the status quo.

Fishing Mortality Option C-2 would decouple fishing mortality from spawning stock biomass, and establish a trigger which trips if fishing mortality rises above target for three consecutive years.  

It’s not an unreasonable option, given that it addresses target, not threshold, fishing mortality.  I can’t look anyone in the eye and honestly explain why such Option C-2 would leave the bass any worse off than the status quo.  If biomass remained at or above target as fishing mortality increased, it could even require Management Board to act under circumstances when the status quo would not.

I can’t be as blase about Fishing Mortality Option C-3, which would eliminate the fishing mortality target trigger, and allow the Management Board to sit by and do nothing until the stock was already experiencing overfishing.  As the draft amendment notes,

“The value of the F target is set at a cautionary level intended to safeguard the fishery from reaching the overfishing threshold.”

Eliminating the fishing mortality threshold would eliminate such safeguard, and commit the Management Board to a path of crisis management, when it would no longer act to prevent overfishing, but only after overfishing had occurred (and, if Fishing Mortality Option B-2 is adopted, perhaps not for three or four years after that). 

Thus, while reasonable people might choose either the status quo option C-1 (which I personally prefer) or C-2s three years of fishing mortality exceeding the target, Fishing Mortality Option C-3 should be vehemently opposed.

Female spawning stock biomass management triggers

As with fishing mortality, Amendment 6 created two biomass triggers.  One is tripped when female spawning stock biomass falls below its threshold level, and the stock is deemed overfished; the other is more precautionary trigger, which tripped when such biomass falls below target in two consecutive years, and fishing mortality rises above its target in either of those years.

Option A:  A deadline to initiate rebuilding

Should either trigger be tripped, the Management Board is obligated to rebuild the stock within ten years, although it isn’t completely clear when such 10-year period would begin.  

As with the fishing mortality triggers, the biomass triggers have been tripped twice since 2003, once by the 2013 stock assessment, and once by the 2018 assessment.  In the former instance, the Management Board opted to ignore its clear duty, and did not initiate a rebuilding plan; in the latter, it is now considering action, three years after the stock was found to be overfished.

SSB Option A-2 would require the Management Board to implement a rebuilding plan within two years after a stock assessment was accepted for management use.  Such option, if adopted, would raise the Management Board’s standard to that long applied to federal fishery management councils, which are legally obligated to implement rebuilding plans within 2 years after receiving notice that a stock has become overfished.

SSB Option A-2 represents a substantial improvement over the ambiguous status quo, and deserves strong support.

Option B:  SSB Threshold Triggers

There are only two options for spawning stock biomass threshold triggers, SSB Option B-1, status quo, or B-2, which would eliminate the trigger completely.

I should note at the outset that eliminating the spawning stock biomass threshold trigger doesn’t mean that there would be no biomass trigger at all; Draft Amendment 7 states that while either the SSB threshold or SSB target trigger might be eliminated, both may not be removed from the final amendment.  One SSB trigger should remain.

The argument for removing the SSB threshold trigger is that, if the SSB target trigger remains in Amendment 7 and is tripped, the stock will never become overfished, so the threshold trigger is not really needed.  While that sounds good in theory, like so many things, it doesn’t always work out in the real world.

We must remember that, while Amendment 6 contains both threshold and target spawning stock biomass triggers, a rebuilding plan is now being considered by the Management Board because the SSB threshold, and not the SSB target, trigger was tripped.  We’re in that situation because, back in 2014, the Management Board followed the advice of the then Fishery Management Plan Coordinator, Michael Waine, who advised the Board not to initiate a rebuilding plan, despite the mandatory language of Amendment 6, after information contained in the 2013 assessment tripped the SSB target trigger.

History has thus demonstrated that there is no guarantee that rebuilding will begin after the SSB target trigger is tripped.  The SSB threshold trigger has proven to be a valuable backstop, and does no conceivable harm.

Thus, the right choice is SSB Option B-1, status quo.

Option C:  SSB target triggers

Draft Amendment 7 treats the fishing mortality and SSB targets in the same way. 

SSB Option C-1 represents the status quo, two consecutive years of biomass below the target, with fishing mortality above the target in one of the two.  Option C-2 decouples the biomass and fishing mortality targets, and would require management action if female spawning stock biomass falls below target for three consecutive years.  Option C-3 would completely eliminate the SSB target trigger.

As with the fishing mortality target triggers, eliminating the SSB target trigger completely is the only bad choice, and for the same reason:  Doing so would eliminate a precautionary buffer, that would hopefully prevent the stock from becoming overfished, and would again put the Management Board in crisis management mode, only required to act once female spawning stock biomass had crossed the line into overfished territory.

Otherwise, there’s not much to pick from between SSB Option C-1 and C-2.  Unlike the case with fishing mortality, there is no cause-and-effect argument to support the spawning stock biomass status quo; a declining biomass won’t cause fishing mortality to increase, while Option C-2 could compel management action even if fishing mortality remains at or below target.  Thus, either one represents an acceptable choice for the Management Board.

However, SSB option C-3 should be opposed.

Recruitment triggers

Option A:  Recruitment trigger definition

The current recruitment trigger, represented by the status quo Recruitment Trigger Option A-1, reads

“If any Juvenile Abundance Index shows recruitment failure (i.e., an index value lower than 75% of all other values in the dataset) for three consecutive years, then the Board will review the cause of recruitment failure (i.e., fishing mortality, environmental conditions, and disease) and determine the appropriate management action.”

Six juvenile abundance indices, for the Kennebec River (Maine), Hudson River (New York), Delaware River (New Jersey), Chesapeake Bay (Maryland), Chesapeake Bay (Virginia), and the Albemarle-Roanoke system (North Carolina) are considered.

Such recruitment trigger seems to have two significant flaws. 

Although recruitment has reached low levels in a few spawning areas since the trigger was adopted in 2003, the trigger has only been tripped once, by North Carolina in 2020, which suggests that it may not be sensitive enough to address possible threats to the stock.  It’s other flaw is that, even if tripped, it does not require any sort of management response.  Instead, it leaves it up to the Management Board to “determine the appropriate management action,” which could very well be to leave things alone and watch the stock decline for another few years.

Both Recruitment Trigger Options A-2 and A-3 would create a more sensitive recruitment trigger.  Both would update the reference period used in the trigger from “all other values in the dataset,” which include the unusually low recruitment that occurred during the stock collapse of the late 1970s and early 1980s, and replace it with the years 1992 through 2006, when recruitment was deemed to be high.  Also, both options would only consider the four juvenile abundance indices from the major striped bass spawning areas of the Hudson River, Delaware River, and upper and lower Chesapeake Bay; because they do not have a significant impact on the coastal stock, indices from the Kennebec River and Albemarle-Roanoke system would no longer be included. 

Recruitment Trigger Option A-2 would trip if the juvenile abundance index for any of the four spawning areas shows a value that is below 75% of the values for the relevant area, during the period 1992-2006, for three consecutive years.  Such trigger would have been tripped three times since 2003, once in New York (2006) and twice in Maryland (2010 and 2014).

Recruitment Trigger Option A-3 would be even more sensitive, tripping when the juvenile abundance index for any of the four spawning areas fell below the median of the values for the relevant area, during the period 1992-2006, for three consecutive years.  Option A-3 would have been tripped six times since 2003, twice in New York (2006 and 2013), three times in Maryland alone (2008, 2009, and 2014), and once in Maryland and Virginia (2010).

I like conservative striped bass management, and so instinctively favor Recruitment Option A-3.  However, this is one of those technical issues that is best determined by biologists, not fishermen.  Thus, I’m not qualified to judge whether Recruitment Option A-2 or A-3 would be the better pick.

However, either would be an improvement over the status quo Recruitment Option A-1, which has demonstrated that it is not sensitive enough to trigger needed management actions when recruitment declines.

Option B:  Management Response to Recruitment Triggers

Recruitment Option B-1 represents the status quo.  It doesn’t necessarily trigger any management action at all, and only requires that the Management Board determine whether action is needed.  Under such option, deciding to do nothing in response to a prolonged period of recruitment failure would be a completely acceptable response.

Recruitment Options B-2 and B-3 would prevent the Management Board from sitting on its hands if a recruitment trigger was tripped. 

Recruitment Option B-2 is the simpler of the two.  It reads

“If the recruitment trigger is tripped, an interim F target calculated using the low recruitment assumption is implemented, and if F from the terminal year of the most recent stock assessment is above the interim F target, the striped bass management program must be adjusted to reduce F to the interim F target within one year.”

Under this option, if the recruitment target is tripped, and a fishing mortality reduction was called for, the Management Board would have just one year to reduce fishing mortality to the level needed to maintain the stock.

Recruitment Option B-3 is quite a bit more complicated, and implicates other management triggers.  It reads

“If the recruitment trigger is tripped, an interim F target and interim F threshold calculated using the low recruitment assumption are implemented, and the F-based management triggers…would be reevaluated using those interim reference points.  If an F-based trigger is tripped upon reevaluation, the striped bass management program must be adjusted to reduce F to the interim F target within the timeline defined [by fishing mortality target Option A].”

This option would probably result in a substantially delayed response to a tripped recruitment trigger, and possibly render the recruitment trigger meaningless. 

To understand why, let’s consider this hypothetical:  A previous stock assessment, performed in Year 0, reported that fishing mortality exactly equaled the fishing mortality target of 0.20.  In Year 1, the recruitment trigger is tripped.  In response, the Atlantic Striped Bass Technical Committee calculates that, given such low recruitment, the fishing mortality rate must be reduced to 0.15 in order to prevent the spawning stock biomass from declining.  Also assume that, at that point, Amendment 7 had already been adopted, with Fishing Mortality Option C-3 (no fishing mortality target trigger) and SSB Option C-3 (no spawning stock biomass target trigger) incorporated into the new amendment.

Under Recruitment Option B-2, once the Technical Committee calculated the interim fishing mortality reference point of 0.15, the Management Board would have one year to respond to the low recruitment event by reducing the fishing mortality rate from 0.20 to 0.15.  The new management measures would be in place by Year 2.

Under Recruitment Option B-3, things would happen a lot slower—if they happened at all.  Because the fishing mortality target trigger was eliminated, the Management Board wouldn’t have to do anything right away.  Despite continued poor recruitment, it could allow fishing to continue at the earlier fishing mortality rate, in the face of low recruitment, for years without taking action, so long as the new interim fishing mortality threshold is never exceeded.  Eventually, either a new stock assessment would lead to new management measures appropriate to the the declining stock, or the stock continues to decline and becomes overfished without any action taken in response to the tripped recruitment trigger.  Either way, the recruitment trigger would do nothing to protect the bass.

The latter scenario represents the worst case; the best-case Option B-3 scenario would see status quo fishing mortality and spawning stock biomass triggers included in Amendment 7.  In that case, assuming that spawning stock biomass had already fallen below the target in Year 0 and/or Year 1, the Management Board would respond as quickly as it would pursuant to Option B-2. 

Unfortunately, in the real world, best-case events are surpassingly rare.

Because it is the only option that assures a prompt management response if the recruitment trigger is tripped, Recruitment Option B-2 is the only option worthy of support.

Deferred Management Action

Delay is the Management Board’s defining flaw.  Management Trigger 4, the spawning stock biomass target trigger, was tripped in 2013, and the Board still hasn’t initiated a rebuilding plan.  Thus, it is hardly surprising that Draft Amendment 7 includes options that would allow the Management Board to do nothing when management triggers are tripped.

To be fair to the Management Board, a change to the recruitment trigger could result in triggers being tripped much more often, which could lead to an excessive number of management actions.  

On the other hand, if the Management Board acted more decisively than it has in the past, and adopted management measures with a 60 or 65 percent probability of achieving their goals, rather than measures that will just as probably fail as succeed, the likelihood of fishing mortality rising high enough, or spawning stock biomass falling low enough, to trip a trigger would be substantially reduced.

Regardless of what might occur, the various delay options in the draft amendment must be addressed.

There are six of them, with Option A representing the status quo.  Of the six, it is by far the best option.

Option B would allow the Management Board to do nothing if a trigger was tripped, if fewer than three years have passed since the previous management action.  As the draft amendment explains,

“If any (or all) of the management triggers are tripped following a benchmark stock assessment or assessment update, and it has been less than three years since the last management action was implemented, (i.e., the assessment incorporates less than three years of data under the new fishery regulations) in response to a management trigger, the Board may defer the management response until the management triggers are reevaluated after the next stock assessment.”

Let’s put this one into real world terms:  The last stock assessment, which was accepted by the Management Board in 2019, found the stock to be both overfished and subject to overfishing.  A management action to end overfishing, which did nothing to address the overfished stock, was implemented for the 2020 season.  A stock assessment update will be performed in 2022, but such update will only have two “years of data under the new fishery regulations.”  So if the 2022 update found that overfishing is occurring once again, the Management Board would be able to allow overfishing, on an overfished stock, to continue until the stock assessment is updated in 2024, or a new benchmark assessment is performed in 2025, before beginning action to reduce fishing mortality to the target level—and that’s assuming that such assessment update or benchmark assessment aren’t delayed.

That's far too much opportunity for delay.  Deferred Management Action Option B could easily cause harm to the stock, and thus should be opposed.

Deferred Management Options C, D, and E are, in many ways similar, and can be addressed together.  All address situations when the fishing mortality trigger is tripped while the stock remains relatively healthy.  None pose a dire threat to the stock, but none of them do the stock any good.

Option C would allow the Management Board to defer action if the fishing mortality target is tripped while the spawning stock biomass remains at or above the target.  It seems contrary to some Management Board members’ desire to decouple the fishing mortality and spawning stock biomass targets, while clinging to the general philosophy of the current fishing mortality trigger.  For those reasons, it is difficult to understand why it was even included in the draft amendment.

Option D would condone inaction when the fishing mortality target trigger is tripped if the spawning stock biomass was projected to either grow or remain stable over the next five years.  Because this option doesn’t require the biomass to be at, or even near, the biomass target, it could conceivably allow the Management Board to defer action even if biomass was expected to hover just above the threshold that defines an overfished stock, although that could only occur if the SSB target trigger is eliminated.  Because Option D is significantly less conservative than either Option C or the status quo, it should be opposed.

Option E would allow the Management Board to do nothing if the fishing mortality target is tripped and there is at least a 75% probability that the stock would not become overfished over the next five years.  Like Option D, this option is less conservative than either Option C or the status quo.  It should also be opposed.

Option F is a little bit different.  It reads

“If a management trigger trips after the Board has already initiated action in response to a different management trigger, the Board can defer management action in response to the subsequent trigger until the next assessment.”

The flaw in this option is that it doesn’t consider the nature or magnitude of the threat to the stock represented by each tripped management trigger.  That flaw becomes clear when reading the Draft Amendment, which explains

“this scenario would most likely occur if the Board selects a new recruitment trigger that would require reducing [fishing mortality] in response.  The recruitment trigger could trip and the Board could initiate action in response; however, a few months later [a fishing mortality] or [spawning stock biomass] trigger could trip based on the results of a stock assessment.  Under this option, the Board could defer responding to the [fishing mortality] or [spawning stock biomass] trigger until the next assessment because the Board is already taking action in response to the recruitment trigger.”

Thus, poor spawning success in the Delaware River, a secondary contributor to the coastal striped bass stock, might trip the recruitment trigger, and cause the Management Board to initiate action on a management action that would require a small decrease in fishing mortality.  A few months after such management action begins, a stock assessment might then inform the Management Board that the stock has become overfished, or that overfishing is occurring, and that a much larger reduction in fishing mortality is needed to address the new threat.  However, because it was already addressing a far less pressing recruitment problem, the Management Board would be allowed to ignore the far greater threat to the stock for two or three years, until the next assessment or assessment update is completed.

That just doesn’t make sense. 

In the end, everything is connected.  Reducing fishing mortality in response to a recruitment trigger will also make it less likely that overfishing will occur, and that the stock will become overfished; at the same time, the fishing mortality reduction needed to rebuild an overfished stock will probably also address any need to reduce F because of poor recruitment.

Thus, the proper management response to a subsequent trigger being tripped, after management action has already been initiated, is to amend the pending management action to address all of the threats facing the stock, and impose the fishing mortality reduction needed to do so, instead of attempting to address problems in a serial manner.  Allowing a problem to fester, until it becomes far more difficult to resolve, merely because the Management Board is already working on something else, will benefit neither the striped bass nor those who depend upon a healthy stock for recreation or income.

Option F, too, should be opposed.

In conclusion

Management triggers comprise the most complex issue addressed by Draft Amendment 7, and a comprehensive treatment of that issue was necessarily, if painfully, long.

Future editions of One Angler’s Voyage will address recreational release mortality, stock rebuilding, and conservation equivalency, all topics worthy of their own installment, but all topics that are far less complex, and require far less discussion, than the management triggers did.  Yet all have their nuances, which can have a significant impact on how each option might help or hurt the striped bass.