NMFS PROPOSES RULE TO PROTECT SHORTFIN MAKOS

Last November, after frustrating years of debate, the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas finally listened to their scientific advisors, and banned all retention of shortfin mako sharks.

The decision was well overdue. 

In 2019, ICCAT scientists determined that even without any fishing mortality at all, the mako population would continue to decline until sometime around 2035, because there were so few adult females in the population that currently immature fish would have to become sexually mature, and begin producing pups, before the population might start to increase.

Things have gotten so bad that, about a year ago, the National Marine Fisheries Service issued a so-called “90-day finding” in response to a petition to list shortfin makos under the federal Endangered Species Act, which stated that there is sufficient information suggesting that such listing may be warranted, and that NMFS will now conduct a more detailed investigation to determine whether the species should be listed pursuant to the ESA. 

That finding doesn’t mean that makos are either endangered or threatened, but it does mean that there is good reason to suspect that they might be.

Even if NMFS ultimately decides that an Endangered Species Act listing isn’t appropriate, last autumn’s actions at ICCAT obligates the United States, as an ICCAT member, to prohibit its fishermen, both commercial and recreational, from landing shortfin mako sharks in the upcoming season.

Last Monday, a proposed regulation to prohibit such landings was published in the Federal Register.

The regulation is nuanced.  It does not simply outlaw mako landings.  Instead, it conforms to last fall’s ICCAT action by prohibiting mako landings in 2022, but leaving the door open to some very restricted landings in future years, provided that a sustainable level of fishing mortality can be maintained.

NMFS describes the proposed regulation as

“a flexible shortfin mako shark retention limit with a default limit of zero in commercial and recreational Atlantic highly migratory species (HMS) fisheries.”

What that means, as a practical matter, is that no retention of shortfin makos will be allowed unless and until ICCAT has determined that shortfin mako fishing mortality in the North Atlantic, which is largely attributed to makos killed as bycatch in the pelagic longline fleet, drops below 250 metric tons (about 550,000 pounds).  

Should such a drop in fishing mortality occur, ICCAT could decide to allow very limited shortfin mako landings, and if it does so, NMFS may be able to permit very limited landings as well.

However, under the current ICCAT action, total fishing mortality throughout the North Atlantic basin would still be limited to 250 metric tons; United States fishermen, whether commercial or recreational, would only be allowed a small portion of whatever future landings might be allowed for, as NMFS explains,

“While these sharks have been a valued component of U.S. recreational and commercial fisheries, U.S. catch represents only a small portion of the species’ total catch in the North Atlantic by all reporting countries”

Although predicting what will happen at ICCAT is always difficult, if the history of other internationally managed species are any indication, nations’ prior landings history will probably play a large role in determining how any future shortfin mako quotas might be set.  As a party to the treaty underlying ICCAT, the International Convention for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas, the United States is legally obligated to conform its management of pelagic fish stocks to the ICCAT decisions.

In issuing the proposed regulations, NMFS notes that,

“Consistent with current ICCAT provisions, the retention limit will be established at zero until Atlantic-wide catch levels are below 250 mt, a level that has a high probability of ending overfishing and starting to rebuild the stock.  ICCAT determined that this measure was needed to bring catch levels down to or below that amount by all ICCAT parties, and thus was an important measure contributing to conservation and management of the stock.  The shortfin mako shark retention limit per trip of zero would be in place unless and until changed after consideration of regulatory criteria and consistent with any ICCAT retention allowances…

“During the fishing year, based on consideration of the inseason trip limit adjustment criteria…and to the extent any retention is allowable as determined by ICCAT…NMFS could increase the shortfin mako shark retention limit from the default, or subsequently decrease the retention limit for the commercial fishery, the recreational fishery, or both.  If a retention limit greater than zero is implemented for the commercial fishery, the current shortfin mako shark restrictions would apply…Similarly, if a retention limit greater than zero is implemented for the recreational fishery, the current recreational shortfin mako shark restrictions would apply, including minimum size limits…While no upper retention limit is being set in this action, any increase in retention limit would need to be consistent with ICCAT recommendations and could only be implemented after considering the regulatory criteria.”

It is not certain that the complete prohibition on landings will drop annual fishing mortality below 250 metric tons.  A 2017 ICCAT stock assessment stated that the group of scientists preparing the document

“does not have enough information to assess if the adoption of live releases alone will be enough to reduce landings to 1,000 [metric tons] or less and stop further stock decline.”

If such scientists were uncertain whether requiring all shortfin makos to be released alive would reduce landings to 1,000 metric tons, the uncertainty over the no-retention rule’s ability to reduce landings to just 250 metric tons is probably far higher, unless additional information about the magnitude of dead discards in the pelagic longline fleet has been gathered over the past five years.

With or without such additional data, the likelihood of annual fishing mortality falling significantly below 250 metric tons is probably fairly remote which, coupled with the United States’ small share of North Atlantic mako landings, suggests that recreational fishermen aren’t going to be able to retain shortfin makos in the foreseeable future.  

In the event that ICCAT eventually permits some mako landings, anglers shouldn’t get their hopes up about a recreational quota; from a management perspective, it would make more sense to allow longliners to keep a portion of their mako bycatch, consisting of fish that were already dead when brought to the boat, rather than maintaining the same level of dead discards and then increasing overall fishing mortality by allowing recreational fishermen to kill makos, too.

Despite the fact that shortfin makos are in serious trouble, something that has been made very clear by both the 2017 and the 2019 stock assessments, there will undoubtedly be a number of anglers and charter boat owners who will be unhappy with the retention ban.  I have already seen some Internet posts spouting the same sort of “I never saw so many” language that we always see whenever restrictions are imposed on the landings of any species.

Individual observations, made along a small section of coast for only a limited time, are never of much value when evaluating the health of fish stocks.  They are limited not only by time and space, but by the bias of the observer.  But in this case, I’m going to exercise my author’s privilege, and make an individual observation of my own: 

I’ve been an active participant in the northeastern shark fishery since the late 1970s, when I began chartering boats out of Rhode Island.  Beginning in the mid-1980s, I began running my own boats offshore, something that I still do today.  That’s roughly 45 years spent in the recreational shark fishery.  Over those years, I’ve seen the quantity and the quality of shortfin mako sharks steadily decline. 

I remember June weekends during the 1980s, when multiple fish over 400 pounds would be brought into Long Island ports.  Today, we can go for a month, perhaps for an entire season, without a single 400-pound mako landed anywhere west of Montauk. 

I remember when the first makos were caught around Memorial Day, and decent fishing ran into November, when makos occasionally showed up in the middle of the bluefish fleet, to both the delight and dismay of anglers who saw bluefish transformed from brute to bait with one snap of a shark’s jaws.  Today, the mako season, if we can call it that, runs for a few weeks around the junction of June and July, and maybe a week or two during the fall, with just a trickle of fish at other times.

I remember when, not that long ago, I enjoyed some four- and even six-mako days, and could usually depend on catching at least one on just about every outing.  Today, spots that once regularly yielded two to four makos per day yield no more than that in an entire season.

Thus, based on both the science and what I’ve observed, I feel safe in declaring that anyone who claims that the North Atlantic mako stock is healthy is either delusional, drunk, or knowingly deceitful.  There are no alternative explanations. 

So I’m pleased to see NMFS issue the proposed regulations, which will hopefully be in place before what remains of the shortfin mako stock comes within reach of the recreational fishing fleet, which is responsible for nearly all of U.S. landings (in 2020, East Coast anglers landed about 1,100,000 pounds of shortfin mako, compared to 42,500 pounds for the region’s commercial fleet).

Anyone wishing to comment on the proposed regulations is free to do so although, because the landings ban is required by ICCAT, such comments won’t have too much effect.  Comments should be sent through the website at http://www.regulations.gov; once at that page, entering “NOAA-NMFS-2022-0015” in the “Search” box will lead to another page on which comments can be made.  All comments must be sent in by May 11.