STRIPED BASS REBUILDING BEGINS TO TAKE SHAPE

 

Even before the 2018 benchmark stock assessment found that striped bass were both overfished and experiencing overfishing, anglers have been concerned with the declining health of the stock and have demanded that the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission institute a rebuilding plan.

Despite clear language in Amendment 6 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass, which stated that

“If the Management Board determines that the biomass has fallen below the threshold in any given year, the Board must adjust the striped bass management program to rebuild the biomass to the target level within [no more than 10 years],”

the ASMFC’s Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board failed to initiate a rebuilding plan in immediate response to the stock assessment’s findings, but instead chose to adopt 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 (and seems to have been successful in achieving that goal), and initiate a new Amendment 7 to the fishery management plan, which effort took a comprehensive look at most aspects of striped bass management, and resulted in the first major revision to the management plan in nearly 20 years.

In the beginning, it appeared that at least some Management Board members intended to address the striped bass stock’s overfished status in Amendment 7, not by increasing the spawning stock biomass, but by changing the reference points used to gauge the stock’s health, and so permanently reduce striped bass abundance.  Fortunately, thousands of anglers came out to public hearings and let the Management Board know that such an approach was not acceptable.

To its credit, the Management Board heeded stakeholders’ comments and, last May, adopted an Amendment 7 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass that left the reference points, and other important conservation provisions, effectively intact, and added additional measures that should make the new amendment a more effective conservation and management tool.

The new amendment explicitly states that

“The 2018 Benchmark Stock Assessment indicated the striped bass stock is overfished and experiencing overfishing relative to the updated reference points defined in the assessment.  To address the overfished status, the Board must adjust the striped bass management program to rebuild the [spawning stock biomass] to the target level in a timeframe not to exceed 10 years, no later than 2029…”

Since the Management Board failed to initiate a rebuilding plan when it first learned that the stock was overfished, it now has just seven years, instead of the original ten, to get the job done.  In order to best utilize the remaining time, Amendment 7 includes a provision stating that

“If the 2022 stock assessment results indicate the Amendment 7 measures have less than a 50% probability of rebuilding the stock by 2029 (as calculated using the low recruitment assumption) and if the stock assessment indicates that at least a 5% reduction in removals is needed to achieve F rebuild, the Board may adjust measures to achieve F rebuild via Board action (change management measures by voting to pass a motion at a Board meeting).”

What that means is that, instead of putting together a draft addendum, sending that amendment out for public comments, holding hearings up and down the coast, and then, finally, putting together a final addendum that would likely not go into effect until 2024, the Management Board will be able to fast-track the process, and adopt management measures later this year, which will become effective for the 2023 season.

Given how far the stock has to go in order to achieve rebuilding, the extra time gained by taking such action could be the difference between rebuilding the stock by 2029 or missing the rebuilding deadline.

At the Management Board meeting held on August 2, we had an opportunity to hear the Board discuss what measures might be considered in a rebuilding plan, and when such plan might be finalized.

The threshold question, which was asked by Dennis Abbott, the Legislative Proxy for New Hampshire, was whether the stated requirements for an accelerated rebuilding plan—less than a 50% chance that current measures won’t rebuild the stock by the deadline, and a needed reduction of 5% or more—will be triggered by the stock assessment update that will likely be released this October.

Katie Drew, who heads the ASMFC’s Atlantic Striped Bass Technical Committee, said that it was too early to know, as the initial data runs won’t be discussed until August 10, and there might be a need to further analyze and refine the data after that date.  However, Dr. Drew advised that the Board ought to

“Plan for the worst and hope for the best,”

with respect to the assessment update’s findings.

The discussion that followed provided the distinct impression that most people sitting around the table, regardless of what they were hoping for, did not expect good news.

Some of that undoubtedly stemmed from the simple fact that rebuilding any fish stock from overfished to a relatively high biomass target is always a challenging thing to do.  Part of it also stemmed from the fact that striped bass recruitment in the Maryland section of Chesapeake Bay, which is the single most important spawning area for the species, has been fairly dismal over the last few years, giving the managers fewer fish to work with. 

Over the past three years, the Maryland juvenile abundance index has fallen low enough to compel managers to incorporate a low-recruitment assumption when designing the rebuilding plan, an assumption which will make any needed rebuilding measures even more restrictive than they otherwise would have been.

So what will those rebuilding measures look like?  We can’t know for sure until the assessment update comes out, and provides more information about the state of the stock, but there are things that we already know for certain.

The first is that managers are intent on maintaining some sort of slot limit, and have rejected the idea of a fixed minimum size.  Any coastal slot limit contained in the rebuilding plan will certainly not span the current 28 to 35 inches—if managers could get away with that, we could just maintain the current rules, without the need for a rebuilding plan—but beyond that, everything is up in the air. 

We might be looking at a narrower slot and/or a slot that targets a different size range of fish; in that regard, a slot limit that targets smaller fish than those that may legally be retained isn’t completely out of the question, although it is probably not very likely.  We might even see someone propose a slot limit that changes every year, to protect certain cohorts of fish that are currently in the population as they age. 

We also have to accept something that a number of the state managers noted in their comments:  That a slot limit alone may not be enough to assure rebuilding, particularly if managers want to avoid creating a slot that is impractically narrow.  

If the reduction needed to rebuild by 2029 is large enough, it is likely that any slot limit adopted will be paired with some sort of closed season.  Again, no one yet knows whether any closures are going to be needed or, if needed, how long they might be, but there seemed to be a general consensus that if seasons were imposed, such seasons would only prohibit anglers from keeping fish; catch and release would almost certainly still be allowed.

As a practical matter, no-targeting rules are just too difficult to effectively enforce.

Having said that, allowing catch and release angling becomes a significant issue if a fishing mortality reduction much greater than 40% or so is required.  The 2018 assessment found that, in 2017, 48% of all striped bass fishing mortality came from fish released by anglers, while only 42% was generated by recreational landings.  In the years since—2018-2021—recreational release mortality constituted between 47% and 54% of all striped bass fishing mortality.  Thus, even the oft-touted complete moratorium on all harvest might not adequately constrain fishing mortality if the necessary cutback is in the 50% range.

Hopefully, things won’t be nearly that bad.  And if strict restrictions are placed on recreational landings, a number of harvest-oriented anglers might drop out of the fishery, reducing the release mortality of short or over-slot bass that are returned to the water in the process of finding a “keeper.”  But even if that happens, recreational release mortality is likely to stay fairly high.

That has implications for not only the recreational, but the commercial fisheries.  As noted by Michael Luisi, the Maryland fishery manager, there can come a point where the commercial quota is reduced so much that the fishery is no longer viable.  If that point might be reached in the upcoming rebuilding plan, will managers be willing to risk putting commercial fishermen out of business?

Maybe, maybe not.  Certainly, Mr. Luisi suggested that instead of proportionally reducing both commercial and recreational fishing mortality, the Board might consider placing a greater burden on the recreational sector.  For example, if a 40% fishing mortality is required to meet the rebuilding deadline, we would normally expect to see the commercial quota and recreational fishing mortality each reduced by 40%.  But under the scenario proposed by Mr. Luisi—a version of which has already been adopted in Maryland—the commercial quota might be reduced by a lesser amount, perhaps something as low as 5% or 10%, with what remains of the expected commercial reduction shouldered by the recreational sector.

While the comparative size of the sectors would make the additional recreational burden relatively small, it still raises a significant equity issue.  If the commercial fishery is responsible for 12% of the striped bass fishing mortality over the past five years, it is hard to argue that it should not shoulder a full 12% of the burden of striped bass recovery, as well.

Distributing the benefits and burdens of striped bass recovery is an issue that anglers shouldn’t ignore.

Distributing the burdens among states is also an issue.

Amendment 7 requires that, so long as the stock remains overfished, states must adhere any management measures adopted by the Management Board; different, state-specific regulations adopted pursuant to the doctrine of “conservation equivalency” would not be allowed.  At the same time, any conservation-equivalent measures already existing in a state may remain in full force until a relevant and contradictory management measure is adopted by the Management Board.

Thus, should the rebuilding plan do nothing more than change the slot limit, New Jersey would have to abandon its current, 28- to 38-inch slot but, because the plan didn’t impose any new seasons, New York would be able to maintain its current closure.

That shouldn’t cause many problems on the coast, but comments from Mr. Luisi of Maryland suggested that he had a different vision for the Chesapeake Bay, where Virginia and Maryland, not to mention the Potomac River Fisheries Commission, have very different size limits and seasons in their recreational fisheries.

He suggested that, in the Chesapeake, state-specific regulations should remain.

Emilie Franke, the ASMFC’s Fishery Management Plan Coordinator for striped bass, was quick to point out that what Mr. Luisi was suggesting sounded very much like the sort of conservation-equivalent proposals that were prohibited by Amendment 7.  A number of Management Board members concurred.  However, Mr. Luisi suggested that if the Management Board approved particular state-specific measures in the original rebuilding plan, such measures wouldn’t really be conservation-equivalent.

While such argument is probably technically correct, it certainly violates the spirit, if not the letter, of Amendment 7.  Yet at least one other Management Board member seemed sympathetic to Mr. Luisi’s proposals, so this, too, is an issue that needs to be watched.

Regardless of what it might contain, when are we likely to see a rebuilding plan implemented?

Right now, it looks like the stock assessment update will be completed sometime during October, and will be presented to the Management Board in time for its November meeting.  However, many Management Board members were very uncomfortable with the idea of voting on management measures without any input from their states’ fishermen.

Thus, even though the ASMFC will not hold public hearings on the rebuilding plan, we can expect many, if not all, states on the striper coast to conduct some sort of state outreach, in order to get stakeholder feedback on the rebuilding options provided by the Technical Committee.  Such hearings are likely to be held in late October, November and maybe even early December, and it will be important for anglers to get out and provide their opinions one more time, and do their best to assure that the proposed management measures will not only rebuild the striped bass stock (likely, as they will be drafted by the biologists of the Technical Committee), but also that such measures avoid disproportionately burdening the private anglers who are responsible for the lion’s share of fishing mortality, and also for over 95% of all recreational striped bass trips, and so form the heart of the fishery.

The Management Board will then meet, probably by webinar, sometime in mid-December to adopt a rebuilding plan.

While we still don’t know what that rebuilding plan will look like, at least it seems certain that it will be put in place by the end of this year, in time (at least in most states) for the start of the 2023 season.

There’s a very good chance that the rebuilding measures will be severe.  But severe measures, which lead to a fully rebuilt stock, will be good for us all in the end.