2022: A REASONABLY GOOD YEAR FOR MARINE FISH CONSERVATION

 

Ever since 2014, when this blog first appeared, I’ve taken a look back on the year just past, and the successes and failures of the various fishery management bodies.  Taken as a whole, the fish didn’t fare badly in 2022.

There were a few clear wins, although none were monumental, and at least one significant loss.  Inshore, fishery management actions were a mixed bag; offshore, the direction was generally positive.

INSHORE:  The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission adopts Amendment 7 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass

Amendment 7 was one of the most high-profile management actions of the year.  Although the version finally adopted by the ASMFC wasn’t perfect—it fell a little short on reining in the use of conservation equivalency, did nothing to hold anglers accountable for overfishing, and allowed managers to delay taking action under certain circumstances—over all, the document represents a solid step forward in striped bass management.

The final result was particularly notable given where the process began.  When Amendment 7 was initiated late in 2019, at least some of its proponents viewed it as a vehicle that they could use to relax regulations, increase harvest and—although it wasn’t their intent—to place the long-term health of the stock in considerable jeopardy.  But thanks to the efforts of a few thousand concerned anglers, who cared enough to come out to two rounds of public hearings and to submit written comments on both the initial Public Information Document and the Draft Amendment 7, and thanks to a majority of Management Board members who listened to such anglers’ concerns, we ended up with a document that did not change the biomass or fishing mortality reference points, kept the existing triggers for management action intact, and added a new trigger that requires management action when recruitment flags.  The new amendment even addresses the contentious issue of conservation equivalency; although it still allows states too much freedom to act in that regard, it nonetheless places real sideboards around the use of conservation-equivalent measures, and completely prohibits new conservation equivalency measures when the stock is overfished.

It represents a real win.

Unfortunately, anyone who has dedicated much time to striped bass management issues knows all too well, wins can be transient, and there is always more work to do.  The Management Board’s release of the Draft Addendum I to Amendment 7 to the Atlantic Striped Bass Interstate Fishery Management Plan last November, and what appears to be a sharp increase in 2022 recreational striped bass landings, still threaten the stock’s recovery, and are issues that must be addressed in the upcoming year.

INSHORE:  The Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council and ASMFC Interstate Fishery Management Policy Board adopt “Harvest Control Rule”

For many years, the recreational fishing industry and affiliated “anglers’ rights” organizations have been working to undercut the conservation and management provisions of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act.  Much of their initial, unsuccessful efforts were focused on summer flounder in the mid-Atlantic and red snapper in the Gulf of Mexico.

Then, in 2014, the nation’s largest industry and anglers’ rights groups initiated a nationwide effort to weaken federal fishery managers’ ability to regulate recreational fisheries.  Their efforts culminated in 2018, when the Modernizing Recreational Fisheries Management Act was signed into law.  While the bill passed by Congress was far less offensive, and far less of a threat to U.S. fish stocks, than the legislation that was originally introduced, it contained somewhat vague language that gave the regional fishery management councils

“the authority to use fishery management measures in a recreational fishery (or the recreational component of a mixed use fishery) in developing a fishery management plan, plan amendment, or proposed regulation, such as extraction rates, fishing mortality targets, harvest control rules, or traditional or cultural practices of native communities in such fishery or fishery component.”

At the time, it wasn’t quite clear what such provision accomplished, as there was nothing in the law that prevented such measures from being employed even before the new law was enacted, provided that such measures prevented overfishing and, in necessary, allowed the timely rebuilding of overfished stocks.  However, provided with such clear mandate, a coalition of industry-connected organizations approached the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council, urging it to consider what was being called a “harvest control rule” to manage bluefish, summer flounder, scup, and black sea bass.

Such “control rule” would replace the previous management approach of comparing past landings with projected future harvest, and using the results of such comparison to set management measures.  Such approach was imperfect; it led to frequent changes in recreational management measures and frequently failed to constrain anglers’ landings to the recreational harvest limit.  It also constrained recreational landings of very abundant stocks, which supposedly harmed the angling industry.

On March 17, 2020, six industry-related organizations sent a letter to the Mid-Atlantic Council which said, in part, that

“we strongly support NOAA Fisheries using management approaches for our sector other than poundage-based quotas, which are best suited for commercial fisheries…

“That’s why we fully supported the Modern Fish Act (Public Law 115-405) signed by President Donald J. Trump on December 31, 2018.  Section 102 of the Modern Fish Act authorized the regional fishery management councils to use additional management tools more appropriate for recreational fishing…

“Over many decades, states have proven the ability to balance conservation and access by managing America’s millions of saltwater anglers through these approaches in state waters…”

 What such industry groups left unsaid was the repeatedly demonstrated truth that when state (or federal) fishery managers compromise the conservation needs of a fish stock in order to increase “access”—that is, to increase recreational landings—the fish stock rarely fares well in the long term. 

There is also a question of whether such management approach, which neither constrains recreational landings to the annual recreational catch limit nor provides any assurance that overall landings will remain below the acceptable biological catch, meet the legal mandates of Magnuson-Stevens.

Nonetheless, the Council and ASMFC went forward with the so-called “harvest control rule” (which, Council scientists made very clear, was not truly a control rule at all), ignored the concerns of some members of the Council’s Scientific and Statistical Committee, one of whom, Dr. Lee Anderson, observed

“I’m very concerned that if this [Harvest Control Rule] goes out, it is going to give the impression that there is science involved,”

and, despite the reservations of Mid-Atlantic staff, ultimately approved that management approach at their joint meeting last June.

The control rule was used to set 2023 recreational management measures for summer flounder, scup, and black sea bass, even though proposed regulations addressing such management approach, much less a final rule authorizing its use, had not been issued at the time.

The Council’s and ASMFC’s use of the so-called “Harvest Control Rule,” despite its dubious scientific merit, represents a clear loss to fisheries conservation.

Having said that, the comment period on the proposed regulations will remain open through January 17, 2023, so there is still a chance that, depending on the comments received, NMFS might still reverse the ill-advised management action.

INSHORE:  South Atlantic Fishery Management Council takes a small step toward little tunny (a/k/a “false albacore”) management

False albacore are one of those species that are loved by a lot of people, but suffer from a lack of biological information.

The American Saltwater Guides Association is trying shed a little light on the species’ movements in a groundbreaking tagging program that kicked off last summer, and is already providing new and previously unknown information.  What may ultimately prove even more significant, but has received less publicity, is that the Guides Association also requested that the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council begin to manage the little tunny resource, which is currently unmanaged throughout its range.

While we’re probably many years away from a little tunny management plan, the South Atlantic Council did, at its December 2022 meeting, agree to produce Fishery Performance Reports for the species at three-year intervals, and collect additional, related data that would hopefully allow managers to intervene should a threat to the species arise.

Such action represents a small yet very real win for an under-managed and data-poor species.

INSHORE:  Court rejects regulation banning midwater herring trawls in inshore waters

Amendment 8 to the Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Herring, adopted on January 11, 2021, created an inshore buffer zone that extended from the Canadian border to the western border of Rhode Island, within which large, midwater trawls were not allowed to operate.  Such buffer was created at the request of fishermen, whale watch tour operators, and others who complained that the use of midwater trawls led to the localized depletion of Atlantic herring, and so a dearth of herring predators essential to such complainants’ businesses.

The regulatory action was supported by testimony of such fishermen, whale watch operators, and others, who provided anecdotal evidence.  However, it was not supported by hard, objectively collected data.  As a result, on March 29, 2022, a U.S. District Court judge ruled that the regulation was not supported by the best available science, so violated Magnuson-Stevens’ National Standard 2, and was thus invalid.  NMFS ultimately decided not to appeal the judge’s decision, which strongly suggests that the rulemaking did, in fact, lack legal justification.

Whether or not the regulation was legally justified, forage fish are one of the pillars that support inshore ecosystems; the court’s decision allowing such forage species to be targeted by large-scale, industrial fisheries represented a conservation loss.

OFFSHORE:  NMFS calibrates states’ Gulf of Mexico red snapper data

For many years, various angling industry and anglers’ rights groups have objected to federal management of red snapper in the Gulf of Mexico, arguing that the regulations imposed by federal managers are overly restrictive.  In response, the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council adopted Amendment 50A-F to the Fishery Management Plan for the Reef Fish Resources of the Gulf of Mexico, which required NMFS to set the overall recreational harvest target and allocate a portion of such target to each of the five Gulf states, but allowed such states, each of which developed its own recreational data program, to set seasons and, within limited parameters, bag and size limits intended to keep recreational landings within each state’s quota.

The system seemed to work for a while, and was hailed by representatives of the various organizations, but then ran into a hitch after NMFS pointed out that the data compiled by each state’s program was compatible with neither the data compiled by the federal Marine Recreational Information Program nor the data compiled by the other Gulf states.  To fix the problem, NMFS would calibrate each state’s data into a “common currency” that would be interchangeable with the data used by the other jurisdictions.

When such calibration was done, it became clear that anglers in at least two of the states, Alabama and Mississippi, were exceeding their state allocations by a substantial amount, and that landings would have to be cut by 50% or more to bring them down to sustainable levels.  As is typically the case, the call for reductions led to substantial pushback from the recreational sector, which called on its allies on the recreationally-dominated Gulf Council to prevent, or at least delay, regulations that reflected such calibration.  

While such efforts paid off for a couple of years, on December 2, NMFS published final regulations in the Federal Register, which will finally put calibration into effect for the 2023 season.

Such regulations represent a win for red snapper conservation in the Gulf of Mexico.

Although there is still a chance that such regulations might be derailed by litigation or legislation, the likelihood of that happening is fairly low.  The window for bringing a legal action challenging the rule—30 days after publication—is closing quickly, while a divided Congress makes it very unlikely that legislation overturning the rule will be adopted by both houses; the legislators most opposed to current red snapper management are almost all Republicans, which means that even if a bill made it through the House of Representatives, it would face a tough slog in the more conservation-oriented and Democrat-controlled Senate, where it would have to receive 60 of 100 votes to be assured of passage.

OFFSHORE:  NMFS and the ASMFC prohibit the harvest of shortfin mako sharks in the Atlantic

There’s not too much to say on this management action.

The North Atlantic stock of shortfin mako sharks has been in sharp decline, a decline primarily attributable to bycatch of sharks in the pelagic longline fishery.  I have been an active participant in the recreational shark fishery off New York and southern New England since the late 1970s, and have observed a startling decline in shortfin mako numbers over the past decade.

Late in 2021, the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas agreed that shortfin mako harvest should be prohibited in the North Atlantic, unless fishing mortality was reduced to a very low, sustainable level.  The United States, as a member of ICCAT, was required to adopt conforming regulations.  NMFS did so on July 1 of this year; the federal action triggered a complimentary prohibition on the retention of makos in state waters, which was adopted by the ASMFC’s Coastal Sharks Management Board in May.

Such prohibition on landing a large pelagic shark, which is slow to mature and reproduces very slowly, is certainly a conservation win.

OFFSHORE:  The use of large-mesh drift gillnets to end in five years

In what might be the last conservation win of 2022, the Driftnet Modernization and Bycatch Reduction Act, which had been incorporated into a far larger federal spending bill, was signed into law on December 29.

Drift gillnets more than 2.5 kilometers long have already been outlawed by Magnuson-Stevens.  The new bill provides for the five-year phase-out of drift gillnets with mesh of 14 inches or larger, regardless of length.

Elimination of such large-mesh gillnets will substantially reduce the bycatch, and the discard mortality, of a host of sharks, sea turtles, and marine mammals.

It can only be seen as a conservation win.

OFFSHORE:  CITES lists 60 shark species on Appendix II

On November 25, the 19^th Conference on the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna, usually referred to as “CITIES,” listed 54 species of requiem sharks and 6 species of hammerhead on CITES’ Appendix II.

Appendix II species are those that are not necessarily threatened at this time, but which may become threatened, or even endangered, if international trade is not adequately controlled.  Once a species is listed on Appendix II, it may not be traded internationally unless the nation where they are captured certifies that such species is sustainably managed and is not endangered.  The CITES listing is significant because it includes about 90% of shark species that comprise the international trade in shark meat and, perhaps more importantly, shark fins.  Prior to the November action, only about 20% of such species were listed.

While hammerhead sharks, as a group, are easily recognizable, requiem sharks make up the largest collection of species.  The group includes such superficially similar species as the dusky and sandbar (brown) sharks caught off the U.S. East Coast, blacktips and spinners, and sharks often seen by divers in tropic waters, such as the Galapagos, Caribbean reef, silky, and whitetip reef sharks. 

Thus, the broad-based CITES action represents a win that will be felt throughout the world’s oceans.

Overall, the fish won more than they lost in 2022.  But 2023 is quickly approaching.  On Sunday, I’ll provide a quick overview, along with a few predictions, of the challenges we’ll face in the new year.

 

 

LARGE-MESH DRIFTNET BILL BECOMES LAW

 

On Friday, the House of Representatives approved a $1.66 billion federal spending bill, and sent it on to President Biden to sign into law.  There is no question that the President will do so.

Despite the substantial monies appropriated by that bill, the legislation wasn’t all about spending.  A number of other pending bills were incorporated into it, bills which ranged from legislation that would protect presidential election results from the sort of political tampering that was attempted two years ago to a provision that would ban the installation or use of Tik-Tok on government computers.

While many of the included, non-spending items received substantial press coverage, one provision that will further marine conservation efforts flew largely under the radar.  That was the inclusion of S. 273, the so-called Driftnet Modernization and Bycatch Reduction Act, which was sponsored by Senators Diane Feinstein (D-CA) and Shelly Moore Capito (R-WV).

The Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act currently defines “large-scale driftnet fishing” as

“a method of fishing in which a gillnet composed of a panel or panels of webbing, or a series of such gillnets, with a total length of two and one-half kilometers or more is placed in the water and allowed to drift with the currents and winds for the purpose of entangling fish in the webbing.”

Such large drift gillnets are recognized as a non-selective gear type that can lead to substantial bycatch of non-targeted species, sea turtles, and marine mammals.  The United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization notes that

“Because abandoned, lost or otherwise discarded drift gillnets have the potential to continue catching fish and [endangered, threatened, and protected] species, effective measures are needed to reduce their impact.

“While drift gillnets are usually size selective, its species selectivity is poor, often catch non-target species, including [endangered, threatened, and protected] species.”

Particularly with respect to sea turtles and marine mammals, the National Marine Fisheries Service advises that

“Turtles encountering a gillnet can quickly become entangled around their head or flippers as they try to escape.  Entangled turtles will drown if held under the water but have a higher chance of survival if they can reach the surface to breathe.  The nylon can tighten around the turtle’s soft body parts and cause deep cuts potentially leading to infection, limited movement, or complete loss of the limb.  Limited use of appendages can impair a turtle’s natural feeding, breathing, and swimming behavior…

“Gillnets can entangle a wide variety of marine mammals.

“Depending on the gillnet mesh size, animals can become entangled around their necks, mouths, and flippers.  Entanglement can prevent proper feeding, constrict growth, or cause infection after many months.  Marine mammals…entangled in drift gillnets can drag gear for miles as they migrate and forage, leading to extreme fatigue.”

In 1990, responding to actions taken by the United Nations and a group of South Pacific nations the previous year, to ban the use of drift gillnets on the high seas, Congress amended Magnuson-Stevens to include a national policy that supports such ban, and also to direct the Secretary of State to seek international agreements that would further such goal.  Such agreements would, among other things, provide for satellite monitoring of fishing vessels, require fisheries observers to document the nature and levels of bycatch, and permit such vessels to be boarded by United States’ personnel on the high seas.

The amendments to Magnuson-Stevens also deny United States port privileges to any vessels of any nation engaged in drift gillnet fishing, or other forms of illegal, unreported, or unregulated fishing on the high seas.  The President of the United States is also directed to engage in consultations with any nation, if such nation’s vessels or nationals engage in such illegal fishing and, if such consultations does not achieve a satisfactory result, to prohibit the importation of such nation’s fish, fish products, and sportfishing equipment into the U.S.

Finally, amendments to Magnuson-Stevens made it unlawful

“to engage in large-scale driftnet fishing that is subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, including use of a fishing vessel of the United States to engage in such fishing beyond the exclusive economic zone of any nation.”

While the prohibition on large-scale driftnet fishing reduced the gillnet bycatch issue, it did not eliminate it.  The problem was particularly acute off the West Coast of the United States, where deep water comes close to shore, and large-mesh drift gillnets, not long enough to fall under the “large-scale driftnet fishing” definition, were used to target sharks and swordfish, but ensnared substantial numbers of non-target animals, up to and including humpback whales.

As explained by Senator Feinstein,

“Large mesh drift gillnets, which are between a mile and a mile-and-a-half long and can extend 200 feet below the ocean surface, are left in the ocean overnight to catch swordfish and thresher sharks.  However, at least 60 other marine species, including whales, dolphins, sea lions, sea turtles, fish, and sharks are also regularly entangled in the large mesh net ‘walls,’ injuring or killing them.  Most of these animals, referred to as bycatch, are then discarded.

“The use of large mesh drift gillnets by a single fishery based in California is responsible for 90 percent of the dolphins and porpoises killed along the West Coast and Alaska.

“In 2018, California passed a four-year phase-out of large mesh drift gillnets in state waters to protect marine life.  A majority of the driftnet fishermen have voluntarily participated in that phaseout.  The Driftnet Modernization and Bycatch Reduction Act would extend similar protections to federal waters…”

S. 273, as incorporated into the recent funding bill, would accomplish such goals by first amending the definition of “large-scale driftnet fishing” to include any drift gillnet

“with a mesh size of 14 inches or greater,”

regardless of the length of the net.  It also provides for a five-year phaseout of such large-mesh gillnets, during which time NMFS may provide assistance, including cash grants, to help transition current driftnetters into other gear types.

One particularly promising gear type, known simply as “deep-set buoy gear,” appears to be particularly promising.  It employs baited hooks on individual lines to attract swordfish, and provides fishermen with an immediate indication when a fish has taken the bait, allowing them to land a higher-quality product that has not been soaking, dead, in the sea for many hours.  The buoy gear appears to be far less-bycatch prone than the driftnets, with studies suggesting that up to 98% of such gear’s catch consists of swordfish, a striking improvement over the drift gillnets, where bycatch comprises, on average, 50% of the catch.

Congress passed similar legislation in 2020, then designated S. 906.  However, that bill clashed with then-President Donald Trump’s philosophy of monetizing natural resources regardless of conservation concerns.  Trump thus predicably vetoed the bill, and attempted to justify his actions by saying,

“By forcing the West Coast drift gillnet fishery to use alternative gear that has been proven to be an economically viable substitute for gillnets, the Congress is effectively terminating the fishery.

“As a result, an estimated 30 fishing vessels, all of which are operated by family-owned small businesses, will no longer be able to bring their bounty to shore.  At a time when our nation has a seafood trade deficit of nearly $17 billion, S. 906 will exacerbate this imbalance.”

Including S. 273 in the omnibus funding bill would help to prevent such a veto from recurring, although there is absolutely no reason to believe that President Biden would have opposed the legislation, even if it arrived on his desk as a stand-alone bill.’

While the intent of S. 273 was primarily to protect sea turtles, marine mammals, and other protected species, it would be a mistake to believe that its benefits won’t also accrue to recreational fishermen.  Even here on the East Coast, gillnets take their toll, as exemplified by this sandbar shark, caught off Fire Island, New York, that apparently escaped—or perhaps was released—from such an entanglement alive, although with deep cuts that almost encircle its body.

While that shark was probably caught in a net with mesh just a little too small to fall under S. 273’s prohibition, it demonstrates the sort of damage that large-mesh gillnets can do.

So the recent passage of legislation containing S. 273 definitely represents a step forward.

 

 

 

WILL WE OVERFISH STRIPED BASS IN 2022?

 

Most striped bass anglers were surprised, and many were openly skeptical, when a stock assessment update released last October revealed that there was a 78.6% probability that the striped bass spawning stock biomass would be rebuilt to its target level by 2029 with no change to current regulations, provided that fishing mortality did not rise above its 2021 level.

Even if the fishing mortality rate increased from 0.14, its 2021 level, to the target rate of 0.17, the rebuilding probability would still be 52%, making rebuilding more likely than not.  But if fishing mortality rose above that, and particularly if it rose above the 0.21 threshold, which signals that overfishing has occurred, timely rebuilding became increasingly unlikely.

Over all, the assessment update brought good news, first because it found that rebuilding by 2029, without the need to impose draconian management measures, was possible, and second because it made it clear that, if fishing mortality could be constrained at or below the target level, such rebuilding was likely.

However, as many anglers quickly noted, keeping fishing mortality at or below target, particularly with the large 2015 year class now bracketed by the 28- to 35-inch slot limit, might be very hard to do.  Angler effort is typically driven by striped bass abundance, and with the abundant 2015s being caught all along the striper coast, effort-driven mortality is likely to increase.

At last month’s meeting of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board, Dr. Michael Armstrong, the Massachusetts fishery manager, expressed concern that the assessment update’s prediction—that the striped bass had a 78.6% chance of being rebuilt by 2023—wasn’t realistic, because the fishing mortality rate wouldn’t remain at 0.14.  He noted that recreational striped bass landings for the first eight months of 2022 were substantially higher than landings in 2021.  He warned,

“I want the Board to be conscious…It doesn’t take a lot to change the course of the recovery.”

Emerson Hasbrouck, the Governor’s Appointee from New York, observed that

“We’re getting close to being on the razor’s edge here,”

and asked whether there would be another stock assessment update presented in 2023.  

His question set off a brief discussion, which resulted in Toni Kearns, the Interstate Fishery Management Program Director for the ASMFC, stating that there weren’t sufficient resources available to prepare such an update; the necessary persons were “at or more than at” their full capacity, and in order to perform a new striped bass assessment update, another scheduled assessment would have to be delayed.

Having said that, Ms. Kearns noted that, while a lack of additional capacity prevented the ASMFC from performing assessment update in 2023, it should be able to determine whether the volume of fish actually removed from the striped bass stock in 2022 roughly equaled the removals predicted by the population model.  Mr. Hasbrouck expressed support for such an approach.

Dr. Armstrong, however, was not completely convinced.  He suggested that

“This is a billion dollar fishery.  Maybe instead of a spot assessment, striped bass is the one we should do.”

He then pointed out the biggest flaw in past striped bass management efforts, that

“we never hit our target [fishing mortality rate], at least for any amount of time.”

Facts support Dr. Armstrong’s concerns.  Addendum IV to Amendment 6 to the Atlantic Striped Bass Interstate Fishery Management Plan, adopted in 2014, saw the fishing mortality rate drop below its target level in 2015, but increase in subsequent years.  Addendum VI to Amendment 6 to the Atlantic Striped Bass Interstate Fishery Management Plan, adopted in 2019, reduced fishing mortality in 2020, but saw such mortality increase in the ocean, but not in the Chesapeake Bay, in 2021.

Addendum VI’s management measures remain in effect, and permitted a substantial increase in 2022 landings.

Not every Management Board member shared Dr. Armstrong’s concern.  Steven Train, the Governor’s Appointee from Maine, advised that the Management Board should trust the science behind the stock assessment’s projections, and asked rhetorically,

“How much damage can we do if we let this go for another year?”

Tom Fote, the Governor’s Appointee from New Jersey, is usually quick to question scientific conclusions, and predict that they will prove to be wrong after a few years have passed, but he broke that mold in last month’s discussion, saying

“I’ve been sitting around the table for a long time; we always say that we have to trust the science…I’m satisfied…I agree with the stock assessment.”

Which, in the end, wasn’t surprising, for in this case, "the science" supported maintaining the current management measures; a new stock assessment might call for additional restrictions, and Fote has always been consistent in one regard—he supports whatever management action might allow New Jersey anglers to kill more striped bass.

Dr. Armstrong responded to both comments, addressing Mr. Train by saying,

“I don’t criticize science, but we have empirical evidence”

of sharply increased landings.  Such comment was very much to the point, as the assessment update, which found a 78.6% chance of rebuilding the stock by 2029, was predicated on the fishing mortality rate remaining at 0.14, not at the apparently higher level occurring in 2022.

Dr. Armstrong also reiterated his earlier statement:

“To Tom Fote’s point, we’ve failed time and time again because we did not hit the target [fishing mortality rate].”

He seemed to have made his point, since the Management Board and ASMFC staff agreed that the Atlantic Striped Bass Technical Committee would, once the Marine Recreational Information Program estimates for 2022 were completed, compare actual removals with the model’s projections, and provide a report at the May 2023 Board meeting.

If excess fishing mortality is revealed in May, work on additional fishery management measures could begin.

Right now, 2022 estimates of recreational striped bass effort, harvest, and releases are only available for the first ten months of the year.

What do they tell us so far?

First, striped bass fishing effort has increased substantially.  Anglers took slightly over 16,000,000 trips primarily targeting striped bass through the end of October 2022, compared to just 12,800,00 trips during the same period of 2021.

Striped bass harvest showed a far sharper increase, going from about 1,200,000 fish in the first 10 months of 2021 to more than 2,500,000 by October 31, 2022.  In fact, the number of striped bass harvested by anglers in the first 10 months of 2022 far exceeded the 1,840,000 fish landed in all of 2021—and the last two months of 2022 saw very substantial striped bass fishing activity in southern New England and the New York Bight.  It would not be surprising to see final 2022 landings approach or exceed 3 million fish.

But recreational striped bass fishing mortality is not all about harvest; fish that die after release often comprise an even greater number of removals.  In that respect, the 2022 story is just a little different.

During the first 10 months of 2021, anglers released just under 22,500,000 striped bass; for the same period in 2022, that number fell to a little less than 19,750,000; using the currently accepted 9% release mortality rate, that equates to a little over 2,025,000 additional removals through October 31, 2021, and a little over 1,775,000 additional removals through October 31, 2022.

Add release mortality to the harvest, and we end up with roughly 3,225,000 striped bass removals for the first 10 months of 2021, compared to 4,275,000 removals—nearly 1,000,000 more—for the first 10 months of 2022.

That’s substantial.

Harvest and release estimates for the last two months of 2022 won’t be available until February, so it will be a while before managers know what overall 2022 fishing mortality will be.  In addition, the fishing mortality figure represents a rate of removals, so an increase in removals don’t necessarily indicate a corresponding increase in fishing mortality; if the spawning stock biomass is also increasing, as it is in the case with striped bass, the change in the fishing mortality rate will also depend on the rate of biomass increase.

Still, removals increased more than 30% between October 31, 2021 and the same time this year; the biomass clearly didn’t increase that much.  Thus, it is virtually certain that the fishing mortality rate for 2022 will be substantially greater than 0.14, and it is very, very possible that it will also exceed the 0.17 target.

Will it also exceed the 0.21 threshold, and trip a management trigger in the newly adopted Amendment 7 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass?

Without the November/December data, I don’t want to predict that right now.  However, I will predict that discussions at the May 2023 Management Board meeting will prove extremely interesting, and might well determine the long-term health of the bass.

 

RED SNAPPER DEBATE HEATS UP IN THE SOUTH ATLANTIC

 

These days, when someone hears that recreational fishermen are whining about red snapper rules, they probably assume that such fishermen are in the Gulf of Mexico, where various recreational fishing organizations have been carrying out a loud, chaotic and largely dishonest fight against the National Marine Fisheries Service for a decade or more.

What folks might not realize is that the first unpleasant skirmishes over red snapper occurred not in the Gulf, but in the South Atlantic—primarily off Florida, but off the other states, too—after biologists revealed that the red snapper spawning stock had fallen to historically low levels, and NMFS decided to do something about it.

It all began after an assessment of the South Atlantic red snapper stock, completed in 2008 and revised a year later, declared that

“This assessment indicates that the stock has been overfished since 1960 and overfishing is currently occurring.”

The assessment also advised that

“The bulk of the landings of red snapper come from the recreational fishery, which have exceeded the landings of the commercial fishery by 2-3 fold over the assessment period.”

At the time, recreational red snapper fishermen were already limited to two fish per day, which had to be at least 20 inches long.  Any management response was inevitably going to lead to more restrictive regulations.  Still, it was very clear that more restrictive regulations were needed, for as the 2008 stock assessment explained,

“The fishing mortality (F) is compared to what the fishing mortality would be if the fishery were operating at the proxy level for maximum fishing (F_40%).  The ratio F/F_40% suggests a generally increasing trend from the 1950s through the mid-1990s, and since 1985 has fluctuated about a mean near 14.  This indicates that overfishing has been occurring since 1960 at about 14 times the sustainable level, with the 2006 estimate of F/F_40% at 12.021.  [emphasis added]”

When fishing mortality is 12 or 14 times the sustainable level, and when recreational landings are twice or three times those of the commercial fleet, it is pretty certain that anglers are going to experience some extremely restrictive regulations in order to get their landings back down to sustainable levels.

And it’s also pretty certain that they’re not going to like it, and will probably resist such restrictions being adopted.

Still, with red snapper spawning stock biomass at just 2.5% of its target level, it was pretty clear that the status quo could not be maintained.

The first step in the process was a new stock assessment, that was released in October 2010.  The 2010 assessment confirmed that the South Atlantic red snapper stock was overfished and experiencing overfishing, although it also suggested that things weren’t quite as bad as the 2008 assessment portrayed.  Fishing mortality for the period 2007-2009 was only a little over four times the sustainable level, while spawning stock biomass was 9% of the target.

The poor condition of the South Atlantic red snapper stock led to a rebuildng plan, and also to a quiet fight between NMFS and parts of the recreational community, which didn’t get too much publicity outside of the immediate area.  It also set the tone for recreational fishing advocacy in the Gulf of Mexico, and elsewhere on the coast.

The rerbuilding plan that was ultimately adopted prohibited red snapper harvest in 2010 and 2011 (and again in 2015 and 2016), and led to very short seasons—often less than a week—was adopted for the other years.  As a result of those and other actions, the stock was expected to recover by 2044.

Once the plan was adopted, the red snapper debate in the South Atlantic quieted down, while a new and more heated fight erupted in the Gulf.

But now, after nearly a decade of relative quiet, the South Atlantic is heating up again.

The trigger for the new activity was a stock assessment update released in March 2021.  While it indicated that the status of the stock had improved since 2010, South Atlantic red snapper were still overfished and still experiencing overfishing.

It was clear that some additional harvest restrictions were needed to get overfishing under control, but adopting effective regulations would be difficult, because many of the red snapper killed by anglers represent discard mortality; that is, fish that die after being released during the closed season, by anglers targeting other species.  Still, a dead fish is still a dead fish, and a snapper that dies after release causes as much harm to the stock as one intentionally caught and landed.  Thus, to help account for the discards, the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council, meeting earlier this month, dropped the commercial quota from 124,815 to 77,016 pounds, while also reducing the recreational harvest limit from 29,656 to 19,119 fish.

Originally, the South Atlantic Council was also considering closing about 5,000 square miles of ocean between the 15- and 40-fathom countours, stretching from Brunswick, Georgia south to Melbourne, Florida, but ultimately decided against such action.

Even so, just the threat of such closure got politicians involved, and having politicians attempting to legislate the details of fishery management is almost never a good thing if you want fish stocks to thrive. 

Two members of Congress, Rep. John Rutherford (R-FL) and Rep. Stephanie Murphy (D-FL), along with 14 other House members, introduced legislation called the Red Snapper Act, H.R. 9373, which would prohibit NMFS from closing any area in the South Atlantic to snapper or grouper fishing until the conclusion of something being called “The Great South Atlantic Red Snapper Count,” a survey of the red snapper population off the southeast coast that emulates the so-called “Great Red Snapper Count” conducted in the Gulf of Mexico.

Like its predecessor in the Gulf, the South Atlantic red snapper count, funded by legislation also introduced by Reps. Rutherford and Murphy, will involve a number of different sampling techniques, which its supporters hope will demonstrate that the red snapper population is larger than NMFS believes, and can support higher recreational landings.

  The fact that at least one news source, The [St. Augustine, FL] Recorder, reported that

“The Red Snapper Act has been endorsed by the Center for Sportfishing Policy, the Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation, the Coastal Conservation Association and the American Sportfishing Association,”

suggests the motivation behind such legislation, as all four groups have been at the forefront of efforts to impugn and undermine federal red snapper management in the Gulf of Mexico.

Even the rhetoric associated with the Red Snapper Act, such as Rep. Rutherford’s statement that

“For too long, Florida’s anglers have been forced to put up with bad science and short red snapper seasons…Florida anglers deserve dependable access to red snapper fishing now and in years to come,”

is reminiscent of the sort of misleading—for there have been no rigorous studies suggesting that NMFS’ current science is, in fact, “bad”—comments that such organizations have made with respect to Gulf red snapper management over the past decade.

Equally reminiscent is the deceptive comment made by Gary Jennings of the American Sportfishing Association, a trade group representing the fishing tackle industry.  He acknowledged the need to reduce red snapper discard mortality but said that

“snapper-grouper closures aren’t the way to get there with a stock that by all measures is historically abundant and rebounded at such an astonishing rate.”

Jennings never even tried to explain how an overfished stock could be deemed “historically abundant,"  Nor did he mention that the seeming rebound in the stock is due, in part, to managers moving the rebuilding goalposts.  Although they were scientifically justified in doing so, they nonetheless reduced the biomass target to a 30% spawning potential ratio, rather than the 40% of a decade ago.  Reducing the biomass target will always make rebuilding an easier thing to do.

So yes, a lot of the ills of the Gulf red snapper debate are coming to plague the South Atlantic.

Another thing that may be coming to the South Atlantic is the use of exempted fishing permits that allow federal rules to be set aside under certain specified conditions.  It’s not clear what such permits might be used for in the South Atlantic fishery; in the Gulf, they allowed states to set their own recreational red snapper seasons, so long as such seasons constrained catch to the overall recreational harvest limit established by NMFS.  

However, even though Gulf anglers may land millions of pounds of red snapper each year, the state seasons originally ushered in by exempted fishing permits led to severe overfishing and new sources of controversy.  Given the tiny red snapper harvest in the South Atlantic, it’s hard to believe that such permits would be worth the trouble that they would likely cause.

Yet, whether the folks involved with the South Atlantic red snapper fishery want trouble or not, it looks as if they might find it.  There are plenty of signs that the same folks who fought against needed management measures in the fishery over a decade ago, and who have perfected their disruptive approach in the Gulf, are growing more active in the South Atlantic once again.

Making trouble is, unfortunately, something that they do very well.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

RED DRUM: ANOTHER TROUBLED, STATE-MANAGED FISHERY

 

Back in 2014, a coalition of fishing industry, boating industry, and anglers’ rights organizations seeking to weaken the National Marine Fisheries Service’s power to constrain anglers’ harvests issued a manifesto.  It was called “A Vision for Managing America’s Saltwater Recreational Fisheries,” and was based on the premise that the federal fishery management system, which relies on science-based annual catch limits to maintain the long-term health of fish stocks, was not suited to managing recreational fisheries.

The various organizations argued that, while the poundage-based federal management system was fine for managing the commercial fleet, anglers were better served by state fishery managers, who established regulations that were more aspirational than prescriptive; that is, while such managers hoped that state recreational regulations would protect stocks from excessive harvest, such regulations weren’t tied to an annual landings limit, and regulators weren’t required to reduce landings if overfishing occurred or the stock became overfished.

The “Vision” statement argued that

“Many state natural resource agencies, especially those in the South, recognize the benefits of a vibrant recreational fishing community and have managed to promote it while conserving their saltwater resources.  Striped bass, red drum, black drum, summer flounder, sheepshead, snook, spotted seatrout, and tarpon are examples of successfully managed state fisheries that sufficiently meet the needs of recreational anglers while providing extensive economic benefits to their state and the national economies.”

Nearly nine years have passed since the manifesto was issued.  In the years since, we have seen the same coalition of industry-affiliated groups continue to harp on the “statemanagement is best” theme, particularly with respect to Gulf of Mexico redsnapper, a species that federal regulators are doing their best to rebuild in the face of continued recreational overharvest.  We have seen passage of a watered-down “Modern Fish Act,” which wasoriginally intended to weaken the federal recreational fishery managementprocess, but was rendered more-or-less harmless before it reached thePresident’s desk. 

There is no evidence to suggest that their efforts to undercut the federal fishery management system will abate in the foreseeable future.

Thus, it’s probably worth analyzing how well their central premise—that state managers are successfully managing recreational fisheries—has held up over the past few years.

We can start with the fact that striped bass are overfished, and summer flounder are federally managed (states do set local regulations, but abide by NMFS’ annual catch limits), while snook are overfished on Florida’s Atlantic coast (but not in the Gulf).  There is no stock assessment for tarpon, making it difficult to convincingly argue that the fish are doing well, although one scientific paper noted that

“multiple lines of evidence suggest that populations of M. atlanticus [ the Atlantic tarpon] appear to have declined from historical levels throughout their range…Using a generation time of 12.7 years for tarpon, the estimated decline in FAO landings over three generations (38 years) is >80%.”

So tarpon probably aren’t doing all that well, either.

It’s harder to tell about sheepshead, since no one has yet established reference points to denote overfishing or an overfished stock, although Florida wildlife managers think that the species is probably doing OK.  Black drum are in a similar situation.   As of 2015, Louisiana deemed the stock healthy; on the East Coast, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission believes the stock to be healthy, although “declining slowly.”

When we get to speckled trout or, more properly, “spotted seatrout,” the news isn’t as good.  The ASMFC lists the stock’s status in the Atlantic as “unknown,” Texas admits that it can only sustain its current recreational harvest level by introducing hatchery-produced fish into state waters, and Louisiana is only now reluctantly addressing its badly depleted speckled trout stock, which it has allowed anglers to overfish for years—and some of the same folks who have loudly praised state managers are nonetheless objecting to the size limit proposed to rebuild that badly overfished population.

So, out of the eight popular recreational fisheries that the “Vision” report held up as examples of successful state-level fishery management, we find one stock that actually sees NMFS, not the states, establish the annual catch limits; three that are overfished in all or part of their range; one that is unassessed, but seems to be depleted; one that lacks the reference points needed to determine stock status, but might be OK; and another that, while healthy, is in long-term decline over a substantial portion of its range.

The "Vision" report might call that sort of record a success, but I--and I suspect many others--disagree.

Red drum are the last of the state-managed fisheries praised in the "Vision" report.  As it turns out, that species is having its problems too, particularly in the Gulf of Mexico, the very place where the “Redfish Wars” of the late 20^th Century, which outlawed the commercial fishery in a number of states, took place.  Which means that the drum's current decline can be laid directly at the recreational fishermen’s door.

News of the red drum’s troubles came in a stock assessment recently performed by the State of Louisiana, which revealed that

“Management thresholds have been established, through the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council (GMFMC), for Red Drum in the state of Louisiana as a 20% spawning potential ratio, which is based on a 30% escapement rate from the inshore fishery.  Based on results of this assessment, the Louisiana Red Drum stock is currently not overfished, but is experiencing overfishing.  The current spawning potential ratio estimate is 40% and the current escapement rate estimate is 20%.  The recent downturn in recreational landings are [sic] due to a series of below average annual recruitment to the stock where the most recent annual recruitment estimates are the lowest in the time-series examined.  Management actions will be needed in order to prevent future overfishing and prevent the stock from becoming overfished.”

While the stock assessment is specific to red drum “occurring in [Louisiana] and adjacent federal waters,” it has implications for the broader Gulf of Mexico population, as adult red drum may migrate 700 to 900 kilometers (approximately 450 to 500 miles) from their natal estuaries.

Louisiana deserves credit for conducting the stock assessment and concluding that management action is needed to end overfishing and to prevent the stock from becoming overfished, although it’s probably also worth noting that the reference points used to evaluate the health of the red drum stock were developed by federal fishery managers and not by the state.

The next question is what Louisiana is going to do to correct the problem.

If red drum were a federally-managed species, the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act would require that annual catch limits, set low enough to prevent overfishing, be established each year; Magnuson-Stevens would also require that anglers be held accountable should they exceed such catch limits.  Louisiana fishery managers are not bound by any such requirements.  While they may, in good faith, intend to adopt rules that prevent recreational fishermen from overfishing the red drum resource, they have no legal obligation to do so, and their efforts to end overfishing could be stymied by angling organizations that employ political influence to avoid harvest reductions.

We’ve already seen that happen with Louisiana’s speckled trout.

All the way back in 2016, I noted that Louisiana’s speckled trout population was overfished, with abundance only about half of the target level.   More than six years have passed, yet Louisiana regulators have yet to adopt management measures that will end overfishing and rebuild the stock; potentially effective regulations have been proposed, but are meeting resistance from some members of the angling community.

Given how important red drum are to Louisiana’s inshore anglers, it is likely that more restrictive red drum regulations could follow the same trajectory, although Louisiana fishery managers are talking about having such rules in place for at least part of the 2023 season.

How strict must the new rules be?

The current escapement rate of red drum is only 20%, just half of the escapement target.  Because too few fish are entering the adult population, the spawning stock biomass is decreasing as well; fisheries managers expect that, unless landings are reduced, spawning stock biomass will fall below the level needed to maintain the 30% spawning potential ratio by 2025.

Once that occurs, it will take a 35% reduction in landings to return to a 30% SPR by 2050.  A 40% reduction will cut 10 years off the rebuilding time, while a 50% reduction would probably achieve the 30% target by 2034.  Further reductions would only speed up the recovery by a few years; even a 65% harvest reduction would only slice another three years off the rebuilding period, achieving 30% SPR by 2031.

The target 40% escapement rate could be achieved far more quickly.  As 30% harvest reduction is likely to achieve 40% escapement by 2028, a 35% reduction by 2026, and a 45% reduction by 2024. 

Louisiana fishery managers believe that they could achieve a 35% reduction by imposing a 16- to 22-inch slot limit and 2-fish bag, including an over-slot fish.  Other combinations that would achieve the same result might include a 16- to 20-inch slot and 3-fish bag, a 17- to 26-inch slot and 2-fish bag, a 17- to 20-inch slot and 5-fish bag, an 18- to 25-inch slot and 3-fish bag, or a 19- to 27-inch slot with a 4-fish bag; for all possible combinations, one over-slot fish might be retained.

A 50% reduction could be achieved with, among other combinations, a 16- to 24-inch slot and 1-fish bag, a 17- to 20-inch slot and 2-fish bag, and 18- to 20-inch slot and 4-fish bag, or a 19- to 21-inch slot and a 5-fish bag, again with one over-slot fish included in each of the possible options.

Removing the over-slot fish from any of the slot size/bag limit options would significantly increase the resulting reduction.

All of the above size and bag limit options are significantly more restrictive than Louisiana’s current 16- to 27-inch slot and five fish bag limit, with one over-slot drum included.  Louisiana will soon be seeking public input on the proposed management measures, but there is no reason to believe that adopting new regulations for red drum will be any less controversial, or take any less time to adopt, than the proposed speckled trout rules.

While federal law includes a legally enforceable requirement to prevent overfishing, as well as legally enforceable deadlines for rebuilding overfished stocks, such features missing from most state management systems; without such legal requirements to guide their actions, state managers are far more susceptible to, and too frequently are guided by, political and economic concerns.

So why does the angling industry, and industry-affiliated angler groups, insist that state management is the superior system?  The answer might lie in the "Vision" statement paragraph quoted above, which claims that state fishery managers “sufficiently meet the needs of recreational anglers while providing extensive economic benefits to their state and the national economies. [emphasis added]”

In other words, state fishery managers do a good enough job of providing fishing opportunities for anglers, while providing extensive benefits to the angling industry.

Anglers might not want to settle for "good enough," but given that the “Vision” document was produced by an industry coalition, and released at an industry trade show, it’s not surprising that promoting economic activity, rather than healthy and abundant fish stocks, was its primary goal.  And there is little doubt that state fishery managers are more aware of, and more responsive to, economic concerns than their federal counterparts.

On the other hand, state managers don’t have a very good record of maintaining fish stocks at healthy and abundant levels over the long term.  Evidence of any such success is difficult, perhaps close to impossible, to find.  Gulf red drum provide just one more example of state managers failing to adopt management measures that prevent overfishing and the decline of an important fish stock.

And so long as state managers eschew firm catch limits, and are not legally bound to prevent overfishing or rebuild overfished stocks, that “one more” example will be far from the last.