BLACK SEA BASS: MANAGING THE UNMANAGEABLE IN THE NORTHEAST

 

If someone wants to understand why fisheries managers get grey hairs, they only need to look at the northern stock of black sea bass; that is, those fish found north of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina.

Start with the fact that the species is a protogynous hermaphrodite, an animal that begins life as a female, then transitions to male at some older, larger point.  That’s not too unusual a life history; it’s shared by quite a few species, including many of the not-too-distantly related groupers.

Except that north of Cape Hatteras, not all black sea bass follow the hermaphroditic lifestyle; some are apparently born male, and some seem to remain female throughout their lives, meaning that fishery managers need not only consider the age and size at which the transition from female to male occurs, and whether and how such transition might be impacted by fishing pressure, but also the effects of small “sneaker” males and larger, more fecund females on spawning potential.

From there, add the fact that black sea bass seem to be one of the species that is benefitting from a warming ocean.  It is expanding its range farther north, into the rocky waters off New England, where the stock might (or, perhaps, might not) be benefitting from the abundance of hard-bottom habitat that is far less available off the mid-Atlantic coast.  In addition, the success of any black sea bass year class is highly dependent upon the temperature and salinity of the water it encounters during its first winter at the edge of the continental shelf; a warming ocean makes it more likely that such favorable conditions will be found much more often.

Something seems to be favoring the species right now, because black sea bass have, for the past decade or so, been at a very high level of abundance in the northeast for the past decade or so; although accurate historical records are limited, it is very possible that it has recently been enjoying unprecedentedly high level of abundance in the region.

One might think that such abundance would make black sea bass an easy species to manage, but that has not proven to be the case.  Instead, the black sea bass fishery, and in particular, the recreational black sea bass fishery, presents one of the most difficult current challenges for East Coast fishery managers.  The recreational fishery has proven to be nearly unmanageable.

Part of the problem comes from the fact that abundance drives recreational fishing effort.  Anglers tend to target the fish that are easiest to catch, so as black sea bass became more available, more and more fishermen began to target them, and such increase in effort, also fueled by a decline in summer flounder, outpaced the increase in sea bass abundance.  Regulations grew more restrictive in response. Fishery managers never seemed able to get in front of the problem, yet refused to take the one action that could have halted the spiral of excessive landings leading to greater restrictions:  Adopting an annual catch target that accounts for the management uncertainty that has always plagued the process of setting annual regulations.

As a result, going into the 2023 season, it appears that managers will have to adopt additional restrictions once again, in order to achieve a 10% reduction in landings.

Part of the problem probably comes from the fact that the northern stock of black sea bass seems to consist of three separate breeding populations which don’t seem to mix on their summer spawning grounds but, because of differing migration patterns, demonstrate a pattern of partial mixing over the winter. 

The northern spawning population summers between central Long Island, New York—approximately the area around Moriches Inlet—into New England, and spends its winters at the edge of the continental shelf, somewhere between Long Island/New Jersey and Virginia/North Carolina.  The central spawning population summers and spawns between central Long Island and northern Virginia, and engages in shorter winter migrations in a generally southeast direction, while the southern spawning population summers off southern Virginia and norther North Carolina, and makes seasonal migrations in an east/west direction.

The black sea bass stock assessment tries to capture such population differences by assuming a northern and southern sub-stock, divided by Hudson Canyon, off the Long Island/New Jersey coast. 

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission took a slightly different tack, and has created three different management regions; one such region includes New York and New England, one only the state of New Jersey, and one the states between Delaware and northern North Carolina.  Regulations for each region differ, and don’t necessarily track regional abundance. 

Counterintuitively, the northern region, which hosts the most fish during the summer, also has the most restrictive regulations.  For example, in 2022, Massachusetts set a 4-fish bag limit, 16-inch minimum size, and May 21-September 4 season, while New York adopted the same 16-inch size limit, but split its season into two parts, with a 3-fish bag limit from June 23-August 31, and a 6-fish bag from September 30 through the end of the year.

New Jersey, on the other hand, adopted a far more complex, and ultimately more permissive, set of rules, that included a 10-fish bag limit and 13-inch minimum size between May 17 and June 19, closed the season from June 20 through June 30, reopened the season with a 2-fish bag limit for the period July 1 through August 31, closed it again from September 1 through October 6, reopened it again from October 7 through October 26 with an increased, 10-fish bag limit, before closing it for just five days, October 27 through October 31, and finally reopening it for the rest of the year with a higher, 15-fish bag. 

The southern states adopted regulations that were certainly simpler than New Jersey’s, but were also slightly more permissive, even though the number of black sea bass in southern waters is relatively small.  Virginia’s 13-inch minimum size, 15-fish bag limit, and a season that ran from May 15 through December 11, were typical, although the rules differed slightly in other states.

Because of the regional management structure, the same fish may be treated differently at different times of the year.  A fifteen-inch black sea bass might be safe in Massachusetts during the summer, but when it migrates southeast in the fall, and winters on grounds accessible to boats from New Jersey or states even farther south, it may be legally landed; bag limits nearly four times as high as the limit in Massachusetts can result in many such fish being removed from the stock. 

Such regulatory disparity can easily make Massachusetts (and Rhode Island, Connecticut, and New York) anglers ask why recreational black sea bass fishermen are so tightly restricted in the northeast, when the same sea bass that northeastern fishermen must release during the summer can and will be killed elsewhere on the coast during the winter season.

More generally, such restrictive regulations cause northeastern anglers to wonder why, with black sea bass so abundant in that region, they must endure the most restrictive regulations on the coast, when anglers in states farther south, where sea bass are less abundant, are allowed to harvest more and smaller fish.

It's probably not surprising that the current regulatory scheme is causing some real unhappiness among northeastern anglers.  Nor is it all that surprising that some anglers are expressing their dissatisfaction by ignoring the black sea bass rules.

Such rule breaking has been particularly evident in the party boat sector, where gross violations of black sea bass bag limits have occurred.  I’ve reported on such violations before, when anglers on some Montauk party boats were caught keeping as many as 90-plus sea bass, instead of their legal limit of three.  Just last week, while reading the most recent newsletter of the Suffolk Alliance of Sportsman, I came across an item written by an environmental conservation officer reporting on illegal happenings here on Long Island.  It read,

“Many anglers are done fishing by December but, for those willing to take a long trip way offshore, there is still good black sea bass fishing to be had.  [Environmental conservation officers] Perkins, Cacciola, Hilton, and DeVito are aware of this fishery, and targeted a party boat returning to Captree State Park on the evening of December 29^th.  Complainants said that the target boat was keeping over-limit black sea bass, and ECOs had written the boat tickets in late summer for short fluke.  As the boat arrived at the dock, ECOs quickly realized that there were many anglers with over-limit black sea bass, and began to collect IDs and associate fish to each person.  When the situation was controlled, the violators were split up, interviewed, then issued tickets.  Some fishermen admitted they knew the limit was just 6 black sea bass, some claimed the mates and captain told them it didn’t matter, and one tried to claim it was a ‘New Year’s Limit.’  In total, 14 fishermen were written tickets for over limit black sea bass and over 100 fish were seized…The captain of the vessel was also ticketed for underreporting catch on the vessel trip report and over limit black sea bass…  [emphasis added]”

Reading such report, two things stand out.  The first is that the environmental conservation officers were apparently responding to complainants’ tips, which suggests that incidents of anglers going over the black sea bass limit, at least on that particular boat, were fairly common events.  The other is that the crew of the boat seemed to be not only aware of, but actively supportive of, such overages, and encouraged passengers to violate the law.  While such active encouragement has not yet been proven, the fact that the enforcement officers split up the alleged poachers, and yet heard the same story from multiple sources, strongly suggests that the claim is true.

Such connivance on the part of for-hire crew is not limited to New York, but has occurred elsewhere in the region.  It does not appear that we’re going to see better compliance at any time soon; at the January 2023 meeting of New York’s Marine Resources Advisory Council, one Montauk party boat captain announced that, if black sea bass regulations become any more restrictive this year—and that will almost certainly happen—he would no longer try to keep his customers in compliance; he blatantly challenged law enforcement to board him and try to enforce the rules.

In an effort to maximize black sea bass landings at a time when abundance is very high, the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council adopted a so-called “Harvest Control Rule” that would strictly limit harvest reductions, even in the face of gross recreational overharvest, when the spawning stock biomass of black sea bass (and three other species) is more than 150% of the biomass target.  Such approach would allow the Council to sidestep the requirements of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, by setting annual harvest limits that exceed the annual catch limit for the recreational sector.  Such an approach is of questionable legal validity, and has not yet been approved by the National Marine Fisheries Service.

At the same time, at least when viewed from one perspective, such Harvest Control Rule doesn’t seem unreasonable; if black sea bass are at a very high level of abundance, the stock is in no immediate peril if somewhat excessive levels of harvest, and even outright overfishing, are tolerated for a few years.  At the same time, while spawning stock biomass remains very high, with the last stock assessment update estimating it at about 210% of the target level, such biomass has been falling steadily since peaking in 2014, and may well decline farther toward the biomass target.  Should that occur, regulations will, at some point, become much more restrictive.

So if fishery managers maintain relatively liberal regulations in place for the short term, in response to protests from some elements of the angling public, they do so with (hopefully) the awareness that, at some point in the future, they may be forced to adopt regulations that will appear extremely restrictive, and probably draw an equally extreme reaction from parts of the angling community, in order to maintain spawning stock biomass close to the biomass target.

It's the classic case of deciding whether to make a small down payment on sustainability today, in order to maintain the stock close to current levels for a longer period of time, or to maximize current harvest and, in doing so, make it more likely that a very substantial landings reduction will probably be needed five or ten years down the road.

For fishery managers, who will eventually face hostile public opinion no matter what option they choose, it seems very much like a lose-lose proposition.

So is there any way to effectively manage the so-far practically unmanageable recreational black sea bass fishery in the northeast?

The answer may well be yes.

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s regional management system is on the right track, but is badly in need of revision.  The three regions currently recognized don’t really reflect what’s happening on and under the water.  There is no convincing argument for establishing a region containing only New Jersey.

While some small part of southern New Jersey may share the summer black sea bass fishery with Delaware, it is more closely connected to New England and New York.  During the summer, boats from New York and northern New Jersey share the same waters, often fishing side by side on the same wreck or piece of structure.  During the winter, fish that have migrated down from New England and eastern Long Island fuel the greater part of New Jersey’s fishery.  Thus, the ASMFC’s management plan should include only two regions, one composed of New England, New York, and New Jersey, which all share similar regulations and the same pool of fish, and one composed of states between Delaware and North Carolina.  Such structure would combine the fish currently allocated to the two northernmost regions, allow New York and New England to adopt somewhat more generous regulations, and provide more equitable management measures among states that largely share the same body of fish.

To improve the management process, regulations should be made more consistent across regions and across time.  Breaking regulations down by state, and then further breaking down state regulations by time of year, results in less precise landings data, and makes it more likely that regulations will fail to adequately constrain recreational landings.  To accomplish the needed end, black sea bass management should resemble the management approach currently used for scup, with the states responsible for the great majority of the landings—in the case of black sea bass, Massachusetts through New Jersey—all adopting the same size limit, bag limit, and season length. 

If NMFS ultimately disapproves the Harvest Control Rule, an annual catch target that considers management uncertainty should be adopted.

When setting or revising seasons, the release mortality rate should be considered.  While such rate is relatively low—about 15%--in the summer, shallow-water fishery, barotrauma causes it to rise sharply, to about 50%, in the winter fishery, which is prosecuted in much deeper water.  Thus, minimizing or completely shutting down the portion of the season that occurs concurrent with the deep-water fishery would eliminate substantial waste of the black sea bass resource.

Finally, a more aggressive approach to black sea bass poaching needs to be taken, as the mere threat of fines, combined with the low likelihood that any individual violation will be detected, has proven to be inadequate to deter illegal landings.  Administrative sanctions, which have rarely been used up to now, offer an attractive option.

For individual anglers, revoking the fishing license of repeat offenders, thus invoking the Interstate Wildlife Violator Compact, would probably have far greater deterrent effect than the possibility of just paying a few dollars for illegal fish.  Pursuant to such Compact, states share information on poachers with all other Compact members (currently, every state except Hawaii), and anyone who has a license revoked or suspended due to illegal activity in one state will become ineligible for hunting, trapping, and/or fishing licenses, for the duration of the revocation/suspension, in 48 other states as well.

An angler is likely to think twice before risking that sort of sanction.

When it comes to for-hire vessels with a history of repeat violations—and need for repeat violations should be emphasized, as a single misdeed is better addressed with less drastic measures—states should be more willing to suspend the vessel’s for-hire license, and keep it tied to the dock for some period during the fishing season.  The potential for such a penalty would have a far greater deterrent effect than the threat of a simple fine; although the required administrative hearing would be time-consuming, should a suspension be imposed, it would not only sanction the offending vessel, but provide any vessel operator tempted to break the law with a strong incentive to stay honest.

Managing the recreational fishery for black sea bass presents challenging issues, yet such issues are not insurmountable.  Provided that the political will exists, it is possible to create a system that will be more equitable, and be far more defensible, than the system employed today.

Such change will not be easy.  But it is needed nonetheless.