MID-ATLANTIC FISHERIES AT THE TIPPING POINT

 

We’ve seen more than one fishery die.  A few of them, like striped bass after that stock collapsed in the late 1970s, eventually came back.  Others, like rainbow smelt in Long IslandSound and the southern New England stock of winter flounder, seem to be gone for good.

Having been an unwilling witness to all three of those collapses, I can’t say that there was ever a time when we ever said, “This is the point of no return.” 

Winter flounder provide a good example.  They had been overfished for years, perhaps decades.  Looking back over the data that we have today, it’s pretty clear that the fish had been in trouble for quite a few years.

In 1969, a biologist named John Poole, who worked for the New York State Conservation Department, the agency we now know as the Department of Environmental Conservation, published a paper titled “A Study of Winter Flounder Mortality Rates in Great South Bay, New York” in the journal Transactions of the American Fisheries Society.  In such paper, he states that

“Recent studies…have estimated that the annual landings [of winter flounder] in Great South Bay by sport fishermen to be 1,300,000 fish.  Although comparative landings for other species sought by salt-water anglers are not available, it can be said safely that the winter flounder is one of the most important fish to the marine sport fishermen in New York.”

After analyzing data from flounder tagging studies in Great South Bay, some of which dated from 1937-38 and some from studies that he conducted in the mid-1960s, Poole concluded that

“fishing mortality has not been excessive, for the current and recent past history of the fishery has been one of abundance.”

But he then observes,

“During the past 30 years, there have been changes in the fishery.  These are undocumented for the most part.  However, sport fishery techniques have undoubtedly improved.  There is evidence of a change in preference for use of fishing facilities.  Prior to 1950, rented boats were an important part of winter flounder fishing in the bay.  Since that time, the role of the rowboat has been taken over in large measure by the private boat and the open boat…”

He goes on to opine that an 8-inch minimum size for the recreational fishery (such a minimum was already in place for the commercial fishery) would produce the greatest yield of fish (when measured by weight), but states that because few fish under 8 inches in length are landed by sport fishermen, such limit was unnecessary at the time.

Such study was published when there were no even marginally reliable estimates of recreational landings; the Marine Recreational Fishing Statistics Survey would not be put into use until 1981.  Deciding on biological data was almost as much an art as a science; Poole decided that the flounder’s natural mortality rate was 0.50, not because it was calculated with any sort of precision, but because

“the rate for heavily exploited populations [is]…somewhere in the 0.10 to 0.13 range.  Fishing mortality for the winter flounder does not classify the population as heavily exploited, and it is therefore to be expected that the annual mortality rate would be relatively high.  The term ‘relatively high’ is an arbitrary one, but it appears that a rate of 0.50 would fit the term.”

Such reasoning might be the best that could be expected at that time, but it hardly inspires confidence in the conclusions reached by Poole.  More recent studies, which incorporated a current understanding of winter flounder mortality rates, suggest that Great South Bay’s winter flounder were already being overfished when Poole was conducting his research. 

At the same time, recreational winter flounder landings were ramping up.  Although landings data specific to Great South Bay is unavailable, for all of the state of New York, winter flounder landings peaked in 1984, at just under 14,500,000 fish.  While it probably can’t be said that such landings proved the proverbial straw that finally broke the camel’s back—1981 saw anglers remove nearly 12,500,000 flounder from New York’s waters, while landings were just below 12,000,000 in 1985—the gradual decline wrought by overfishing turned into a more sudden collapse, with landings falling to just 3,800,000 in 1989, and falling below 1,000,000 in 1994, when anglers took home a mere 667,000 fish.

New York’s winter flounder landings never rose above 1,000,000 fish again; last year, the National Marine Fisheries Service estimates that only 119 were landed statewide, although with flounder at such a low level of abundance, such estimate is little more than a guess.

I can't say when the collapse of winter flounder became inevitable.  Was it in 1984, when recreational landings reached an all-time high?  Was it in 1988, when the state adopted recreational regulations to weak to halt the stock's decline?  Or in 2010, when the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission threw in the towel, and extended the recreational fishing season from 60 days to 10 full months?

But at some point between 1984 and 2010, the die was certainly cast.

There’s an often-quoted line in Ernest Hemingway’s novel, The Sun Also Rises, spoken by a character who responds to a question of how he went bankrupt.  His answer was,

“Two ways.  Gradually, then suddenly.”

It seems that when fish stocks collapse, it happens about the same way.

But what might it take for not just one stock, but the region’s entire recreational fishery, to collapse?

Perhaps not as much as one might think.

A recreational fishery is a complicated thing.  It encompasses not only fishes and fishermen, but the various businesses supporting and supported by anglers, including the party and charter boat fleets, tackle shops, marinas, boat dealers, marine supply shops, gas docks, and even things we might not think so much about, like angling-related publications and the delicatessens and small restaurants located next to active ports, which are heavily dependent upon anglers for their business.

A friend who has run a very successful charter boat operation for many years recently reminded me that he can’t make a living working part of the year.  While his clients tend to target only a handful of species, they are species that allow him to fish—and make money—from early in April well into December.  Although the two ends of his season are hardly prime times, if he lost two or three months of fishing, he’d likely go broke.

We lost the smelt in ’69.  It was a popular fishery up in Long Island Sound, and while it didn’t generate that much revenue for the shops—after all, you didn’t need much more than some bloodworms, some hooks, and a cane pole—it was something that kept the cash registers turning over until the harbors froze over.

Striped bass collapsed in the late 1970s, and sent a shudder through the recreational fishing industry.  Tackle shops felt the loss, as did the charter boat fleet.  But bluefish were big and abundant, weakfish were doing well, and just about all of the bottom fish—cod, pollock, winter flounder, scup (“porgies”), black sea bass, tautog (“blackfish”), summer flounder (“fluke”) and such were doing pretty well, and took up much of the slack.  The movie Jaws generated a wave of new patrons for the charter boat fleet, the inshore tuna fishery was doing well, and out in the canyons, boats were finding enough tuna to make up for the loss of striped bass.

Then the whiting tanked in the early ‘80s, ending a winter fishery that kept the party boats busy well into the winter, and let the shops sell some bait to those who fished from New York Bight piers.  The late spring run of Block Island pollock died at about the same time, leaving the party and charter boats on Long Island’s East End (not to mention eastern Connecticut and Rhode Island) one less thing to fish for before the fishing for sharks and striped bass heated up later in June.

Bankruptcy happened gradually, at the start.  The question is, how many more fisheries can we lose, in whole or in part, before it begins to happen suddenly.

That's a key question, because today, New York’s recreational fishery—and it’s recreational fishing industry—is heavily dependent upon striped bass.  In 2022, anglers made a little over 5,700,000 trips primarily targeting striped bass, making striped bass the most sought-after marine recreational fish species in the state, far outstripping summer flounder (3,150,000 directed trips), scup (1,770,000 directed trips), or black sea bass (634,000 directed trips).

Yet the striped bass stock remains overfished, and a spikein 2022 recreational landings could delay, or even prevent, the stock’srebuilding, unless fishery managers adopt remedial measures.

If striped bass fishing declines, only the currently abundant black sea bass and scup remain to keep the recreational fishery’s head above water.  Winter flounder are gone.  Atlantic mackerel are no longer a significant fishery.  Weakfish are somewhat more abundant than they were a decade ago, but their abundance is still a shadow of what it was in the late 1980s.  Bluefish biomassis 60% of its target level, with fishing spotty and concentrated in scattered locations.  Summer flounder looks better on paper, at 86% of its biomass target; however, the 2018 benchmark stockassessment reduced that target due the stock’s declining productivity.

Offshore, things aren't too bad.  Fishing for both bluefin and yellowfin tuna seems to be improving, and dolphin are just about a sure thing on most offshore trips.  On the other hand, bigeye tuna numbers are down, and the once-abundant albacore has all but abandoned local waters.  Billfishing is much worse than it was two or three decades ago.  However, the biggest offshore declines are probably in the shark fishery, where shortfin makos have grown so scarce that a complete prohibition on landings has been adopted; as a result, the number of recreational fishing trips targeting sharks has declined steeply.  Interest in shark fishing is much lower than it was in its heyday in the 1970s and 1980s.

Given the current state of fish stocks in the Northeast/upper Mid-Atlantic, it becomes very clear that striped bass are the key to the health of the recreational fishery, and the health of the recreational fishing industry.  Should the history repeat itself, and the should the stock collapse to levels that it reached in the late 1970s and early 1980s, there is good reason to believe that the region’s recreational fishery, and recreational fishing industry, would collapse as well

This is not the 1980s.  There are no bluefish, no weakfish, no winter flounder for anglers to turn to, as they did forty years ago, after the striped bass collapsed.  The shark fishery no longer lures charter boat patrons.  Scup and black sea bass can only carry the tackle shops, the party boats, the gas docks, and the charter boats so far. 

Bankruptcy could be sudden, indeed.