CONSERVATION, EQUITY, AND ECONOMIC JUSTICE

 

Self-serving arguments are common in many debates, and fisheries management proves no exception.

We learned that the other night, at one of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s hearings on the emergency striped bass measures, when some New England charter boat captains argued for “sector separation”—basically, letting their customers fish under special, more liberal rules—as a matter of economic justice, claiming that their boats provide access to fisheries resources to folks who lack the means to purchase and maintain a boat of their own.

It almost seems plausible.  But stop and think about that for a minute.

The primary proponent of the argument—I won’t embarrass him by name—runs a good-sized charter boat.  His cheapest trip, available only on July and August afternoons, is aimed at

“those who want to spend a few hours fishing in the…area with the chance to bring home some fresh fish for dinner.”

It costs $525 for the trip—or at least it did a few years ago, when fuel was much cheaper and his website was last updated—which means that everyone in a typical, 6-person charter party would have to pony up a little over $100 apiece, once a tip for the mate, travel costs to the dock, and related costs are considered.

That’s not a lot of money for entertainment these days, the per-person cost being just a little bit more than that of a half-day trip on a party boat (here on Long Island, the party boats charge somewhere around $60 for a four or five hour trip, to which tips, transportation, and such must again be added).  But when things are framed in an economic justice context, as those captains did, $100 is still a lot of money for someone with little discretionary cash to pay for a trip on which one might or might not catch a striped bass (mid-summer afternoons probably being the least-likely time to convince one to hit), although targeting other species such as summer flounder, scup, or black sea bass would probably guarantee at least modest success.

Still, the for-hire fleet often couches its arguments for less restrictive regulations in economic justice terms, whatever the species, claiming that they represent poorer folks’ access to the resource, that bag limits must be high enough to allow anglers to take sufficient fish home to justify the costs of the trip, etc. 

And as I noted, that sounds reasonable at first hearing.

But when you think about it a little longer, you begin to realize that in a fisheries context, real economic justice is achieved not by lax regulations which erode the health of fish stocks, and allow higher harvests in the short term, but by effective fisheries conservation measures that increase fish abundance, and ultimately makes fish so widely available that anglers—rich or poor—don’t need to hire a boat at all.

For, while plenty of lower-income folks fish, most fish for food and not just for pleasure, and while a good share of those folks occasionally treat themselves to a for-hire trip, the majority of their angling is done close to home, at places they can access by foot, or maybe by bicycle or even public transport, at minimal cost to themselves.  Places that, unlike the docks where the for-hire boats moor, they can access without even owning a car.

I see such anglers when I drive off Long Island, fishing alongside the Cross Island Parkway and from the jetties and shoreline near the Throggs Neck Bridge.  You can see them fishing in the East River, from Brooklyn’s piers and bulkheads or from the Manhattan shoreline, which gives them access to the Hudson River as well; on the other side of the Hudson, they fish from similar structures jutting out from the New Jersey shore.

You can find their counterparts fishing from pieces of public—or not well fenced-in pieces of private—shoreline in every town and big city along the coast.  Some are equipped with utilitarian rods and reels; some wrap their line around beer cans, having learned to “cast” surprisingly well with such simple gear.

I well remember having a conversation with the groundskeeper of place where we stayed in the middle Keys, who pointed to the small barracuda swimming around the dock and described how he and his wife often depended on them for food after they first arrived from Missouri; the fish kept them going while they were still unemployed.

Such economically disadvantaged anglers who have no ability to follow the fish, anglers who can’t afford to travel to Cape Cod, Point Judith, or Montauk to fish for striped bass, hire a charter for tautog, or fish offshore structure for fluke.

What fish they catch must be fish that come to them, fish that can be caught in their local waters.

The ability for anglers of limited means to experience decent fishing without paying for a boat, or traveling any distance from home, is a real measure of economic justice in our recreational fisheries

It’s a timely issue to consider, as NOAA Fisheries has just released its Equity and Environmental Justice Strategy, which considers how to better share the nation’s marine resources among every resident of the United States, regardless of their economic status.

Such strategy is built around five basic principles.

·        The public should be afforded meaningful opportunities to participate in the formulation, design and execution of Department programs, policies and activities.

·        Tribes should, on a government to government basis, be afforded regular and meaningful consultation and collaboration opportunities in the development of policies that have tribal implications.

·        All populations should share in (and are not excluded from) benefits of Departmental programs, policies or activities affecting human health or the environment.

·        No population should be affected in a disproportionately high and adverse manner by agency programs, policies or activities affecting human health or the environment.

·        The department will engage in environmental justice activities in a transparent and accountable manner.

Three of those principles are primarily process issues, but the other two—which provide that all populations should share in, and none should be disproportionately disadvantaged by NOAA Fisheries policy—are relevant to conservation and management.  Having said that, it should be noted that NOAA Fisheries’ jurisdiction is focused almost entirely on federal waters, three or more miles offshore.  Outside of managing stocks for long-term abundance, it has little ability to aid those folks forced to fish, if they wish to fish at all, from their neighboring shoreline.  Still, the same principles ought to apply on the inshore grounds.

Which brings us back to species such as striped bass.

As anyone familiar with the fishery knows, the last couple of years, and particularly this year and last, have been marked by the big 2015 year class, both with respect to total abundance and to the number of fish falling into the recreational slot limit—currently 28 to 35 inches in most states, but soon to be 28 to 31 inches pursuant to the ASMFC’s recent emergency action—that people can legally take home.  There have been some bigger fish around, but most places aren’t seeing too many smaller fish coming up behind the 2015s.

Fishing can be spectacularly fast when the 2015s are around; you can watch the fish migrate up and down the coast, spurring a flurry of fast fishing wherever they happen to be.  But because most of the year classes between 2004 and 2010 were small, with many well below average, and because the last four years of recruitment in the Maryland portion of Chesapeake Bay, which produces the lion’s share of the migratory fish, has been poor, if the 2015s aren’t around, fishing slows to a near stop.

That’s not too much of a problem for folks who have a boat, and might run 30 miles from their home port to find fish, even if they have to troll over a deeper-water ledge a mile or two from shore in order to put something in the boat.  And it’s at best inconvenient for many surfcasters, who have the vacation time and resources to jump in their trucks and drive up to Cape Cod, take the ferry to Block Island, or take a ride out to Montauk for a few days, following the bite.  But if you’re a guy who pays the rent by washing dishes in the back of some Brooklyn bistro, and just want to toss a chunk of bunker into the East River for a few hours after work, if the 2015s have migrated past, and are now out in Montauk, Rhode Island, or Cape Cod, they might as well not exist at all.

That’s because when a fish population is small, it tends to concentrate in what’s known as its “core range;” in the case of a migratory species such as striped bass, there are typically two such ranges, one where fish feed during the summer (for striped bass, eastern Long Island to Cape Cod) and another where it spends the winter (for bass, traditional the deeper waters off the Virginia/North Carolina border, although the currently warming water has been moving the site somewhat farther north, leaving North Carolina behind).  Outside of those places, fish are generally caught only during their migration.

But when a population is large, competitive pressure causes some fish to leave the core range and feed elsewhere.  An abundant bass populations sees good numbers of fish migrating well into Maine waters, and also sees quite a few so-called “resident” fish remain behind, to summer in coastal bays and estuaries between Delaware and New York.

It is those resident fish that kindle hope in the hearts of urban anglers, and allows them to believe that if they cast a bait out into the Hudson (or Boston Harbor, or Rhode Island’s Providence River), they have a reasonable chance to put a striped bass fillet on the table without having to shell out $100 or more for a few hours fishing from somebody’s boat.

Good striped bass conservation can make that dream come true.

Sometimes, though, conservation isn’t enough.  The folks stuck on the shoreline need a little more help.  Consider scup and black sea bass.

Both are very abundant, but both tend to run larger farther from shore, where only the boats can reach them.  And despite—or perhaps because—they are so abundant, they’re being harvested in high enough numbers that fairly restrictive recreational management measures, including size limits, are still needed to avoid overfishing.

In the case of scup, managers in the northeast are trying to do the right thing, setting a 9 ½-inch size limit for shore-based anglers, an inch less than the 10 ½-inch limit for those fishing from boats.

But back sea bass remains a problem in the northeast.  This year, a mandated 10% landings reduction forced New York to go to a 16 ½-inch size limit.  While I’ve seen such fish in the bays, usually in the May, and always caught from boats, there is little chance for anglers fishing from piers or jetties to catch one big enough to take home.  New York could have kept its old 16-inch limit—and give up just a few days of the season—but the for-hires wanted the extra days.

And to be honest, as a practical matter, to a guy sitting on the end of a pier, the difference between 16 and 16 ½ is pretty close to none.  He probably won’t catch a fish of either size.

Now, New York might have been able to go to a somewhat smaller sea bass size limit, maybe even one small enough to give the folks on shore a realistic shot at a legal fish, if the bag limit didn’t double after August 31.  Might be even easier to drop the size if the state shut down the season sometime in September, the way Massachusetts does, instead of letting it run through the end of the year.

But given that the angling industry folks weren’t willing to give up even a few days of season to keep the 16-inch limit, it’s just about certain than any suggestion to cut out the entire fall season, just to provide a few fish for the guys stuck on shore, would face immediate rejection.

Things just tend to work out that way.

In fisheries, as elsewhere in life, folks talk about equity and economic justice if they think it will win them something that they want, but look the other way, and ignore the issue, if it might cost them anything at all.

NON-COMPLIANCE AT THE ASMFC: IS IT TIME TO INCREASE THE COST?

 

Prior to 1984, state fisheries management on the East Coast was, at best, chaotic.  Every state was on its own, free to adopt—or refuse to adopt—whatever regulations it chose, even when such actions affected the health of stocks that regularly migrated in and out of state waters. 

Things came to a head when the striped bass stock collapsed. 

States were looking at the drastic decline of a species that spawned in the Chesapeake Bay (the Hudson River and Delaware Bay also produced bass at the time but, like today, in far lower numbers), migrated as far north as Maine, and wintered off North Carolina.  No one state had the power to reverse the decline and begin rebuilding bass numbers, because one state’s regulations, no matter how restrictive, became meaningless as soon as the bass swam out of state waters.

As a result, states were reluctant to adopt rules that might negatively impact their local fishermen, knowing that they would only be protecting fish that might later be caught by fishermen in another jurisdiction.  The continuing decline eventually forced many states’ hands.  Some adopted larger size limits, while some completely shut down their fisheries.

Some were reluctant to do either.  When New York’s Senate and Assembly passed legislation to raise the striped bass size limit to 24 inches, then-Governor Mario Cuomo seriously considered vetoing the bill, although he eventually signed it at the urging of governors from other northeastern states.

Even after such actions were taken, the coast remained a patchwork of inconsistent rules, and the bass population continued to suffer. 

That changed in 1984, after Congress passed the Atlantic Striped Bass Conservation Act, which authorized the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission not only to devise a striped bass management plan, but to compel all coastal jurisdictions to adopt and enforce it.  Any state which failed to do so risked having a federal moratorium imposed on its striped bass fishery.

As a result, all the states adopted uniform rules, and the striped bass stock was rebuilt.

In 1993, Congress expanded the ASMFC’s management authority by passing the Atlantic Coastal Fisheries Cooperative Management Act, which gave the ASMFC the power to impose its management plans for all ASMFC-managed species on its member states, and authorized the Secretary of Commerce to shut down the relevant fisheries of states which don’t comply.

However, the ASMFC is based on the principle of cooperative management, and there will always be people who don’t cooperate when they believe that they can get more by striking out on their own.  Such folks began to examine the Atlantic Coastal Fisheries act, seeking its Achilles’ heel.

It didn’t take them too long to find it:  Imposing a moratorium under the Act takes time.

Before a moratorium may be imposed, the ASMFC’s relevant species management board must first find a state out of compliance.  Then, the ASMFC’s Interstate Fishery Management Program Policy Board must agree.  Once non-compliance has been established, the ASMFC has ten “working days” to notify the Secretary of Commerce of its non-compliance finding.  The Secretary then has 30 days to determine not only that the state in question is, in fact, out of compliance with the terms of a management plan, but also

“whether the measures that the State has failed to implement and enforce are necessary for the conservation of the fishery in question.”

After that, if the Secretary of Commerce decides that the state has, in fact, failed to comply with a portion of the management plan that is necessary to achieve conservation goals, she would have to impose a moratorium on the relevant state fisheries, but could delay the moratorium's implementation by up to six months.

That long sequence of actions provides an uncooperative state the opportunity to go out of compliance with a fishery management plan, continue to fish at impermissibly high levels for much of the season, and then agree to comply with the plan only at the last minute, after the decision to impose a moratorium has been made.

Depending upon the compliance date (the date by which a state must conform to the most recent version of an ASMFC management plan), the timing of the next management board and Policy Board meetings, whether or not the Secretary of Commerce waits the full 30 days before issuing the moratorium decision, and when any moratorium might become effective, a state might be able to fish for most--even all--of a season pursuant to non-compliant regulations, without incurring any consequences at all.

For an example of how that might work, consider New York’s summer flounder rules in 2004.  At the time, neighboring New Jersey was allocated nearly 40% of all recreational summer flounder landings; New York’s allocation was less than half that amount, even though boats from the two states exploited the same stock of fish and sometimes fished right next to one another.  As a result, the ASMFC’s then-existing management plan forced New York’s regulations to be far more restrictive than those of its neighboring states.

In 2004, the forced disparity between states’ regulations convinced New York to go out of compliance with the ASMFC’s summer flounder management plan.  The process provided in the Atlantic Coastal Fisheries Cooperative Management Act played out, the Secretary of Commerce ultimately found New York out of compliance, and imposed a moratorium beginning—if I remember correctly—at some point in August.  So on July 30, 2004, New York adopted new regulations that complied with the management plan.

By going out of compliance, New York allowed its anglers to fish throughout May, June, and July under more liberal rules, without suffering any consequences at all.

More recently, Virginia’s legislature refused to comply with the ASMFC’s menhaden management plan.  As a result, Virginia was out of compliance for about two years but, like New York, escaped scot-free.

In that case, the issue was the amount of menhaden that Virginia’s industrial menhaden fleet, serving the so-called “reduction fishery,” could remove from the Chesapeake Bay.  

The conflict began in 2017, after the ASMFC’s Atlantic Menhaden Management Board voted to reduce the cap on the reduction fleet’s landings in the Chesapeake from 87,216 to 51,000 metric tons.  At the time, Virginia regulators had no authority to manage the menhaden fishery; such management authority was vested solely in the state legislature (a situation which has since changed), and the legislature steadfastly refused to adopt the 51,000 metric ton cap.

At that point, Virginia was out of compliance, but the ASMFC took no immediate action, as the reduction fleet’s landings had been less than 51,000 metric tons in recent years.  A non-compliance motion made during the 2018 season was indefinitely postponed.  But in September 2019, Omega Protein, the only participant in the state's reduction fishery, announced that it had already landed about 65,000 metric tons of menhaden within the Bay, exceeding the new cap on landings.

Virginia was found to be out of compliance at the ASMFC’s fall meeting.  The Secretary of Commerce ultimately agreed, and imposed a moratorium that would become effective before the menhaden season began the following spring. 

In the meantime, the Virginia legislature took action that allowed Virginia to come back into compliance, and rendered the moratorium decision moot.  However, Omega Protein still managed to get away with exceeding the menhaden cap, and suffered no penalty for landing the additional 14,000 metric tons.

And then there's the State of New Jersey.

In 2017, New Jersey adopted summer flounder regulations that not only failed to comply with the management plan, but were so far from compliance that not a single member of the Summer Flounder, Scup, and Black Sea Bass Management Board was even willing to second New Jersey’s motion for discussion purposes.  The state was duly found out of compliance by both the Management Board and the Policy Board, and such finding forwarded on to the Secretary of Commerce.

There was no question that the state was out of compliance with the management plan; however, at the time, there were close political ties between then-Governor Chris Christie and the new Trump administration, and the state gambled that such ties would lead to Wilbur Ross, the Secretary of Commerce, finding that the New Jersey rules were good enough to conserve the summer flounder resource, and that compliance was thus not “necessary for the conservation of the fishery.”

And that’s just what happened.  Without even consulting the experts at the ASMFC, at the National Marine Fisheries Service’s Greater Atlantic Fisheries Regional Office, or at NMFS’ Northeast Fisheries Science Center, the Secretary somehow determined that New Jersey’s rules were OK.

Even if the Secretary’s decision had gone the other way, there was no reason not to gamble, because the worst that might have happened was that the state had to adopt new rules mid-season, after enjoying more relaxed regulations for a while.

Which is why there is real concern that New Jersey may bethinking about going out of compliance with the ASMFC’s recent decision toadopt emergency measures to protect the striped bass fishery.  

While New Jersey no longer has a sympathetic ear sitting atop the Department of Commerce, it does have a long history of seeking self-serving exceptions to the striped bass management measures adopted by the ASMFC.  And it has nothing to lose by going out of compliance right now, fishing under its old rules (which, it should be noted, already include a 28- to 38-inch slot limit, rather than the 28- to 35-inch slot in the management plan) for most of the season, and only coming into compliance when and if the threat of a moratorium looms.

Yes, it would be acting in bad faith if it did so.  But when you talk about New Jersey and fisheries management in the same breath, bad faith is assumed.

The ASMFC should probably come up with a way to discourage such actions.  So long as a state can go out of compliance, at least for a while, and suffer no consequences, bad faith is likely to prevail.  What the ASMFC needs is a means to impose real consequences for a state’s non-compliance decision.

The most logical way to do that would be to require some sort of payback, which would strip any benefits from a failed non-compliance bid.  

That is easy to do in commercial fisheries; for example, when Virginia exceeded the Chesapeake Bay menhaden reduction cap by 14,000 metric tons in 2019, in defiance of the ASMFC’s management plan, and was subsequently found out of compliance, it would have been easy to reduce the 2020 Bay cap from 51,000 to 37,000 metric tons—IF the management plan allowed for such action.  

Unfortunately, the menhaden management plan doesn't call for such paybacks.

Recreational fisheries are a little tougher to deal with, for without a hard quota associated with the management measure, it is difficult to say just how many fish a state might be required to pay back.  

In a perfect world, one might argue that the payback should encompass all landings of the relevant species which occur between the compliance deadline and the date on which the state finally adopted ASMFC-approved measures, effectively making the moratorium retroactive to the first act of non-compliance.

Unfortunately, while such action would certainly deter states from going out of compliance, it is not permitted by current law.  The Atlantic Coastal Fisheries Cooperative Management Act states that the effective date of any moratorium

“shall be any date within 6 months after declaration of the moratorium [emphasis added],”

which, absent an amendment to the Act, takes the possibility of any retroactive application of a moratorium decision off the table.

Other approaches remain available.

A state that fails to comply with a management plan would presumably land more fish than it would have if it complied.  As an example of how that would work, let's say that State X landed 100,000 fish in Year One, and a subsequent change to the management plan would have reduced that amount by 25%, if State X went out of compliance and caught 900,000 fish in Year Two, it should have to pay back 150,000 fish (900,000 minus the 750,000 it would have caught had it complied) in Year Three.

Folks who follow fisheries management will immediately argue that such a formula is far too simplistic, as there is uncertainty surrounding both the Year One and Year Two landings estimates, and also because it is almost certain that other factors, such as fish availability and angling effort, differed somewhat between the two years.  

Even though such objections are valid, the intention here is not to determine the precise overage, but to provide some basis for a payback, in orter to deter states from gaming the non-compliance process.  Requiring payback at a higher level—say, 125%, or even 150%, of any calculated overage—would undoubtedly prove even more effective.

Some sort of deterrent is certainly needed, even though any effort to impose one would undoubtedly meet with resistance.  A payback of excess landings could probably be included in an amendment to a fishery management plan.  Anything else would require a statutory amendment, and thus be far more difficult to put in place.

But resistance can be overcome, and “difficult” does not mean “impossible.”

In an ideal world, every state would be willing to cooperate in order to achieve a common goal. 

In the real world, unwilling cooperation, achieved through coercion, will probably always be needed to get the job done.

 

 

 

SCARE TACTICS IN THE SOUTH ATLANTIC

 

I’ve noticed a trend over the past two or three years.

“Neighborhood” websites, Facebook groups, and similar sorts of social media are appearing across the Internet.  Although they were originally designed to provide neighbors with a way to share local information —perhaps local politics or school board elections, or where to buy a good pizza or donate a used couch (not to mention providing some advertising revenue to the site’s owner)—it usually doesn’t take long for such sites to be taken over by paranoid residents and conspiracy theorists, who track every man, woman, or child who fails to pick up after their dog, and are certain that teenaged kids can’t walk down the road without being involved in some kind of crime.

If you’re really fortunate, someone might post a photo of an unidentified drunk urinating in their front yard.

There is wailing about the general breakdown of society, and how the world as we know it is coming to an end.

And it’s remarkable to see how many people join in.

There’s just something about conspiracy theories and threats of impending doom that seem to appeal to the human psyche.  People seem to want to believe that they’re victims of some sort of scam.  Politicians, fundraisers, and various charitable organizations have taken advantage of that for years, to invoke knee-jerk reactions and keep folks from thinking rationally about pending issues.  And, of course, to keep them off-balance enough that they’re willing to open up their checkbooks and send in donations without really understanding how that cash will be used.

So yes, we’ve seen it for years, but it still rubs me the wrong way when I see such invitations to unthinking hysteria invade the saltwater sportfishing space.

The latest incursion took the form of an article titled “A Permit in Sheep’s Clothing,” which was written by Ted Venker, a spokesman for the Coastal Conservation Association, and appeared in Sport Fishing magazine.  In it, Venker tries to convince anglers that the National Marine Fisheries Service—long one of CCA’s favorite boogeymen—is plotting to prevent anglers from fishing.  The agency will supposedly accomplish that goal by requiring (in South Atlantic waters),  

“a federal permit for offshore anglers to get a better handle on who is fishing offshore and [will] use that information to determine better harvest and bycatch data.”

Even Venker admits that such proposal is innocuous, and even makes sense—on its surface.  But then he rolls out the conspiracy stuff.

Supposedly, anglers should be wary of the permit proposal, first because the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act already requires that recreational fishermen be licensed, so NMFS should supposedly be able to obtain any data it needs by tweaking the license database, and secondly because individuals within NMFS have allegedly stated that there is a need for recreational “effort rationalization,” which Venker interprets as a need to limit the number of anglers.

There are problems with both such objections, but before getting into that, some background is probably needed.

The call for a federal recreational fishing permit in the South Atlantic was largely a response to problems in the South Atlantic red snapper fishery, which remains overfished, has been experiencing overfishing since the 1960s, and saw spawning stock biomass beaten down to very low levels; the first benchmark stock assessment, conducted in 2007, found a fishing mortality rate 7.7 times the fishing mortality target, and a spawning stock biomass just 3% of its target level.

Such stock assessment led to strict management measures intended to rebuild the red snapper population; managers initially closed the fishery but, as biomass increased, began to allow a limited harvest.  In recent years, directed harvest has proven to be the least of the red snappers’ problems  Because the fish is part of a multi-species snapper/grouper complex that shares the same hard-bottom habitat, red snapper are often caught incidentally by anglers targeting other species when the season for their retention is closed.  Because most of those snapper are caught in deeper water, they often suffer barotrauma and don’t survive after being released.  Thus, regulatory discards of red snapper in other recreational fisheries now constitutes the largest source of fishing mortality.

The recreational and commercial seasons are extremely short—with the recreational season perhaps limited to a single weekend—because anglers kill so many red snapper when the season is closed.

Converting at least some of those dead discards into landings would be desirable; if that can’t be done through other means, it is possible that NMFS might close wide expanses of ocean to all bottom fishing during part of the year, although to date, the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council has opposed all efforts to do so.

Good data is critical to improving red snapper management.  As Venker correctly noted,

“federal information on recreational discards is probably the poorest-quality dataset in all of federal fisheries management.”

The offshore permit was postulated, in part, to improve the quality of red snapper discard data.

Requiring such permits is hardly a new idea.

When I bought my first marginally offshore-capable boat—a 20-foot Sea Ox center console powered by a single 115 hp Johnson outboard—in 1982, I had to obtain a federal bluefin tuna permit before taking it to the tuna grounds.  That original permit slowly morphed from a bluefin tuna permit that made no distinction between recreational and commercial fishermen into my current Angling Category Atlantic Highly Migratory Species Permit with Shark Endorsement, which I must have not only to fish for bluefin, but for all Atlantic tunas, swordfish, sharks, and billfish. 

A few times each season, I get a letter from NMFS, telling me that I will be contacted by someone who will ask me when I fished and what I caught during a particular two-week period.  When the telephone call comes, I provide the NMFS representative with the requested information, say goodbye, and maybe—or maybe not—get another such call a month or so down the line.  The data provided by anglers all along the coast, throughout the season, provides NMFS with a more comprehensive look at the offshore recreational HMS fishery than it would likely obtain from the Marine Recreational Information Program survey, because the universe of offshore fishermen is relatively small, and they could easily fall through the cracks of a more generalized survey.

While NMFS could, in theory, mine the database of licensed anglers, and perhaps send out a questionnaire to the entire database asking them whether they fish offshore, and what they caught if they do, but that would be an unwieldy, expensive process, and could be badly biased by non-response.  Requiring any anglers pursuing highly migratory species in federal waters to hold a permit, which they can easily obtain merely by filling out an online form and providing a credit card for the processing costs, is a simpler and more efficient way to obtain better data.

NMFS has never given any cause to believe that such permit threatened anglers’ ability to fish offshore.

Similarly, when the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council wanted better data on the recreational fishery for golden and blueline tilefish a few years ago, it put a permitting requirement into place.  Tilefish are a seldom-encountered species in the Marine Recreational Information Program, and the only way to get the needed data was to define the universe of tilefish anglers, and require them to report on their fishing activities.  Once again, anyone who wants a permit can get one simply by applying online.

There is no evidence that a federal South Atlantic fishing permit would be any different.  It would weed out the many licensed anglers who focus on red drum, seatrout, snook, and the like, while providing NMFS with a database of those fishermen who actually venture offshore, allowing the agency to direct data inquiries to the folks who are actually participating in the fishery.

Yes, NMFS could probably query every licensed fisherman in the relevant states, in an effort to find out who fishes offshore and might provide the needed information, but that would merely create a massive manpower and financial burden on an agency that is already stretched thin for funds.  Requiring a permit makes for more sense, spreading the manpower burden over the every angler who might be fishing offshore, who could obtain the permit through an automated process while paying their share of the costs of the program.

It's hard to see anything threatening there.

As far as recreational “effort rationalization” goes, anglers have to admit a simple truth:  The fish are under more pressure today than they experienced in the past.  Over the last forty years, recreational effort, measured by the number of trips, has been slowly, but steadily, increasing.

That has certainly been the case in the South Atlantic.  In 1982, anglers in the region made less than 55 million trips, targeting all available species.  That number increased to more than 61 million trips in 1992, around 69 million trips in 2002 and 2012, and nearly 72 million trips in 2022.  Thus, fishing effort increased by more than 30% over the course of four decades (it should be noted that effort varies from year to year, and 2022 doesn’t represent the peak of overall fishing activity; that occurred in 2010, when nearly 80 million trips were taken).

But we’re talking about a federal recreational fishing permit, so overall trips aren’t the ones that matter; such permit would only be required of anglers fishing more than 3 miles offshore.  When we look at South Atlantic effort through that lens, we see the nearly 2.6 million offshore trips taken in 1982 increase just slightly, to less than 2.7 million trips, in 1992, then jump to nearly 3.9 million trips in 2002, before dropping off to 3.3 million trips in 2012 and 3.4 million trips in 2022.  Still, although not the highest number in the time series (which would be the nearly 5.3 million trips—double the 1982 figure—taken in 2018), the 2022 estimate would again represent a greater than 30% increase in recreational fishing effort during the period.

It’s a pretty fair bet that the biomass of South Atlantic reef fish didn’t increase by 30% over the same period. 

We also need to acknowledge that the technical advances in boats, fishing electronics, and fishing tackle have made today’s anglers far more efficient than they were forty years ago.  Fast, long-ranged, more sea-capable boats, equipped with GPS, side-scan and 360-degree electronics, and “spot-lock” technologies that allow boats to hover above a small piece of hard bottom with minimal skill or effort involved, coupled with advances in braided lines that let anglers get away with lighter jigs and sinkers when fishing deep water, mean that anglers are fishing far more effectively today than they did in the ‘80s, when everyone was still getting along with LORAN C, had to learn how to anchor over a piece of productive structure, and were somewhat limited in the depth that they could fish due to relatively large-diameter Dacron and monofilament lines.

At some point, between an increasing number of angler trips and increasingly efficient angling technologies, the need to maintain fish stocks at sustainable levels will probably require some restrictions on recreational effort.  That’s just reality.

However, restrictions on effort do not automatically equate into creating privileged classes of anglers, who can fish (because they hold a permit), and a mass of those who cannot.  Instead, effort restrictions can just as easily be accomplished by imposing closed seasons, which have been well-tested fishery management tools, in both fresh and salt water, for many decades.

The seasons may have to be tweaked a bit, to minimize the sort of discard mortality issues that are plaguing red snapper bycatch, but there is no question that can be done.

In the end, it may be that the data developed by a federal recreational fisheries permit demonstrates that such restrictions aren’t needed.  It’s not inconceivable that, if better data could be obtained from a larger universe of snapper/grouper anglers, we might learn that red snapper discards are less than currently believed, and that the recreational season could be expanded.

But that, of course, is not why we’re seeing the scare tactics hauled out.

Because it is equally—let’s be honest, it’s far more—conceivable that, if NMFS increased the accuracy of its data, not only regarding red snapper releases but also regarding the effort, catch, and landings affecting other members of the snapper/grouper complex, it could discover that the recreational fishery’s footprint is greater than currently believed, and that additional restrictions are needed.  That would certainly be unpalatable, both to CCA and, by extension, to the Center for Sportfishing Policy to which it pays fealty, and which zealously guards the sportfishing industry’s ability to sell copious quantities of boats, bait, and tackle.

Thus, Venker once again seeks to make anglers suspicious of the federal fisheries management process, so that he can call for his favorite nostrum, suggesting

“One way anglers could support the original goal of an offshore permit is to task the states with adapting their own systems—which already exist—to determine the offshore angling universe.  Putting the states in charge and ensuring that any such permit is used only for data collection and education purposes has a much higher likelihood of cooperation and success.”

Such suggestion is, of course, a red herring, as even if data is collected by state managers, federal managers could still use it to place onerous restrictions on anglers, if the data indicated that such restrictions were called for.

Thus, it’s easy to believe that the motivation for opposing a federal permit is far simpler.  Inducing the South Atlantic states to develop their own recreational data programs, similar to programs developed by the states bordering the Gulf of Mexico to monitor their red snapper landings, could easily create the same issue that already arose in the Gulf:  State programs that employ a different methodology than does the MRIP survey, and so undercount (when compared to MRIP) recreational landings, and so creating another opportunity to attack the federal management system and to promote state programs that would allow higher landings.

So if the song seems familiar, it’s because we’ve all seen this show before.

It’s unfortunate, and a little sad, that we’re now seeing scare tactics being used in the South Atlantic, in an effort to manufacture the same sort of long-running, self-serving red snapper crisis that we’ve seen in the Gulf.

But given human nature, and the interests involved, it was probably inevitable.

 

 

NEW JERSEY THREATENS STRIPED BASS REBUILDING

 

After the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board adopted emergency management measures, which would substantially reduce 2023 recreational landings, at its last meeting, there was reason to hope that the bass population was on the road to recovery.

After all, the emergency measure passed on a 15-1 vote, with only New Jersey dissenting.  With that sort of overwhelming support, it would seem that the emergency measures would be quickly adopted, and fishing mortality quickly reduced to something approaching sustainable levels.

And that might have happened—if the dissenter wasn’t New Jersey.  For as anyone familiar with East Coast fisheries knows, New Jersey has a long history of opposing conservation measures, no matter how badly needed, of gaming the system in order to kill more and smaller fish than its neighboring states, and of defying fishery managers who dare to suggest a need to keep a few more fish in the water, regardless of the species involved.

Given New Jersey’s history over the last thirty years, I wouldn’t be surprised to see the state’s legislature name the fish hog as New Jersey’s official animal.

Thus, I also wasn’t surprised by what happened a week ago, when New Jersey’s Marine Fisheries Commission met to discuss, among other things, the striped bass emergency measures.

On the surface, it seemed that there was little worth discussing.  The ASMFC had approved the emergency management measures, and under federal law, states must comply with the ASMFC’s management actions, or face a possible closure of the relevant fishery.  

But New Jersey has eluded the law before, most recently in 2017, when it proposed non-compliant summer flounder regulations that were so bad that no other member of the ASMFC’s Summer Flounder, Scup, and Black Sea Bass Management Board would even second New Jersey’s motion for discussion purposes, but managed to leverage then-governor Chris Christie’s relationship with the new Trump administration to convince the doddering Secretary of Commerce, Wilbur Ross, to override the ASMFC’s objections to such non-compliant rules.

Thus, whether or not a discussion of the emergency measures was merited, it went on nonetheless.  The Asbury Park Press reported that

“There were some strong words spoken by the public at the council meeting, as New Jersey grapples with the [ASMFC’s] decision.  Some such as Eddie Yates, a charter boat captain and United Boatmen member, said the ruling will only lead to more discards as fishermen will throw back more fish as they try to land a keeper.

“Ray Bogan, legal counsel for the United Boatmen of NY/NJ, questioned what benefit the state derives from being part of the ASMFC..

“The ASMFC made the decision to implement a smaller size limit to protect the 2015 year class of striped bass, which is reaching the plus 31-inch size right now, so as to meet a 2029 stock rebuilding goal.  However, it did so without public input which Bogan said ‘was not an open and fair process.’

“’We should not be subjugated to this type of regulatory process,’ Bogan said, suggesting the state go ahead and go out of compliance.

“Greg Cudnik, owner of Fishermen’s Headquarters in Ship Bottom, however, feared going out of compliance and subsequent moratorium if it got that far could jeopardize his tackle business.”

The Marine Fisheries Commission ultimately took no action on the emergency measures, instead referring the matter to its Striped Bass Advisory Committee, which is scheduled to act in June; shortly after that, the Marine Fisheries Commission is planning to hold a special meeting, at which a vote on the emergency measures will, presumably, be taken.  

Whether that will leave time for the state to put compliant regulations in place before the July 2 deadline remains to be seen.

It's still possible that such regulations will be adopted in a timely manner.  It's also possible that New Jersey will choose to go out of compliance and do nothing at all.  The members of the Management Board, and of the ASMFC’s Interstate Fishery Management Program Policy Board, ought to be thinking about what they will do if New Jersey opts for the latter course.

New Jersey’s recreational fishermen kill a lot of striped bass.  Back in 2020, the state convinced the Management Board to allow New Jersey anglers to fish under a 28- to 38-inch slot limit, which lets them kill fish—the majority of them mature females—larger than the 35-inch recreational maximum that was in effect for most of the rest of the coast.  And after New Jersey eliminated its commercial fishery sometime in the late 1970s or 1980s, it decided to allocate its commercial quota to the recreational sector, and to let them kill little striped bass—fish between 24 and 28 inches long—which include a lot of immature females that never get the chance to spawn even once.

In 2022, recreational fishermen between Virginia and Maine landed nearly 3.5 million striped bass, which weighed about 36 million pounds.  Roughly one-third of such bass—about 1.1 million fish, weighing 13.5 million pounds—died off New Jersey, which clearly makes New Jersey’s adoption of the ASMFC’s management measures crucial to the future of the striped bass stock.  

If New Jersey fails to adopt the emergency measures, it will become significantly more difficult to rebuild the striped bass stock by 2029, and given recent poor recruitment, perhaps for a very long time after that.  Thus, it is in everyone’s interest to ensure that New Jersey adopts the emergency measures as soon as possible, even if the state must be coerced into doing so.

The Atlantic Coastal Fisheries Cooperative Management Act provides,

“The [ASMFC] shall determine that a State is not in compliance with the provisions of a coastal fisheries management plan if it finds that the State has not implemented and enforced such plan within the timeframes established under the plan…”

Upon making such determination, the ASMFC must forward its findings to the Secretary of Commerce who, after making independent determinations that the state is, in fact, out of compliance with one or more management measures and that such measures are necessary for the conservation of the relevant fishery.  Assuming that the Secretary supports the noncompliance finding, she must declare a moratorium on fishing in such fishery.

While that sounds like a reasonable way to deal with a recalcitrant New Jersey, timing could make it all meaningless.  New Jersey could easily find a way to game the system once again.  

The next scheduled meetings of the Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board and the Policy Board will take place sometime between August 1^st and August 3^rd, with the Policy Board typically convening on the last day, to address any issues that might arise during the various management board meetings.  Assuming that New Jersey was found out of compliance by both relevant boards, the ASMFC would then have 10 business days—until August 12—to notify the Secretary of Commerce, who in turn would have up to 30 days—until September 11—to determine whether New Jersey failed to adopt a management measure that is necessary to conserve the striped bass resource.

After that, assuming a positive finding, the Secretary could delay imposing the moratorium for up to six months, at which point a new addendum to the management plan will have already rendered the adoption of the emergency measures moot.  At best, even a more timely imposition of the moratorium would allow the existing regulations to extend farther into the fall.

Under such a scenario, New Jersey would have effectively defied the will of the other 15 members of the Management Board, done significant harm to the striped bass stock and its chances of a full recovery, and escaped most and possibly all consequences for its intransigence.

But there could be a way to avoid such an outcome (assuming that New Jersey doesn’t decide to grudgingly honor its obligations as an ASMFC member and adopt the emergency measures, making any additional actions unnecessary).

First, the Management Board and Policy Board must assume that New Jersey will remain non-compliant, and tentatively schedule meetings to address the issue shortly after the Fourth of July (while July 2^nd is the compliance date, scheduling such meetings for Monday, the 3^rd is a little too much to hope for, given the long Fourth of July weekend).  Simply by doing that, they can cut a month out of the non-compliance process.

The Management and Policy Boards should then seriously consider making their findings under the Atlantic Striped Bass Conservation Act, rather than the Atlantic Coastal Fisheries Cooperative Management Act. 

Under the former statute, the ASMFC would need to notify both the Secretary of Commerce and the Secretary of the Interior of a non-compliance finding.  However, the secretaries would only be required to find that New Jersey was out of compliance with the Management Board’s emergency action; there would be no need to take the next step, required under the Atlantic Coastal Fisheries Cooperative Management Act, of determining whether such action was necessary to conserve the fishery.  That, alone, should streamline the secretarial process, and allow a decision to be made in less than the 30 day maximum period provided by law.

The Atlantic Striped Bass Conservation Act also provides that

“if the State is not in compliance, the Secretaries shall declare jointly a moratorium on fishing for Atlantic striped bass within the coastal waters of that coastal State,”

without specifying the time within which a moratorium must be imposed.  Such language suggests that any moratorium must be imposed promptly.

If the ASMFC called special meetings (which could be held virtually) to address New Jersey’s failure to comply, and then invoked the moratorium provisions of the Atlantic Striped Bass Conservation Act, they might be able to cut a month, and perhaps even two, off time it would take to put a moratorium in place.

In addition, violating a moratorium imposed under the Atlantic Striped Bass Conservation Act exposes the violator to substantial civil penalties, which could include assessments of as much as $100,000 (although in the real world, absent aggravating circumstances, they would be far less), and the possible forfeiture of

“any vessel (including its gear, equipment, appurtenances, stores, and cargo) used, and any fish (or the fair market value thereof) taken or retained, in any manner, in connection with, or as the result of, the commission of any act that is unlawful [after a moratorium has been imposed].”

Such provisions would go a long way to deter a for-hire operator from repeatedly taking his passengers “fishing for bluefish” in an area holding large numbers of bass once a moratorium has been imposed.

It’s unfortunate that, given the current state of the striped bass stock, that there is any need to seriously consider the possibility that New Jersey, or any other state, would put the future health of the stock in jeopardy by going out of compliance with the emergency measures.  However, New Jersey’s opposition to such emergency measures is an example of what happens when a state fishery management infrastructure—and by infrastructure, I include both the state agency and the organizations which allegedly represent recreational interests—is dominated by the for-hire fleet and other elements of a fishing industry concerned only with profits, which is unresponsive, and often hostile, to the concerns of the private anglers.

Yet such anglers' concerns were heard last night, at the first of four virtual hearings that the ASMFC has scheduled to address the emergency measures.  At that hearing, 17 out of the 19 persons who spoke supported the emergency action. Eight were anglers from New Jersey, who not only supported the emergency measures, but blasted their state for not clearly doing so.

It will be interesting to see whether that trend continues in the remaining three hearings.

It will also be interesting to see whether New Jersey listens to the voice of its anglers, or whether it will continue to heed the voices that speak neither for the resource nor for the anglers, but only for themselves.

 

 

 

 

 

WHY STRIPED BASS MATTER

 

Over the course of a year, this blog will cover a range of topics that might range from Florida red snapper to Alaskan salmon to whales off the mid-Atlantic coast.  But if someone took the time to count up and characterize every post, I wouldn’t be shocked to learn that more posts mentioned striped bass than mentioned any other species.

There are a lot of reasons why that might be true. 

Although the commercial fishery for striped bass is relatively small and, except in parts of the Chesapeake Bay, generally involves very small—often one or two person—fishing operations, over the past decade or two, the recreational striped bass fishery, measured in pounds of fish landed, has been the most important recreational fishery in the United States.  Its importance becomes even more manifest when one realizes that the recreational striped bass fishery emphasizes catch and release; in a typical year, about 90% of the bass caught by anglers are returned to the water.

To put the species’ importance in context, anglers in New England and the mid-Atlantic took a little more than 20 million trips that primarily targeted striped bass in 2022.  That’s just a little bit less than the approximately 21 million directed trips taken for the next five most popular species combined (summer flounder, 9.1 million; tautog, 4.0 million; scup, 3.3 million; bluefish, 2.5 million; and black sea bass, 1.6 million).

And that’s with the striped bass stock still overfished.  Marine Recreational Information Program data makes it very clear that abundance drives striped bass fishing effort, so if the stock was in better condition, we would expect such effort to be substantially higher than it was in 2022.

So, with recreational striped bass landings having aboutdoubled in 2022, when compared to the year before, and with very lowrecruitment occurring in Maryland over the past four years--with reason to believe that it won’t improve substantially, if at all, this year--we probably ought to ask the question:   What happens to recreational fishermen, and to the recreational fishing industry in the northeast and mid-Atlantic, if the striped bass stock not only fails to rebuild, but declines farther, perhaps to the point of collapse?

History can suggest a probable outcome.

In 1985, the Atlantic striped bass stock had just about bottomed out.  It had collapsed a few years before, and would not show any signs of recovery for another few years, although what ultimately proved to be a successful recovery plan had just been put in place.  Such scarcity tended to deter anglers from striped bass fishing; only about 1.3 million directed striped bass trips were taken that year.

Instead of leading all other northeast/mid-Atlantic species in terms of angling effort, striped bass were sixth on the list, behind bluefish (9.5 million trips), winter flounder (6.2 million trips), summer flounder (5.5 million trips), weakfish (1.9 million trips), and tautog (1.5 million trips).  That’s a somewhat different species mix than we saw in 2022; the 1985 numbers don’t include either scup or black sea bass, which only inspired trivial effort back then, but included winter flounder which, except for a few places off New England, don’t even support a fishery these days, and weakfish, which supported more than ten times the effort than they do today.

One thing to keep in mind when comparing 1985 and 2022 effort estimates is that, over all, anglers in the northeast and mid-Atlantic fished more in recent years than they did back in the 1980s, taking about 66.5 million overall trips in 2022, compared to about 46.2 million in 1985.  Thus, while anglers may have taken fewer trips targeting particular species in 1985 than they did in 2022, we’d probably have to multiply the 1985 estimates by 1.44 to make them comparable to the 2022 figures.

But the point of this discussion is that if the striped bass population collapsed, a very significant portion of the revenues now attributable to saltwater recreational fishing in the northeast and mid-Atlantic would probably disappear.  Back in 1985—in fact, throughout much of the 1980s—a lack of striped bass could be offset by anglers switching effort to other species.  The region’s top five recreational species were primary targets of 24.6 million trips, substantially more than either striped bass or the next five most popular species, taken in aggregate, account for today.

Just for the purposes of this discussion, let’s assume that the striped bass stock collapsed again, and effort fell along with it, dropping to something like 2 million trips.  Where could anglers, the for-hire fleet, and the overall recreational fishing industry look to make up the 18 million trips lost to a striped bass stock collapse?

They probably couldn’t look to bluefish.  In 1985, bluefish took up much of the slack caused by the striped bass collapse.  They were very abundant—in fact, the time series currently used to evaluate the stock indicates that 1985 was the apex of bluefish abundance—and so could easily absorb some of the angler effort that shifted away from the striped bass fishery.  Today, the stock is much smaller.  Although some areas experience good bluefish action at times during the season, such action is not consistent anywhere throughout the fishing year.  As a result, effort has declined by about 75% compared to 1985; while some anglers might switch over to bluefish if the striped bass stock collapsed, the stock is nowhere near robust enough to support significantly increased effort.

And they certainly couldn’t look to winter flounder, since the Southern New England/Mid-Atlantic stock has collapsed, the status of the Gulf of Maine stock is unknown (although fish don’t seem to be abundant) and a recent stock assessment indicated that any significant increase in abundance is unlikely at any time in the foreseeable future.

Weakfish don’t offer much more hope.  Although there is quite a bit of anecdotal evidence suggesting that abundance may be increasing, the fish still aren’t exactly jumping into the boat.  Total directed effort in 2022 was well under 200,000 trips; even if such effort doubled, it wouldn’t do much to make up for the 18 million trips lost if the bass stock collapsed.

That leaves tautog, scup, and black sea bass.

The former species is still overfished in parts of its range, and still recovering elsewhere.  It is not a candidate for substantially increased fishing effort.

In the case of scup and black sea bass, both species are very abundant, with spawning stock biomass close to 200% of the target levels.  On the other hand, such biomass is steadily decreasing at current effort levels, while anglers have consistently exceeded the recreational harvest limit in recent years.  Such factors make it unlikely that either one could sustain a significant spike in recreational fishing effort.

When you look at the numbers, it’s clear that there is no substitute for striped bass in the New England/mid-Atlantic recreational fishery.  Even in its current state, the bass remains, by far, the most popular fish in the region, and the species most important to the recreational fishing industry.

Industry members who are critical of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s recent actions to reduce recreational landings and rebuild the spawning stock are therefore arguing against their own interests.  For without the striped bass, the region’s recreational saltwater fishery would be a shadow of what it is today, and would generate correspondingly fewer economic benefits.

It’s also worth considering whether anglers, unable to catch a striped bass and facing substantially reduced numbers of bluefish and weakfish as well, would merely walk away from the sport and never return, even if striped bass abundance eventually improved.  If they decided to permanently abandon the sport, the impact on the long-term health of the recreational fishing industry would be profound.

Thus, conserving and properly managing striped bass isn’t merely important from an ecosystem perspective, or in the eyes of the many anglers who prefer to fish for striped bass, and have little desire to target other species.  Good striped bass conservation and management is also important to the health of every saltwater angling-related business between Virginia and Maine.

That’s a truth that the fishing industry would ignore at its peril.

ASMFC ACTS TO REBUILD STRIPED BASS

 

On May 2, 2023, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s (ASMFC) Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board (Board) took two decisive actions that will hopefully ensure that the currently overfished striped bass stock will be fully rebuilt by 2029.

 

Six months ago, such actions didn’t appear to be needed. The ASMFC’s Atlantic Striped Bass Technical Committee (Technical Committee) had determined that, at the end of 2021, striped bass were experiencing fishing mortality rate of only 0.14, which was slightly below the target rate of 0.17. If such low fishing mortality rate continued into the future, there was a 78.6% probability that the overfished stock would be fully rebuilt by 2029; even if the fishing mortality rate increased to the target level, there was a slightly better than even chance that the stock would rebuild by then.

 

However, some members of the Board were not optimistic. At its November 2022 meeting, Dr. Michael Armstrong, a Massachusetts fishery manager, warned, “this Board should be very cautious, because it doesn’t take a lot to change the course of the recovery, relatively minor change in the rise of [fishing mortality] that will put us back in the recovery period. That was my point. But I just want to emphasize we have to remain cautious as we move forward.”

Dr. Armstrong had reason to recommend caution. As he noted later that day,

I looked at the [Marine Recreational Information Program’s estimate of] landings, and they are up considerably this year. There is only one way we can react as a Board to low recruitment, and that’s maintaining an increasing [spawning stock biomass]. If in fact the retrospective [pattern in a recent stock assessment update, which suggested that fishing mortality was higher than the calculated value] is right and we are a little higher, and some of the other uncertainty and landings are up. We may in fact be at the [fishing mortality] threshold already, after this year…

But the main reason we are in this situation is we have never hit our target [fishing mortality], at least for a prolonged period of time. To prevent that we need to know what [fishing mortality] is. I would advocate for something…to kind of give us an idea within one year of where we’re at. That’s because mostly of the [four years of below-average] recruitment. We need to get [spawning stock biomass] up, which may not work, but that’s all we can do.

Spurred by such comments, the Board requested that, once all of the preliminary landings data for 2022 became available, the Technical Committee rerun its projections of future striped bass abundance, recalculate the probability of the stock being rebuilt by 2029, and present the results to the Board at its May 2023 meeting. Dr. Armstrong then noted, “If we find that landings are high, and projected to go above [the fishing mortality target], we could always cut landings without a quantitative assessment. I could sit here and make a motion and say, let’s cut harvest by 10 percent. I don’t know what it will do. It may cause people to go crazy. But I just think we’re in a spot that we need to react. That being said, stocks don’t collapse overnight. But with 4 years of poor recruitment, we’re approaching that point, in my mind.”

In April 2023, in response to the Board’s request, the Technical Committee released a report which found that, if fishing mortality remained at the 2022 level, the striped bass stock would probably not rebuild. Instead, spawning stock biomass would quickly rise above the biomass threshold, meaning that the stock would no longer be deemed overfished, but such recovery would soon stall well short of the biomass target. Then, sometime around 2027, the low numbers of young bass entering the population would cause the biomass to again decline.

 

A majority of the Board members found that scenario unacceptable. In the weeks immediately preceding their May meeting, they began talking among themselves about the right way to address the issue.

Dr. Justin Davis, Connecticut’s fishery manager, took the first step forward at the May meeting, making a motion that read

Move to initiate an Addendum to implement commercial and recreational measures for the ocean and Chesapeake Bay fisheries in 2024 that in aggregate are projected to achieve [the fishing mortality target rate] from the 2022 stock assessment update (F=0.17). Potential measures for the ocean recreational fishery should include modifications to the Addendum VI standard slot limit of 28-35″ and harvest season closures as a secondary non-preferred option. Potential measures for Chesapeake Bay recreational fisheries, as well as ocean and Bay commercial fisheries should include maximum size limits.

Dr. Davis’ motion was seconded by Emerson Hasbrouck, the Governor’s Appointee from New York. Then a surprisingly short debate began.

There was no material opposition to the motion, although grammatical changes were made to clarify the language without changing its meaning. Dr. Michael Armstrong, a fishery manager from Massachusetts, proposed adding language that said, “The addendum will include an option for a provision enabling the Board to respond via Board action to the results of the upcoming stock assessment updates (e.g. currently scheduled for 2024, 2026) if the stock is not projected to rebuild by 2029 with a probability greater than or equal to 50%.”

Such amendment, which would allow the Board to react quickly if a threat to rebuilding arose, received unanimous approval. So did the final, amended motion. Even states which had resisted strong conservation measures in the past seemed to understand the need for the proposed Addendum II to Amendment 7 to the Atlantic Striped Bass Interstate Fishery Management Plan (Addendum II).

 

Yet Addendum II will not become effective before January 1, 2024. Because the very large 2015 year class of striped bass will average about 31 ½ inches in length in 2023, and so fall right in the middle of the current 28- to 35-inch slot limit, there was a very good chance that 2023 recreational landings would equal, or very possibly exceed, 2022 landings. Such landings would make it even more difficult to rebuild the stock by 2029.

In order to return 2023 recreational landings to a more sustainable level, Dr. Armstrong next proposed that the Board take emergency action. Emergency actions are rare at the ASMFC, and are intentionally difficult to adopt; the affirmative vote of 2/3 of the voting Board members is required for passage. Nonetheless, Dr. Armstrong made a motion that read,

Move that the Striped Bass Board, by emergency action as outlined in the Commission’s ISFMP Charter, implement a 31″ maximum size to all existing recreational fisheries regulations where a higher (or no) maximum size applies, excluding the Chesapeake Bay trophy fisheries. All other recreational size limits, possession limits, seasons, gear restrictions, and spawning protections remain in place. Jurisdictions are required to implement compliant measures as soon as possible and no later than July 2, 2023.

That motion was seconded by David Borden, the Governor’s Appointee from Rhode Island, and ignited the most contentious discussions of the day.

Some Board members were concerned that the emergency action would make a significant change to existing management measures, without providing any opportunity for public input. Connecticut’s Dr. Davis expressed particular concern for the for-hire fishery, explaining that for-hire operators had already booked trips based on the 28- to 35-inch slot, and didn’t have any opportunity to comment on how the 31-inch cap on recreational landings might affect their businesses; on a personal note, he also stated that he had publicly assured the for-hire fleet that the recreational rules would not change in 2023, and he didn’t want to go back on his word.

Such concern led Dr. Davis to propose an amendment to the emergency motion, which stated “Measures for the for-hire sector will remain status quo. In the event the Board extends the emergency action past the initial 180-day effective period, the for-hire sector exemption from emergency measures cannot be extended.”

Dr. Davis assured the Board that he intended the exemption to be a short-term measure that merely gave the for-hire fleet a little time to adjust to the narrower slot limit. He made it clear that it wasn’t intended to open the door to different regulations for the for-hire fleet, and that he would oppose any efforts to include such “sector separation” in Addendum II.

The motion to exempt the for-hire fleet drew a mixed reaction from the Board. It was seconded by Eric Reid, Rhode Island’s legislative proxy, and supported by Emerson Hasbrouck, Dr. Jason McNamee, Rhode Island’s fishery manager, and William Hyatt, Connecticut’s Governor’s Appointee. However, it also gave rise to substantial opposition.

Tom Fote, the Governor’s Appointee from New Jersey, felt that the exemption was inequitable, exempting anglers on for-hire vessels from regulations that apply to anglers fishing from private boats and from shore, while also exempting for-hire businesses from the impact of measures that could also reduce tackle shops’ incomes.

Megan Ware, a Maine fisheries manager, stated that she was very uncomfortable creating a different set of management measures for the for-hire fleet through emergency action, noted that the recently adopted Amendment 7 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass emphasized regulatory consistency, and said that, “in the spirit of preserving equity,” she would oppose the amendment. Chris Batsavage, North Carolina’s fishery manager, stated that, while he sympathized with the issues facing the for-hire fleet, they did not provide adequate reason to exempt such fleet from the emergency action.

 

Dr. Armstrong, who made the original emergency motion, also opposed the amendment, largely because he didn’t feel that the emergency action would negatively impact for-hire operators. He noted that the emergency measure didn’t shorten the season or cut the bag limit, and felt that “any captain worth his salt” could still find legal-sized fish for his customers.

When the Board Chair called for a few public comments, such comments were also mixed. One charterboat captain endorsed the amendment, questioning the accuracy of the landings estimates provided by the Marine Recreational Information Program and citing the value of the purportedly more accurate data provided in the for-hire fleet’s vessel trip reports.

On the other hand, Michael Waine, representing the American Sportfishing Association, opposed the exemption, saying that “If we’re going to rebuild striped bass, we’re not going to be able to hand out conservation passes” that exempt some sectors from needed conservation measures. He noted that many new anglers are first introduced to the striped bass fishery on for-hire vessels, and that their exposure to conservation should begin on those vessels as well. Like New Jersey’s Fote, he observed that tackle shops could also see their businesses impacted by the emergency measure, but would not be shielded by any sort of exemption.

When the vote was called, only Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey supported the amendment, while ten jurisdictions opposed it and the two federal agencies that sit on the Board abstained.

After that, New Jersey made a last-ditch effort to dissuade the Board from taking emergency action, with Jeff Brust, a state fishery manager, arguing that no action should be taken before the Technical Committee had an opportunity to analyze what the impact of the 28- to 35-inch slot would be. Governor’s Appointee Fote, who had earlier commented that “People talk about emergency action; that’s a knee-jerk reaction,” argued that because Board members had short notice of the emergency motion, further action should be postponed until the August meeting.

His comment set the stage for the state’s legislative proxy, Adam Nowalsky, to make a formal motion to postpone further action on the emergency measure until the Board’s summer meeting. He justified such postponement by noting that there had been no notice of the emergency motion, and no opportunity for either public comment or Technical Committee input. Delaware’s legislative proxy, Craig Pugh, seconded the motion to postpone, supporting it with the somewhat ambiguous statement that the Board was “regulating to a superabundant supply of these fish.”

State Representative Sarah Peake, Massachusetts’ Legislative Appointee, countered the motion to postpone by observing, “They call it an ‘emergency’ for a reason,” and suggesting, “Let’s not kick the can down the road.”

Most of the Board agreed with her position, with 14 voting Board members opposing the motion, and only New Jersey and Delaware in support.

At that point, it was finally time to address the emergency motion itself. When the roll was called, 15 of the 16 voting members supported emergency action. Only New Jersey did not.

The public reaction to the Board’s actions has been generally positive.

Patrick Paquette, the government affairs officer of the Massachusetts Striped Bass Association, called the emergency action “the best option in a bad situation.” At the other end of the striped bass’ migratory route, the president of the Virginia Saltwater Sportfishing Association, Steve Atkinson, said that the current plight of the striped bass created an “either pay me now, or pay me more later” situation and that given such a situation, “I always prefer the now option. This fishery has been in decline for years, and it is time that they took bold action to save it.”

 

The advocacy group Stripers Forever called the combination of emergency action and the decision to begin work on Addendum II “An enormous win for striped bass,” while the American Saltwater Guides Association deemed such votes “two historic actions,” and observed that “While the road to striped bass recovery is still a long one, the Board’s strong conservation-minded action today can give the entire community hope that this stock will rebuild and that the Board can make the hard but necessary decisions to manage striped bass.”

 

So far, no angling or industry organizations have openly criticized the Board’s actions, although some such criticism may come in time. Right now, all of the criticism has come from individuals, who focus on the emergency measure making it more difficult for anglers to keep striped bass. An article in The SandPaper, a coastal New Jersey news outlet, is typical, with the author complaining about “another squeeze on our keeping striped bass,” “this latest cutback on keeperage,” and “the mindlessness of those anglers wanting a total unhook-and-release policy for their now neurotically beloved bass,” without ever acknowledging the perils now facing the striped bass stock.

 

But the die has been cast. Within 60 days, every state will have adopted measures intended to reduce striped bass landings, and by the August Board meeting, stakeholders will get their first look at what 2024 management measures might look like.

As the American Saltwater Guides Association noted, the road to striped bass recovery is still a long one, but after the Board’s latest meeting, we can finally say that progress is being made.

-----

This essay first appeared in “From the Waterfront,” the blog of the Marine Fish Conservation Network, which can be found at http://conservefish.org/blog/