TAKEAWAYS FROM TUESDAY'S STRIPED BASS MEETING

 

By now, most serious striped bass fishermen know that last Tuesday, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board, in a unanimous vote, acted to initiate a new Addendum II to the current striped bass management plan, which is intended to get the now-overfished stock back on track to rebuild by 2029.  To keep the health of the stock from deteriorating before Addendum II is adopted, the Management Board also adopted emergency measures that will require all states to prohibit anglers from retaining striped bass larger than 31 inches (other than anglers participating in Chesapeake Bay “trophy fisheries”), effectively creating a 28- to 31-inch coastal slot limit that states must adopt on or before July 2^nd.  Such emergency measures also received overwhelming support, with only New Jersey in opposition.

I’m going to describe those events, as well as the events that led up to them, in more detail later this month.  In the meantime, it’s probably worthwhile to take a deeper look at what Tuesday’s actions revealed.

We’re not in 1978 anymore

I was falling victim to déjà vu.  Although I kept reassuring striped bass anglers that we weren’t on the verge of a stock collapse, with female spawning stock biomass more than three times as large as it was in the early 1980s, I was beginning to doubt the truth of my words.

I had lived, and fished, through the last striped bass stock collapse.  I remembered how both fishermen and fisheries managers initially denied reality back in the late 1970s, when the ills besetting the stock began to manifest themselves.  There were plenty of large fish around, so few people paid much attention to the fact that the young-of-the-year numbers in the Maryland portion of the Chesapeake Bay—the single most important spawning ground on the coast—had tanked, and that there was little recruitment of new fish into the population.  The general opinion seemed to be that the recruitment slump was a transitory event that would correct itself if given time.

History proved such beliefs to be wrong.  By 1980, the striped bass stock collapsed, and it took a long string of lean years, along with very strict regulations, to nurse it back to health.

Over the past few years, I began hearing the same sort of comments from anglers that I heard 45 years ago—and some of them were experienced folks who ought to have known a lot better.  They pointed to isolated areas which saw good fishing—places like Raritan Bay in the spring and the New York Bight in the fall--noted the abundant fish from the 2015 year class that were popping up all along the coast, and argued that the bass weren’t in as bad a place as some people claimed.  

Some argued that most of the fish had moved offshore, and were now in federal waters, where striped bass fishing is not allowed, and thus went undetected.  In making such claims, they ignored the fact that the striped bass stock assessment stopped using the offshore samples from the federal trawl survey in its population models, because such samples caught few if any striped bass.  They also ignored the fact that the bass would still have to come inshore to spawn, and so would be detected by states’ spring spawning grounds surveys.

When reminded that the last four years of recruitment in the Maryland rivers were, on average, worse than any four-year period ever recorded, including those years leading up to and during the stock collapse, they would ignore the genetic evidence of separate spawning stocks and argue that climate change was pushing bass north, and would eventually make the Hudson River the new Chesapeake Bay.  Some even cited increasing striped bass populations in Canada as evidence that the Chesapeake fish were expanding their range, again ignoring all of the genetic evidence to the contrary.

The flashbacks to ’78 started coming on much more frequently.

But one thing was very different.  In 1978, the ASMFC had no authority to manage striped bass, and few regulations had been put in place.  There was a 16-inch minimum size that prevailed on the coast (it was something like 10 or 12 inches in the Chesapeake Bay), a few states had outlawed commercial harvest, and a few others had outlawed certain types of commercial fishing gear.  Today, the ASMFC has a comprehensive striped bass management plan in place, and Congress has provided it with the authority to impose such plan on the states.

That proved to be a critical difference between then and now.

We’re not in 2014 anymore, either

Of course, there’s a big difference between having the authority to take action, and actually exercising such authority.  Based on some of the Management Board’s past actions—or, more accurately, it’s past inaction—a significant portion of the striped bass angling community doubted that it had either the will or the courage to address the striped bass’ current problems.

The debate over Addendum IV to Amendment 6 to the Atlantic Striped Bass Interstate Fishery Management Plan, which occurred in 2014, provided plenty of justification for such doubts. 

Amendment 6 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass contained five so-called “management triggers,” which required Management Board action when they were tripped.  The findings of a benchmark stock assessment, released late in 2013, tripped management triggers that read,

“If the Management Board determines that the fishing mortality target is exceeded in two consecutive years and the female spawning stock biomass falls below the target within either of those years, the Management Board must adjust the striped bass management program to reduce the fishing mortality rate to a level that is at or below the target within one year,”

and

“If the Management Board determines that the female spawning stock biomass falls below the target for two consecutive years and the fishing mortality rate exceeds the target in either of those years, the Management Board must adjust the striped bass management program to rebuild the biomass to a level that is at or above the target within [ten years].”

Despite the mandatory nature of the management triggers—both state that if they are tripped, the Management Board “must” take action—many Management Board members seemed to feel that compliance was optional. 

The Management Board ultimately failed to impose management measures calculated to reduce fishing mortality to the target level within one year, although the measures adopted came fairly close to that goal.  Reducing fishing mortality to target theoretically required reducing fishing mortality by 25%, but despite the clear language of Amendment 6’s management triggers, a number of state delegations to the Management Board contested the need to do so.  Instead, they supported a motion that would have merely required

“either a 17 percent reduction or a tiered reduction of 7 percent for three years.”

That motion failed on a vote of one in favor (Delaware) and 15 opposed, but was immediately followed by another motion to drag out the rebuilding period over two years, which was withdrawn and replaced by a third motion, which imposed a 25% reduction on the coast, but only a 20.5% reduction in the Chesapeake Bay, which ultimately passed; in theory, the 20.5% Chesapeake reduction would have lengthened the rebuilding period beyond one year, although not to a great degree.

The Management Board completely ignored its obligation to initiate a rebuilding plan in response to the stock assessment’s findings.  Instead, it went along with the advice of the ASMFC’s then-fishery management plan coordinator, Michael Waine, who suggested that if fishing mortality was reduced to the target level, the stock would eventually rebuild to the target level, although it might take more than ten years.

But contrary to Waine’s prediction, the stock continued to decline.

The Management Board, and ASMFC staff, behaved very differently this time around.  Both Emilie Franke, the current fishery management plan coordinator, and her predecessor, Max Appelman, repeatedly reminded the Management Board of their obligations under the plan.  Many members of the Management Board didn’t need to be reminded; they understood the risk faced by the resource, they understood their obligation to the public, and they acted accordingly.

Thus, both the motion to initiate Addendum II and the emergency measures passed by overwhelming votes.  The motion to initiate Addendum II was even amended by a motion that granted the Management Board the power to adopt more restrictive regulations without going through the formal addendum process, should a future stock assessment indicate that the stock was unlikely to be rebuilt by 2029 under the existing management regime.

In proposing such amendment, Dr. Michael Armstrong, a Massachusetts fishery manager, noted that

“The complaint is always that we don’t act quickly enough,”

and observed,

“We are approaching some dire straits with this stock.”

When the amendment passed without opposition, it was clear that the Management Board had abandoned its past reluctance to act, and intended to prove itself a good steward of the striped bass resource.

We’re all in this together

Elements of the for-hire fishing fleet have historically resisted more restrictive management measures, no matter how badly they might be needed to conserve the striped bass resource.  The emergency measure, requiring a much narrower slot limit, is intended to sharply reduce recreational landings—hopefully, to cut them in half—and that will include fish landed by patrons of the for-hire fleet.

For-hire operators were understandably concerned that more restrictive management measures might hurt their business, and some sent in letters asking that the for-hire fleet be exempt from any new rules. 

After debate on the motion to adopt emergency measures began, Dr. Justin Davis, Connecticut’s fishery manager, moved to amend the motion, in order to exempt for-hire vessels from the new, narrower slot during the original 180 days of the emergency action (but, he made clear, not during any extension of the emergency measures).  He argued that such vessels have already booked trips based on the existing slot limit, that the operators had no opportunity to comment on the emergency measures and—a personal and admirably honorable point—that he had already told Connecticut’s for-hire fleet that bass regulations would remain unchanged in 2023, and didn’t want to go back on his word.

However, other Management Board members disagreed.

Tom Fote, the governor’s appointee from New Jersey, made one of his usual rambling arguments which, although it touched on many seemingly irrelevant points, some of which related to events forty years in the past, seemed to say that it was wrong to give anglers who chose—and could afford—to fish from for-hire vessels privileges not shared by shore-bound or private boat anglers, and equally wrong to protect for-hire operations from the impact of the emergency measures, while giving similar consideration to tackle shops and other affected businesses.

Michael Waine, who now represents the American Sportfishing Association, responded to requests for public comment by opposing the exemption, saying

“If we’re going to rebuild striped bass, we’re not going to be able to hand out conservation passes”

that allow some businesses and/or individuals to escape their share of the burden of rebuilding.  He noted that many people’s first contact with the sport of angling occurs on for-hire boats, and that their first contact with conservation should take place there as well.  Like Fote, he disagreed with giving a “conservation pass” to the for-hire fleet when tackle shops would have to bear whatever negative impacts the emergency rules might bring.

In the end, only four states—Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey—supported the for-hire exception, with ten opposed.

It appears that the burdens of striped bass rebuilding will be shared by everyone in the fishery.

Which is as it should be.

Most Management Board members are truly concerned

Most efforts to adopt more restrictive management measures meet with significant opposition.  Typically, such opposition comes from New Jersey, Delaware, and one or more of the Chesapeake Bay jurisdictions, which have historically tried to keep striped bass landings at the highest possible levels.  Sometimes, as was the case in 2011, they successfully delayed management action, even when warned that the stock would become overfished if things did not change.

We didn’t see much of that last Tuesday. 

Michael Luisi, a Maryland fishery manager who, just a few years ago, sought to relax some management measures, actively supported the emergency action, warning

“If we wait another year, we may be looking down the barrel of something much worse.”

Dr. Armstrong voiced similar sentiments, observing

“The further we go behind the 8-ball, the more draconian the rules are going to become.”

After Adam Nowalsky, New Jersey’s legislative proxy, made a last-minute motion to postpone consideration of the emergency action until the Management Board’s August meeting, claiming that there was no prior notice that the motion would be made, and that the emergency action was being taken without public comment, his motion found little support. 

Massachusetts state representative Sarah Peake, that state’s legislative appointee, said,

“They call it ‘emergency for a reason…Let’s not kick the can down the road.”

In response to Nowalsky’s argument that action would be taken without public comment, she noted that, while stakeholders never specifically called for emergency action, she had received plenty of comments asking that the Management Board move quickly to protect the resource; she predicted that fishermen would applaud the emergency measures.

The motion to postpone went down in flames, with only New Jersey and Delaware voting in favor.

The only real opposition to emergency action came from New Jersey’s Fote, who complained that

“Through the [19]90s, we didn’t do knee-jerk reactions…People talk about emergency action; that’s a knee-jerk reaction.”

Such comments merely demonstrated how isolated he, like his state, was from the rest of the Management Board.

In summary

I have long been a critic of the ASMFC process, which often seemed to subordinate the long-term health of fish stocks to various short-term economic considerations.  The Management Board had been no exception to that trend.

But now, it’s time to rethink that criticism. 

Beginning with the recent adoption of Amendment 7 to the management plan, the Management Board has, on balance, demonstrated a greater concern for the long-term health of the resource than it had before.  It has also demonstrated a greater concern for stakeholder sentiments and broad public support for striped bass conservation.

Its actions last Tuesday demonstrated a real commitment to conserving and rebuilding the striped bass stock.

Whatever its past flaws, over the past few years, the Management Board, along with its Chair, Martin Gary and fishery management plan coordinator Emilie Franke, have demonstrated a real commitment to effective striped bass management.  They have done their jobs well, and deserve our thanks.