YES, ANGLERS CAN HARM MARINE FISH STOCKS

I have been involved, to a greater or lesser degree, in marine fish conservation issues since the striped bass stock began to collapse in the late 1970s.  But I didn’t get heavily—some would argue overly—involved in the political side of fishery debates until about three decades ago, after the folks who supposedly represented the local angling community turned their backs on anglers, and instead chose to cater to the recreational fishing industry, in order to assure that the donations that kept their organization going would continue to flow.

It was a story that would repeat itself two decades later, when an association that had once prioritized the health of fisheries resources reinvented itself as a champion of “anglers’ rights,” became an industry shill, and by doing so forced me to leave and carve my own road.

In between, I worked with quite a few people who also cared about marine conservation.  They came from all walks of life, some scientists, some professional advocates, many just anglers who wanted to pass a healthy ocean along to their kids.  In the beginning, I worked very closely with someone who was both a recreational fisherman and the publisher of a widely-read angling newspaper.  While we agreed on just about all of our long-term goals, we differed on one major point.

I thought that proper fisheries management required managers toi regulate all sources of fishing mortality, while he focused on reining in the commercial fleet, and argued that fishing with hook and line, which required the fish to voluntarily strike a bait or lure and caught them one at a time, could never cause real harm to a fish stock, unlike commercial net fisheries that scooped fish out of the water en masse, regardless of whether they were in a feeding mood.

He was even the co-founder of an advocacy group, called the United Gamefish Association or maybe United Gamefish Organization—enough years have passed that I can’t recall precisely—which was focused on conserving striped bass by eliminating the commercial fishery.

Similar beliefs animate Stripers Forever, a contemporary advocacy group, although SF also recognizes that anglers can do their share of harm, and some of public relations efforts of the Coastal Conservation Association, which celebrates its efforts to have species such as speckled trout and red drum declared “gamefish,” eliminating the commercial fisheries, while themselves declaring that

“changes in recreational regulations have rarely, if ever, resulted in a direct fishery recovery.”

 What it really comes down to, in the end, is that everyone thinks conservation is a great idea, until conservation efforts begin to restrict their participation in their favorite fishery, at which point conservation is still a great idea, so long as someone else is bearing the conservation burden.

But every so often, someone relatively new to the management arena honestly asks the question of whether angling—defined as fishing with a hook and line—can really cause significant harm to a fish stock.  To many, it seems counterintuitive; after all, it’s a big ocean, big enough that just finding a fish, and convincing it to take a hook, can often seem like a daunting task.  The idea that enough people can find enough fish willing to bite, that they can impact the health of fish populations can  be a bit hard for some to believe.

On the other hand, we’ve seen the damage that nets can do.

We’ve seen purse seiners in the Atlantic nearly wipe out generations of young bluefin tuna, ultimately putting themselves out of business in the process.  

We’ve seen trawlers scour the banks off New England for cod and other groundfish, removing so many that, after a while, what were once some of the most productive fishing grounds in the world are now comparatively barren.  

And anyone who has ever read Peter Mattheissen’s book, Men’s Lives, will recall his description of a New York haul seine crew targeting striped bass off North Carolina, enclosing so many fish in their net that its meshes began to break, driving the fishermen to run additional nets around the first and eventually dragging so many fish to the beach that they flooded the markets, and had to bury thousands of pounds of unsold bass in the sand.

So yes, commercial netters can do, and have done, a lot of harm, but what we have to remember is that, at least in United States waters, all that damage was done in the days when fisheries were largely unregulated.  

Today, we have some of the most highly regulated commercial fisheries in the world, with fishermen licensed at both the state and federal levels, new entries into many fisheries tightly restricted, and catch monitored on nearly a real-time basis.  While commercial abuses still occur, it is typically by rogue individuals; for the most part, domestic commercial fisheries are managed well and do no harm to fish stocks.  The size of the commercial fleet is relatively small, and its numbers are on the decline.

On the other hand, there are a lot of recreational fishermen out there and, collectively, they catch a lot of fish.  The most recent version of Fisheries of the United States, a report issued by the National Marine Fisheries Service, noted that

“U.S. anglers took nearly 200 million trips in 2020.  These recreational anglers caught an estimated 2 billion fish and released 65 percent of those caught.  The total recreational harvest was estimated at 344 million fish with a combined weight of more than 353 million pounds.  The top U.S. species ranked were striped bass, bluefish, red snapper, spanish mackerel, spotted seatrout, and dolphinfish.”

That “top U.S. species ranked” statement is a little misleading, and probably reflects angler preferences more than anything else.  When ranked by the weight of fish landed, yellowfin tuna led the pack, with over 17 million pounds (about 595,000 fish) landed.  Ranked by numbers of fish caught, the leader was spotted seatrout (54 million), followed by Atlantic croaker (53 million), black sea bass (44 million), gray (“mangrove”) snapper (42 million), and hardhead (“sea”) catfish (39 million).  However, the number of fish caught doesn’t necessarily track the number of fish killed and taken home, a list led by spot (20 million), scup (14 million), Atlantic croaker (14 million), spotted seatrout (13 million), and bluefish (10 million).

Some of those popular recreational species, most notably yellowfin tuna, black sea bass, and red snapper, support very active commercial fisheries.  Others, such as striped bass and bluefish, support far more modest commercial efforts.  Others, including spotted seatrout, see relatively low commercial landings.

So when we ask the question of whether recreational fishing can harm a fish stock, we should examine one of the species which supports relatively little commercial activity, but is very popular with anglers.  Spotted seatrout in the Gulf of Mexico and, more particularly, Louisiana might be a good place to begin.

The National Marine Fisheries Service reports that commercial spotted seatrout landings in the Gulf of Mexico for 2022 were just under 30,000 pounds, with the bulk of that, 28,252 pounds, taken in Mississippi and almost all of the rest from the Gulf Coast of Florida.  Louisiana had no reported commercial landings at all.

Recreational landings for the entire Gulf of Mexico are much harder to discern, since neither Louisiana nor Texas participates in NMFS’ Marine Recreational Information Program.  Thus, all we know for sure is that recreational spotted seatrout landings for 2022, in Alabama and Mississippi, and along the Gulf Coast of Florida, were a little over 8,200,000 pounds—recreational landings for just three of the five Gulf states were well over 250 times that size of commercial landings for the entire Gulf of Mexico—so it’s probably safe to say that, whatever problems might beset the Gulf’s spotted seatrout population, outside of those caused solely by cold snaps and other natural events, they lie at the feet of anglers and not the commercial fishery.

Spotted seatrout aren’t a migratory species, and so tend to stick relatively close to their home waters.  Different states manage them differently.  

Florida maintains relatively conservative rules for anglers fishing its Gulf Coast, who may retain between 3 and 5 spotted seatrout per day, which must measure between 15 and 19 inches in length, although anglers may keep one larger fish each day.  Florida’s spotted seatrout population is in relatively good shape, except where populations have been devastated by the red tide.

In Texas, anglers may keep 5 spotted seatrout between 15 and 25 inches long, again with one of the five fish allowed to be larger.  However, the state admits that its regulations would not allow a sustainable fishery if hatcheries weren’t used to artificially inflate the overall population.

But in Louisiana, anglers may—with some local exceptions—keep 25 spotted seatrout per day, as long as such fish are at least a foot—just 12 inches—long.  And Louisiana’s spotted seatrout are badly overfished and in serious trouble.

Louisiana is trying to improve its spotted seatrout management program, but it is getting strong pushback from elements of its recreational fishing community, particularly the Louisiana Charter Boat Association and the state chapter of the Coastal Conservation Association, which are dead-set against increasing the size limit above 12 inches, even if such increase would make a meaningful improvement in the spotted seatrout’s spawning potential.

In fact, the quote that I provided at the start of this essay, about changed regulations not leading to stock recovery, came directly from CCA Louisiana’s campaign to keep foot-long seatrout vulnerable to recreational harvest.

So, do anglers killing so many little seatrout actually impact the Louisiana population?  Given the lack of a commercial fishery, it seems that there is little other likely cause for that population’s decline.  Louisiana’s state fisheries managers have said that

“[O]verfishing and other factors have caused the [spotted seatrout] stock to become almost completely comprised of smaller, younger fish…Given this imbalance, there is concern that a major collapse could occur in the event of a poor recruitment year (e.g. major freeze)…

“ Very few more speckled trout can be produced from other sources…This means that gains and losses will be the result of management within the recreational fishery.”

And that makes sense, given that the truncation of a population’s age and size structure is almost always tied to excessive fishing mortality, and the only people killing spotted seatrout in Louisiana are anglers.

The problems besetting Louisiana’s speckled trout are a textbook example of how recreational fishing pressure, and recreational pressure alone, can decimate a fish population.

Of course, most fish populations support at least a somewhat more active commercial fishery.  Striped bass are a perfect example; in that fishery, commercial fishing may account for as much as 20% of all fishing-related removals.  

In such situations, where an extremely popular recreational species is also targeted by a commercial fishery, anglers need to recognize that recreational fishing still accounts for a substantial majority of the fishing mortality, placing significant pressure on the species, and that commercial fishing only adds to the stresses already placed on the stock by the recreational sector.

While, in such situations, it wouldn’t be accurate to blame the recreational sector for the entirety of the stock’s problems—anyone who catches fish and/or kills fish, intentionally or incidentally, is part of the problem confronting the stock, and should contribute to the management solution—it is equally wrong to minimize recreational impacts and try to argue that “gamefish status” would put the management effort back on the needed track.

Even anglers who release every fish they catch can contribute to a stock’s decline.  The most recent benchmark stock assessment for striped bass found that, for the period 2015-2017, release mortality accounted for 48% of all recreationally-related fishing mortality.  And that assumes that the estimate of just 9% of all bass dying shortly after release is accurate. 

While some anglers argue that such estimate is high, there is reason to believe that, at least in the case of larger bass, it may be underestimating the number of fish that don’t survive after being returned to the water.

In a recent Facebook post, John McMurray, an experienced and capable charter boat captain from western South Shore Long Island, noted that most anglers were ignoring the regulation requiring anglers to use circle hooks when fishing with bait.  Instead, the nearly universal practice is to cast a barbed, weighted treble hook into a menhaden school, snag a bait, and then allow the bait to sink beneath the school, so that the bass ends up hooked on the big treble, not on a single circle hook.  Such bass can frequently end up fatally gut-hooked—although Capt. McMurray observes that he sees a lot of bass gut-hooked with circle hooks, too.  But his most relevant observation, with regard to this post, is that

“during the last several days I’ve seen A LOT of floaters around, which REALLY has me questioning the efficacy of the slot limit.”

That’s a valid observation.

Anglers often point to, and complain about, the striped bass that they occasionally see floating behind a commercial boat, and argue that the commercial boats do all the damage.  But they are far slower to acknowledge the floaters that appear around the recreational fleet, both in the ocean and in the Chesapeake Bay, or that wash ashore on the beaches frequented by surfcasters, fish that don’t show up in the landings estimates, are undercounted in the release mortality numbers, but nonetheless contribute to the stock’s problems, as untallied victims of snag-and-drop, gut hooking, exhaustion, and cameras. 

And that doesn’t count recreational poaching, which is not insubstantial.

So yes, recreational, hook and line fishing can and has contributed to the depletion of various fish stocks.  Fingers pointed only at the commercial fleet are often pointed in the wrong direction.  Yet there is still good news.

Good regulations, good law enforcement, and good angler behavior can eliminate most of the problems, and lead to sustainable fisheries, for recreational and commercial fishermen alike.  We all have the power to help those things come about, and should make an effort to do so.

 

 

 

 

CONSERVING STRIPED BASS: DON'T BE MISLED BY MENHADEN

 

I’m probably going to upset some folks, but let’s get two things straight from the start: Striped bass are having some serious problems, while Atlantic menhaden are doing just fine.

I know that’s not the narrative that you hear from some quarters, so let’s do what we always should do when discussing fisheries issues—fall back on the science.  

With regard to striped bass, the last stock assessment update shows that the stock is overfished, although overfishing is no longer occurring.  Most of the striped bass on the coast are spawned in the Chesapeake Bay, with about two-thirds of the Chesapeake spawn occurring in Maryland, and the rest in Virginia.  Maryland has experienced spawning failure for the past five years.  Virginia for the past three.  And if the 2023 juvenile abundance index for the Delaware River proves to be as low as it was in 2021 and 2022, we’ll see spawning failure in that waterway as well.

So there’s no question at all that the bass stock is troubled.

When it comes to Atlantic menhaden, we see a very different outlook.  The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, which is responsible for managing the menhaden fishery between Maine and southeastern Florida, informs us that

“The [ecological reference point] assessment evaluates the health of the stock in an ecosystem context, and indicates that the fishing mortality (F) reference points for menhaden should be lower [than those used in a single-species stock assessment] to account for menhaden’s role as a forage fish.  The [ecological reference point] assessment uses…an ecosystem model that focuses on four key predator species (striped bass, bluefish, weakfish, and spiny dogfish) and three key prey species (Atlantic menhaden, Atlantic herring, and bay anchovy).  These species were chosen because diet data indicates that they are top predators of Atlantic menhaden or are key alternate prey species for those predators…

“In August 2020, the [Atlantic Menhaden Management] Board approved the following [ecological reference points] in the management of Atlantic menhaden:

“ERP target:  the maximum fishing mortality rate (F) on Atlantic menhaden that sustains Atlantic striped bass at their biomass target when striped bass are fished that their F target.

“ERP threshold:  the maximum F on Atlantic menhaden that keeps Atlantic striped bass at their biomass threshold when striped bass are fished at their F target.

“ERP fecundity target and threshold:  the long-term equilibrium fecundity that results when the population is fished at the ERP F target and threshold, respectively.

“Atlantic striped bass were the focal species for the [ecological reference point] definitions because it was the most sensitive predator fish species to Atlantic menhaden harvest in the model, so an [ecological reference point] target and threshold that sustained striped bass would likely provide sufficient forage for other predators under current ecosystem conditions…

“Under the [ecological reference points], Atlantic menhaden are neither overfished nor experiencing overfishing.  In 2021, population fecundity (FEC), a measure of reproductive capacity of the population, was above the ERP threshold and target…and fishing mortality (F) was below the ERP overfishing threshold and target…  [emphasis added]” 

In other words, the Atlantic menhaden stock is perfectly healthy.  Not only are there enough menhaden around to ensure the long-term health of the stock, provided that environmental conditions don’t change and fishing mortality doesn’t increase substantially but, because of how the ecological reference points are defined, there are more than enough menhaden in our coastal sea to support a completely recovered striped bass population—and our current striped bass population is still a very long way from that point.

So it’s completely clear, from a scientific perspective, that the current lack of striped bass has absolutely nothing to do with a lack of menhaden. 

That’s a fact that many people still don’t understand, and that lack of understanding creates a potential roadblock to effective striped bass management.

On October 18, I listened in on the most recent meeting of the ASMFC’s Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board.  At the beginning of the meeting, the Board’s Chair opened up the meeting to ten minutes of public comment, which was supposed to address issues that were not on the meeting agenda.  It seemed that most of the public wanted to talk about menhaden, and some of that talk made it clear why focusing too much on menhaden can harm the striped bass.

One speaker, Ron Zalesak, is apparently the president of the Southern Maryland Recreational Fishing Organization, which recently sued the state of Virginia over its commercial menhaden regulations (although it should be noted that Mr. Zalesak spoke only for himself, and did not hold himself out as a representative of the organization).  He argued that the mortality rate (he did not specify whether he meant the fishing mortality rate or the natural mortality rate, although the latter would seem more likely, given the context) of striped bass was “directly tied” to the mortality rate of menhaden, an assertion that does not find support in the latest benchmark stock assessment (it is possible that Mr. Zalesak was confused by the definitions of the ERP target and threshold, which are expressed in terms of a fishing mortality rate that leaves enough menhaden in the water to provide adequate forage for the striped bass stock; however, nothing in those definitions suggests that changes in menhaden mortality would necessarily lead to a change in striped bass mortality, as would be the case if the two mortality rates were “directly tied").

But where Mr. Zalesak’s comments really went astray was when he noted that Maryland’s striped bass harvest had decreased by 72% since 2016, then alleged that such decrease was due to a lack of menhaden, and not overfishing.  That comment, more than any other that he made, exposed the danger of focusing on menhaden, rather than on striped bass biology, for if managers took that allegation at face value, it would mean that to rebuild the striped bass stock, their first concern should be rebuilding the menhaden stock, and not addressing striped bass fishing mortality.  Such course could only lead to more problems for the bass population. 

After all, the benchmark stock assessment demonstrated that the stock was experiencing overfishing in 2016, and in the years immediately before and after,  Such overfishing could only drive down striped bass abundance in the long term.  Thus, managers’ first obligation—pursuant to the management plan as well as pursuant to the best available science—was to end overfishing and reduce fishing mortality to a sustainable level, something that was at least temporarily achieved in 2020 after Addendum VI to Amendment 6 to the Atlantic Striped Bass Interstate Fishery Management Plan went into effect.

If the Management Board had shared Mr. Zalesak’s beliefs, and focused on menhaden rather than on ending overfishing, the striped bass stock would almost certainly be in even worse condition than it is today.

Furthermore, Mr. Zalesak’s comments also ignored the impact of spawning success on striped bass abundance, and on the striped bass catch in the Chesapeake Bay. 

 In 2016, Maryland striped bass anglers were still enjoying the benefits of the big 2011 year class of striped bass, the fourth-largest year class recorded in the Maryland juvenile abundance survey, which dates back to the 1950s.  Another big year class, the 2015s, were still too small to harvest, but were nonetheless being caught by anglers.  With the exception of 2017 and 2018 year classes, which were marginally above-average, striped bass spawning success for the rest of the relevant period was far below average, with spawning failure occurring in the last five years.  Given that so many fewer fish were available to anglers in recent years, it’s hardly surprising that Maryland’s recreational striped bass catch fell by roughly 73.5% between 2016 and 2022, from about 15.3 million fish to less than 4.1 million, and harvest, which is less dependent on the most recent year classes fell by about 58.5% during the same period.

The decline Mr. Zalesak referred to was solely due to factors affecting the abundance of striped bass—overfishing and poor recruitment—and not the abundance of menhaden. 

The most recent benchmark stock assessment noted that the model used to develop the ecological reference points

“predicted that Atlantic Menhaden comprised a moderate proportion of striped bass diet biomass (15-30%) and those consumed consisted largely of age-0 and age-1 Atlantic Menhaden,”

although it also noted that

“diet studies of large striped bass by Walter and Austin (2003) and Overton et al (2008) suggested a greater role of Atlantic Menhaden of all ages in striped bass diets.”

Maryland found that the abundance of juvenile menhaden in 2023 was the highest that it has been since 1990; the big striped bass year classes of 1993, 1996, 2001, 2003, 2011, and 2015 were supported by far smaller juvenile menhaden populations than we see today, which ranged between 10.1% and 24.1% of current juvenile menhaden abundance (the 1996 year class, the largest in the time series, occurred when Maryland’s juvenile menhaden abundance was 14% of what it is in 2023), which again provides compelling evidence that a lack of menhaden has little to do with the current state of the striped bass population.

Yet we constantly hear menhaden blamed for the lack of striped bass, and not only by Maryland anglers.  Two Connecticut charter boat captains who also commented at the October 18 meeting seemed to blame menhaden for the lack of striped bass activity.  One said that he was not seeing menhaden, but that there was nonetheless

“An abundance of striped bass about two miles outside the harbor,”

while the other argued that the amount of larger striped bass—defined as fish over 25 pounds—was “100% related” to the amount of menhaden in the area.  He connected the lack of striped bass in his area to the recently increased commercial menhaden quota, saying’

“I have not seen a pod of bunker in months now, months.”

What he apparently also did not see—or did not care to look at—was the Maryland juvenile abundance index from a few years ago.  For if we assume that a 25-pound striped bass is 12 or 13 years old, and we look at striped bass recruitment from, say, 12 to 20 years ago, we find decent year classes in 2003 (fish that would be close to 50 pounds today) and 2011 (bass just approaching, or just above, the 25 pound mark), but in between those years, the Maryland juvenile abundance index, which provides the best single gauge of striped bass abundance, was well below average.  (It should be noted that the Hudson River produced a large year class in 2007, which contributed to the number of 40-pound fish available today, particularly in areas such as Raritan Bay, New York Harbor, western Long Island Sound and off Long Island’s western South Shore.)

It might be somewhat reassuring to blame a lack of larger bass on a lack of menhaden, particularly if you’re a charter boat captain who doesn’t want to see more restrictive regulations that might chase away customers, but the plain truth of the matter is that you can’t catch a fish that was never spawned, and relatively few bass were spawned during the years 2004-2010, leaving a big hole in the population structure.

Menhaden might make the relatively small number of larger bass easier to catch, but the lack of larger striped bass on many parts of the coast is, again, primarily due to poor recruitment in the Chesapeake Bay, and not a lack of menhaden.

So why are so many people focused on menhaden as the primary cause of the striped bass’ problems?  Probably because the fish was, at one time, the worst-managed fish out of all the species under the ASMFC’s aegis, with the menhaden industry, and particularly the menhaden reduction industry, setting the rules and providing the supposed science in a classic case of the fox guarding the henhouse.

That led to a lot of pro-menhaden publicity, as a number of conservation and recreational fishing organizations fought, for many years, to oust the industry from its catbird seat and create the same sort of management structure for menhaden as the ASMFC used for every other stock it manages (I began working on menhaden issues around 1996 or 1997, and know folks who already had years invested in the issue before I ever came on the scene).  That issue was finally resolved in 2001.

Then, in 2007, H. Bruce Franklin wrote a book titled The Most Important Fish in the Sea, which arguably overstated menhaden’s importance (are they really more important, all things considered, than mullet, herring, sardines, or sand eels?) and contained some misinformation (adult menhaden’s characteristic filter feeding is probably not critical to the health of East Coast bays), but undoubtedly thrust the menhaden into the public consciousness, with not only anglers, but birdwatchers, marine mammal fans, and others concerned with the health of the nation’s coastal waters becoming overnight menhaden advocates.  Conservation groups benefitted from the increased public awareness, and menhaden remained high on their priority lists.

That translated into undoubtedly worthwhile efforts to have menhaden managed primarily for their value as forage fish, rather than as a commodity reduced into fish oils and meal, and various industrial feedstocks, which culminated in 2017’s Amendment 3 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Menhaden, which opened the door to ecological reference points, and ultimately in the 2019 Atlantic Menhaden Ecological Reference Point Stock Assessment Report which, for the first time, applied ecological reference points to the menhaden stock, and found that even under that more restrictive standard, the stock was unquestionably in good health.

By any rational measure, the menhaden advocates had won.  They could point to a healthy menhaden stock capable of fulfilling its role in coastal ecosystems, a sustainable menhaden harvest and, for the first time at the ASMFC or, for that matter, in any East Coast fishery, a management plan based on the ecological role of the managed species, and not merely on sustainable landings.

There are still some peripheral issues outstanding, such as the possibility of local depletion, particularly in the Chesapeake Bay; of damage to inshore bottom structure when nets were deployed in shallow water, and the level of bycatch in the menhaden fishery.  All are worthy of further discussions.  But, when viewed from a stock-wide perspective, the menhaden advocates had achieved all of their major goals.

But then, a funny thing happened.  Many of the advocates did not understand that they’d won.  Instead, they started to blame largely imagined problems in the menhaden stock for real issues in other fisheries.

Right now, on the Atlantic coast, striped bass are the biggest victim of that misunderstanding, as well-meaning advocates—and others seeking to find a justification for continued overharvest—blame the decline in striped bass abundance on a supposed lack of menhaden.

That can have very real, and very negative, consequences for the striped bass stock, if managers fail to take meaningful measures to reduce striped bass fishing mortality, and abandon meaningful efforts to timely rebuild the striped bass population, and instead focus on the menhaden fishery as the cause of the striped bass decline.

Now that the ASMFC’s Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board has approved Addendum II to Amendment 7 of the Atlantic Striped Bass Interstate Fishery Management Plan for public comment, and will be holding hearings all along the striper coast during November, everyone concerned with the health of the striped bass stock must focus on the real problems confronting the bass, and not cloud the issue with unsupported allegations of a menhaden shortage.

For make no mistake:  There are people who are all too willing to stall the striped bass’ recovery, and to put the bass’ future in peril, in order to increase their short-term gains from the fishery.  Some of those people even hold seats on the Management Board.  Handing them a ready-made excuse to stall, or at least weaken, Addendum II, and blame the bass’ problem on menhaden, is the last thing that the striped bass, or striped bass fishermen, need at this time.

As the hearings on Addendum II begin, the Management Board must hear our desire to reduce striped bass fishing mortality.  It must hear that we want the Board to act quickly in response to an adverse stock assessment in 2024.  It must hear of our concerns with spawning failure in the Chesapeake Bay.  For all of those things bear on the future health of the striped bass stock.

But the Board shouldn’t have to hear about menhaden at all.

ASMFC APPROVES STRIPED BASS ADDENDUM II FOR PUBLIC COMMENT

 

Last Wednesday afternoon, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board approved Draft Addendum II to Amendment 7 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass for public comment.  The draft addendum will be published on the ASMFC website sometime before the end of this month.  Once published, public comment will be accepted and public hearings held throughout November and into December.  If all goes as planned, the final version of Addendum II will be adopted in January 2024, and implemented later that year.

It's hard to know what to think about the proposed Addendum.

On one hand, it represents a necessary step toward the timely rebuilding of the striped bass stock, and is a clear improvement over the emergency measures adopted last May.  

On the other hand, it seems to be another example of the ASMFC’s unfortunate tendency to do too little, too late, as the Addendum’s management measures, taken as a whole, seem more likely to fail than succeed, and will be implemented too late to impact some commercial fisheries in the mid-Atlantic region which open on January 1, 2024.

In fact, it was noted at the beginning of Wednesday’s meeting that states may not be required to comply with all of Addendum II’s provisions until 2025.  That may well render such provisions meaningless, as Addendum II is primarily intended to govern striped bass fishing during the 2024 season.  

It is generally expected that, a little less than one year from now, the Management Board will be presented with the 2024 update to the last benchmark stock assessment, and that once such update is released, the Management Board will have to implement another, more restrictive management regime beginning in 2025, to keep striped bass rebuilding on track.

Still, there are some good things in Addendum II that deserve public support, and some bad things that can warp the fishery management process, now and in the future, if allowed to remain in the final version.  In addition, on multiple occasions throughout Wednesday’s meeting, various Management Board members expressed their desire to receive public input on management alternatives—and in particular the more problematic management alternatives—before finalizing the Addendum.

Thus, anyone concerned with effective striped bass management ought to appear at the hearings and/or provide written comments, if for no other reason than to make it clear to the Management Board that rebuilding the striped bass stock by the 2029 deadline remains a priority.  

Draft Addendum II is a clearly flawed document, yet it will nonetheless have a meaningful impact on striped bass management, and it is incumbent upon those who support sustainable striped bass management to try to make that impact as positive as possible.

Many of the Draft Addendum’s flaws were due to no fault of the Atlantic Striped Bass Technical Committee or Plan Development Team, but can instead be attributed to the motion that authorized the Addendum’s development, which 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 F-target 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” with 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.  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%.”

That motion effectively proscribed many actions that the Management Board might have included in Addendum II to better ensure the recovery of the striped bass stock, and instead focused such Addendum solely on reducing fishing mortality to the target level, an action that might or might not allow a timely recovery to occur (a rough projection provided at Wednesday’s meeting, which the Technical Committee made very clear was subject to significant uncertainty and was not presented as a formal projection, indicated that if Addendum II managed to successfully achieve the fishing mortality target, there was still a 52% probability that the stock would not rebuild by the 2029 deadline).

At the same time, it seems that the measures that are included in Draft Addendum II are heavily biased toward failure.  Dr. Katie Drew, speaking on behalf of the Technical Committee, advised the Management Board that, depending on the options ultimately included in the final version of Addendum II, such Addendum had somewhere between a 33% and 56% probability of reducing fishing mortality to its target level in 2024, and only somewhere between a 33% and 51% probability of rebuilding the stock by the 2029 deadline.

Once again, it needs to be said that such projections provide, at best, only rough-and-ready estimates, that may prove to be very different from the formal projections that will appear in the 2024 stock assessment update.  In an effort to illustrate the level of uncertainty surrounding the projections, Dr. Michael Armstrong, the Massachusetts fishery manager, asked whether, if a management measure was assigned a 40% probability of success, it meant that, in reality, the probability might actually be anywhere between 20% and 70%; Dr. Drew confirmed that was more or less the case.

Still, there is no directionality to the uncertainty—it is equally likely that it overstates as understates the likelihood of success—so it’s not unreasonable to take the rough projections as some evidence that Addendum II is more likely to fail than succeed.

One would think that the striped bass deserves a little more consideration than that, even if Addendum II isn’t likely to survive past the end of 2024.  After all, the motion initiating Addendum II called for “an Addendum to implement commercial and recreational measures for the ocean and Chesapeake Bay fisheries in 2024 that in aggregate are projected to achieve F-target from the 2022 stock assessment update (F-0.17).”  Given that language, any combination of measures unlikely to achieve the fishing mortality target—that is, any combination of measures with less than a 50% probability of success—should not even be included in the Draft Addendum.

According to the information available at last Wednesday’s meeting, in order to have at least a 50% probability of achieving the fishing mortality target, overall fishing mortality must be reduced by no less than 14.5%; if all of the reductions are to be achieved through recreational management measures, recreational-related fishing mortality must be reduced by no less than 16.1%.

So what, precisely, does the Draft Addendum provide?

Most of the management measures address the recreational fishery, which is hardly surprising, given that most of the striped bass fishing mortality is generated by the recreational sector.  As is typically the case, the recreational measures are broken down into those governing the ocean fishery, and those governing the fishery in the Chesapeake Bay.

The options for the recreational ocean fishery are where the Draft Addendum goes farthest astray.  To understand why, one need only recall the old adage which states that

“The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.”

When the emergency management measures were adopted last May, there was some grumbling in the recreational community, primarily among the for-hire fleet and other industry-related entities, that such measures were put in place without any consultation with or input from recreational fishermen or the recreational fishing industry.  At least a few state managers responded to such complaints by assuring dissatisfied fishermen and fishing-related businesses that they would be consulted before any other management decisions are made.

Yet the draft Addendum II that emerged from the August Management Board meeting had only two options for the general ocean size limit—it would either be status quo, defined as the 28- to 35-inch slot which was in place prior to the emergency action, or the 28- to 31-inch slot created by the emergency measures.  To some managers, that limited choice wasn’t really a choice at all, and was inconsistent with their promises to consult with the recreational community before taking further management actions.

Thus, Dr. Justin Davis, Connecticut’s primary marine fisheries manager, felt obligated to provide additional choices, and moved to add an option proposing a 30- to 33-inch slot limit.  Such slot would expose more of the important 2015 year class to harvest, and only reduce fishing mortality by an estimated 12.8%, rather than the 14.1% reduction that would supposedly be achieved by maintaining the current 28- to 31-inch slot.  Dr. Davis claimed that the uncertainty surrounding both projections was so great that, for practical purposes, they were indistinguishable, yet the larger slot’s increased input on the 2015 year class remains impossible to ignore.

The other unfortunate addition to the Draft Addendum, which was made in August, was a provision that would grant special privileges to anglers fishing from for-hire vessels, allowing them to retain fish that fall within a 28- to 33-inch slot, rather than the narrower slot applicable to everyone else.

The conservation impacts of such a so-called “sector separation” measure are minimal; allowing anglers on for-hire boats to keep fish falling within the broader slot, rather than the current 28- to 31-inch size limit, would only lead to a 0.1% increase in overall fishing mortality.  However, the policy implications of such balkanization of the recreational sector are more significant.

First, it is difficult to justify favoring one sector of the recreational sector over others.  If the premise behind such sector separation proposal is accepted as true—that some anglers want to take home striped bass, and the current, narrow slot limit hurts the for-hire fleet’s business because it prevents them from doing so—shouldn’t the same consideration apply to other recreational sectors?  That is, if some anglers won’t patronize a for-hire boat because their chances to keep a bass have diminished, doesn’t it also follow that some surf or private boat anglers won’t buy bait, buy tackle, or patronize fuel docks for the same reason?  And if that’s the case, then why should the Management Board elevate the interests of the for-hire fleet above those of tackle shops, fishing stations, fuel docks, and similar enterprises?

Beyond that question, there is the more profound public policy question of whether it benefits the public interest to subsidize an industry with a disproportionate share of a publicly-owned resource, when that industry, in the third decade of the 21^st Century, insists on maintaining a mid-20^th Century business model that emphasizes killing substantial numbers of striped bass, despite changing demographic, economic, biological, and environmental conditions that, in combination, call for more conservative management measures. 

Or, to put it more simply, why should the public reward an industry that refuses to change with the times with a greater share of the striped bass resource, at a time when everyone else in both the recreational and commercial fisheries are being asked to reduce their level of fishing mortality?

Such questions apply not only to the for-hire fleet in the ocean, but also in the Chesapeake Bay, where other special concessions to anglers about for-hire vessels are being considered.

Not all Management Board members were comfortable with the notion of awarding special privileges to for-hire anglers.  Massachusetts’ Dr. Armstrong noted that

“Splitting modes is a huge move if we do it,”

while David Sikorski, Maryland’s Legislative Proxy, argued that doing so, at a time when the striped bass stock might be at risk of collapse, would be a mistake, and would be

“Sending the wrong signal.”

He noted that

“We’re in a time of conservation.  When to we stop with the carve-outs?”

and asked

“How quickly do we want to race to the bottom? Is how I look at this sector separation issue…We’re racing to the bottom.”

Despite such sentiments, the concept of sector separation seemed to have significant support among Management Board members, and it may take concerted public opposition to keep it out of the final version of Addendum II.

Measures specific to the recreational fishery in the Chesapeake Bay were less objectionable.  The number of options appearing in the Draft Addendum was narrowed a bit, to remove the options that permitted inconsistent regulations in neighboring jurisdictions, as well as options that reduced fishing mortality by less than 10%.  Options remaining in the Draft Addendum will provide reductions estimated at anywhere from the low double digits to over 20%.  

Maryland fishery manager Michael Luisi made an interesting comment regarding such wide range of reductions, saying

“I would like to hear from our stakeholders to hear whether their interest was in saving themselves for one year or in saving the species for the future.”

Although he didn’t say so, his comment was almost certainly aimed at his state’s charter boat fleet, which has aggressively opposed conservative management measures, shamelessly using their connections with Maryland’s former governor to pressure fisheries regulators into supporting measures that would benefit the fleet in the short term, but harm the long-term prospects of the striped bass population.

Finally, the Management Board stripped out all of the potential commercial management options from the Draft Addendum, except for a single provision that, if approved, would reduce commercial quotas by no more than 14.5% across the board.  Because the entire commercial quota is never landed in any fishing year, such provision would reduce commercial fishing mortality by less than 14.5%, largely due to some states with commercial quotas outlawing their commercial fishery, and the lack of striped bass in North Carolina’s waters, which prevents that state’s fishermen from utilizing its existing quota.

Thus, when all is considered, Addendum II is unlikely to achieve the 14.5% reduction in fishing mortality needed to achieve the target level, and is even less likely to allow the stock to rebuild by 2029.  However, that is only part of the story.  There is good news out there as well.

Based on preliminary data from Waves 1-4 (January through August), it appears that the emergency management measure will be successful in returning 2023 recreational landings to 2021 levels, and avoiding a repeat of 2022’s excessive removals.  For the period January 1-August 31, 2023, overall recreational removals were estimated at 2,470,426 fish, which compares favorably with the 2,474,425 fish estimated to have been removed for the same period in 2021.  If that pattern holds for the rest of the year, the emergency management measures will have been successful in reducing recreational removals by 25%, compared to 2022.

Since Addendum II will hopefully build on the emergency regulations by imposing greater restrictions in the Chesapeake Bay recreational fishery and in the commercial fisheries in both the ocean and Bay, it should cause overall removals to be further reduced.

On the downside, even if Addendum II, and whatever additional measures are adopted by the Management Board, manage to rebuild the striped bass spawning stock biomass by 2029, the future of the stock is far from assured.

At this point, all of the fish needed to rebuild the population have already been spawned; the increase in spawning stock biomass will be achieved largely by those fish already in the population growing in size, and not by more fish being recruited into the stock.  However, striped bass recruitment, in three out of the four major spawning areas, has generally been below average in recent years, with only the Hudson River showing relatively good production.  Thus, even if the spawning stock biomass is rebuilt to its target level by 2029, such biomass will begin to decline shortly thereafter, and managers will not be able to restore it, much less maintain it at the target level in the long term, until recruitment improves substantially.

We will probably be fretting about the health of the striped bass stock for a very long time.

Still, Draft Addendum II represents a stopgap that can keep things from getting worse over the next few years.  It is in the interest of all striped bass anglers to turn out for the hearings, send in written comments, and do everything within their power to convince the Management Board to make the long-term interests of the striped bass its priority.

If the Management Board fails to heed such requests, the foreseeable future of the striped bass, and everyone who depends on it, whether for recreation, for food, or for profit, is likely to be extremely bleak.

 

 

POOR STRIPED BASS RECRUITMENT CONTINUES TO THREATEN STOCK

 

The Chesapeake Bay produces most of the migratory striped bass on the Atlantic Coast, and about two-thirds of those Chesapeake bass are spawned in Maryland’s waters. Maryland spawning success is so important to the overall health of the striped bass stock that, at the November 2022 meeting of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s (ASMFC) Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board (Management Board), Emilie Franke, the ASMFC’s Fishery Management Plan Coordinator for striped bass, noted that “the Maryland [juvenile abundance index] is a good predictor of Age 1 recruits” into the entire coastal striped bass population.

 

Right now, Maryland’s striped bass are experiencing a spawning failure. On October 12, 2023, the Maryland Department of Natural Resources announced that Maryland’s 2023 juvenile abundance index (JAI) was 1.02, “well below the long-term average of 11.1.” In fact, the 2023 juvenile abundance index was the second-lowest ever recorded in a time series dating back to 1957; only an index of 0.89, recorded in 2012, was lower.

 

The most recent addendum to the ASMFC’s striped bass management plan, Addendum 7, contains a so-called “management trigger” that sets a minimum standard for juvenile production, and requires managers to take specific actions if such management trigger is tripped. The relevant section reads,

 

If any of the four JAIs used in the stock assessment model to estimate recruitment (NY, NJ, MD, VA) shows an index value that is below 75% of all values (i.e., below the 25th percentile) in the respective JAI from 1992-2006 (which represents a period of high recruitment…) for three consecutive years, then the interim [fishing mortality] target and interim [fishing mortality] threshold calculated using the low recruitment assumption will be implemented, and the [fishing mortality]-based triggers…will be reevaluated using those interim reference points. If [a fishing mortality]-based trigger is tripped upon reevaluation, the striped bass management program must be adjusted to reduce [fishing mortality] to the interim [fishing mortality] target within one year.

The lower [fishing mortality] reference points will remain in place at least until the next stock assessment update or benchmark assessment is approved for management use. Upon reviewing the results of that next assessment, the Board will determine which [fishing morality] rate (target or interim target) to manage towards moving forward by considering factors such as current stock status, recent JAI data, and [Technical Committee] input.

With the release of this year’s Maryland JAI, that index has now been below the 25th percentile for five, and not merely three, consecutive years. The management trigger has already been tripped, and the low recruitment assumption has already been implemented; an interim fishing mortality target has been put in place. The management plan specifies no additional remedies to combat cratering recruitment.

Worse, the poor JAIs aren’t limited to Maryland. On the same day that Maryland announced the results of its juvenile abundance survey, the Virginia Institute of Marine Science announced that “a poor year class of young-of-year striped bass was produced in Virginia tributaries of the Chesapeake Bay in 2023.”

 

Neither the 2023 data for New York’s juvenile abundance survey of Hudson River-spawned fish nor for New Jersey’s survey of juvenile abundance in the Delaware River estuary have yet been released, so there is still some hope that good production could have occurred in at least one of those waters. However, recent trends in most spawning areas have not been good. Each year, the ASMFC reviews the performance of its striped bass management plan. The 2022 review advised that

 

For the 2023 review of JAIs, the analysis evaluates the 2020, 2021, and 2022 JAI values… One state (Maryland) met the criteria of the Amendment 7 recruitment trigger. Maryland’s JAI values for 2020 (1.12), 2021 (1.65), and 2022 (1.78) were below the Maryland JAI trigger level of 4.16. This trips the recruitment trigger in 2023…

New York’s JAI (Hudson River) was above its trigger level (11.70) from 2020-2022, with values ranging from 15.89 to 35.39. New Jersey’s JAI (Delaware River) was below its trigger level (1.07) in 2021 and 2022 with values of 0.67 and 0.77, respectively. A 2020 JAI value for New Jersey is not available due to COVID-19 restrictions. Virginia’s JAI was above its trigger level (8.22) in 2020 with a value of 13.89, but fell below its trigger level in 2021 and 2022 with values of 6.3 and 7.95, respectively.

Maine’s JAI (Kennebec River) and North Carolina’s JAI (Albemarle-Roanoke) are not part of the recruitment trigger, but are still required monitoring for those states. Maine’s JAI was below the level of recruitment failure in both 2020 and 2021 with values of 0.02 and 0.0, respectively. North Carolina’s JAI value in 2022 was 0.5, the fifth consecutive year below the value of recruitment failure.

Except for the Hudson River, striped bass recruitment has been poor everywhere. This year’s low JAI in Virginia will trip the recruitment trigger for that spawning area, and unless the New Jersey 2023 JAI is substantially higher than it was in recent years, it will also trip the trigger for management action.

But there aren’t too many things that managers can do.

The size of the striped bass stock does not dictate spawning success; there is no direct relationship between the size of the spawning population and the resultant JAI. The most recent benchmark stock assessment assumed a “steepness” value at 1.0, meaning that a striped bass stock reduced to just 20% of its spawning potential can produce the same level of recruitment as a completely unfished stock.

 

Instead, striped bass recruitment is highly dependent upon environmental conditions in the spawning reaches of coastal rivers. As the Maryland Department of Natural Resources notes,

 

Striped bass spawning activity is temperature-driven and historically adult fish migrated to the Chesapeake Bay to spawn in April and May, which aligned with the seasonal arrival of zooplankton and other microscopic food sources that larval striped bass eat. However, recent winters have produced less-than-average snowfalls in the region and therefore less snowmelt to cool the rivers and stream where striped bass spawn…

Previously, favorable environmental conditions for striped bass such as heavy winter snowfalls or higher spring rainfalls have helped produce stronger juvenile year classes.

Fishery managers can’t do anything about the weather, but they can try to maintain a striped bass stock that is best able to take advantage of favorable environmental conditions when they occur.

In 2000, Dr. David H. Secor published an article in the ICES Journal of Marine Science, titled “Spawning in the nick of time? Effect of adult demographics on spawning behavior and recruitment in Chesapeake Bay striped bass.” In that article, Dr. Secor noted that

 

The observation that larger striped bass tend to spawn early in the season suggests that spawning behaviours that vary with size or age might be an effective means to hedge against environmental stochasticity…If minority spawning behaviours—for instance, spawning during early or late parts of the season—in some years resulted in successful offspring, a diverse age composition should contribute to sustained annual recruitment and accumulation of spawning stock biomass…reduction in year-class diversity renders a population more vulnerable to recruitment failures [and] is consistent with the time series of year-class strengths observed for Chesapeake Bay striped bass. Lowest year-class strengths were observed during periods when age structure was severely truncated.

Thus, to best conserve the existing striped bass population, and to maximize the likelihood of improved recruitment, the Management Board should strive to maintain a spawning stock in which as many different ages and sizes are represented, so that some portion of that spawning stock will be present and actively spawning should conditions in the spawning rivers provide more favorable conditions in an otherwise unfavorable spawning year.

Right now, meteorologists are predicting a strong El Nino for the winter of 2023-24. Such El Nino conditions might well bring cold and snow to the northeastern United States, and perhaps provide the conditions that striped bass will need to produce a strong year class.

But weather predictions don’t always prove true. Until the Maryland JAI, and the JAIs from the other major striped bass spawning areas, demonstrate that strong recruitment has occurred, the Management Board must set a very low fishing mortality target, to assure that larger, older fish remain in the spawning stock, and that younger, but still mature females also remain, in order to give the striped bass its best possible chance to overcome its current recruitment problems.

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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/.