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.