IT'S TIME FOR COMMENTS ON STRIPED BASS ADDENDUM II

 

Yesterday, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission released its Draft Addendum II to Amendment 7 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass.  It will be accepting public comment on the Draft Addendum through December 22.

In many ways, the Draft Addendum is a disappointing document.  It was initiated at the May meeting of the ASMFC’s Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board, which unanimously approved 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 F-target from the 2022 stock assessment update (F-0.17)…  [emphasis added]”

and the first, and maybe biggest, thing that’s disappointing about the Draft Addendum is that it fails to comply with two of the core mandates of that implementing motion:  It won’t necessarily impact all of the relevant striped bass fisheries in 2024, and to the extent that it does, most of its proposed management measures, even when considered together, aren’t projected to reduce fishing mortality to the fishing mortality target.

Despite that, this badly flawed management document deserves stakeholders’ attention and comment, and it would be a mistake for anyone concerned about the health of the striped bass resource to just throw up their hands in disgust and fail to make their opinions known, no matter how badly they might want to do so, as it contains both one bad idea that ought to be killed before it takes root and one provision that could make a material contribution to the long-term health of the striped bass stock.

The management measures in the Draft Addendum fall into four general categories:  Ocean Recreational Fishery Options, Chesapeake Bay Recreational Fishery Options, Commercial Quota Reduction Options, and Response to Stock Assessment Updates; two recreational proposals are relevant to both the ocean and Bay fisheries, and will be addressed in this essay after the waters-specific proposals are discussed.

As far as the Ocean Recreational Fishery Options go, the choices are very limited.  Commenters will be asked to choose between the old 28- to 35-inch slot limit (designated as “Option A” and status quo), the current 28- to 31-inch slot (“Option B”), or a newly-proposed 30- to 33-inch slot (“Option D”).  Compared to 2022 recreational fishing mortality, Option A would provide no reduction at all, Option B would provide a 14.1% reduction, and Option D would provide a 12.8% reduction.

There are also two other options, which would give anglers fishing from for-hire vessels special privileges not enjoyed by the rest of the angling community.  One, designated “Option C,” would retain the current 28- to 31-inch slot limit for anglers fishing from shore or from private boats, but expand it to 28 to 33 inches for anglers fishing from for-hire vessels.  Option C would supposedly reduce recreational fishing mortality by 14.0%, compared to 2022.  The other, designated “Option E,” would establish a 30- to 33-inch slot limit for shore and private boat anglers, while allowing anglers fishing from for-hire boats to enjoy Option C’s broader, 28- to 33-inch slot.  Option E would supposedly reduce recreational fishing mortality by 12.8%.

Before considering the merits of the five options, stakeholders should note two very important points.  

One is that none of the options would achieve a 14.5% reduction in ocean recreational fishing mortality, so would rely on greater reduction in other fisheries to achieve the reduction needed for a 50% probability of successfully achieving the target fishing mortality rate.  

The other is that there is so much uncertainty in the calculation of the reduction percentages that they offer few guarantees; the only thing that anyone can be sure of is that a proposal with a 14.1% reduction rate will probably reduce fishing mortality to a greater degree than one with an estimated 12.8% reduction.  But whether the actual reduction from either proposal would be 10%, 20%, or somewhere in-between can’t be known until more formal calculations are made as part of the 2024 stock assessment update process.

Knowing all of those things, it seems unwise to support any option other than Option B, which offers the best chance of contributing to an overall 14.5% fishing mortality reduction, regardless of whether the predicted 14.1% reduction is accurate or not.  

Option D would allow anglers to retain a greater number of bass from the 2015 year class, something that the emergency measures adopted last May, as well as Addendum II itself, were originally intended to avoid.  Dr. Justin Davis, the Connecticut fishery manager who originally proposed Option D, did so largely because he believed that anglers should be allowed to provide input on more than one possible size limit; he did not argue that Option D was inherently preferable to any of the others.

Options C and E, which would grant anglers on for-hire vessels special privileges, create issues that are rooted much more deeply in policy than in conservation; Option C would offer a theoretical reduction in fishing mortality that is only 0.1% less than that offered by Option B, a statistically irrelevant difference, while Option E’s reduction would be no different than that offered by Option D.  However, both give rise to important public policy questions.

Both options are intended to toss a bone to for-hire operators, based on the assumption that they’re losing business because the current 28- to 31-inch slot limit dissuades anglers who want to retain a striped bass from booking a for-hire trip.  While that assumption may not be wrong—some people like to take bass home for food and are less likely to fish if they find it too difficult to catch a bass for the cooler—we must ask why the for-hire anglers are singled out for preferential treatment.  After all, there’s no question that some members of the surfcasting and private boat community like to eat striped bass too, and it is equally likely that such anglers will fish less if they can’t take a bass home, thus impacting the revenues of tackle shops, fuel docks, marinas, etc. 

If such businesses will also suffer as a result of more restrictive striped bass regulations, is it really good public policy to favor the for-hire operators while leaving the other shops to struggle on their own with the management measures’ impacts?

After all, in a situation where everyone else is being forced to cut back their landings, and perhaps their income, in order to better conserve the striped bass, why should anglers on for-hire boats, or such vessels' owners, be the only persons to be given a little more?

And there is another, perhaps more compelling policy issue that must be considered:  What are regulators’ obligations to a sector that refuses to change its business model, despite a changing operating environment?

We are currently well into the third decade of the 21^st Century, yet the for-hire business is still largely build around an early to mid-20^th Century model of taking people out fishing and bringing them back to the dock with a box filled with dead fish. 

The demographic, economic, social, regulatory, biological, and oceanographic conditions have changed substantially since 1930, 1950, or even 1970.  Big, national corporations that were once household names—F.W. Woolworth, A&P Foods, Chrysler Motors, Howard Johnson’s hotels, and quite a few more—went bankrupt, closed up shop, and disappeared from the public consciousness since those times, largely because their business models couldn’t, or at least didn’t, keep up with changing conditions.  Yet the for-hire businesses stubbornly continue to operate in much the same way as they did fifty or more years ago, despite a changing business environment.  Thus, we must ask whether fishery managers ought to subsidize such businesses with a disproportionate share of the striped bass resource, when such businesses' inability—or perhaps unwillingness—to change on their own has limited their ability to survive.

I would argue that the answer to that question is no.  Businesses must evolve, and those that do not change will—and should--die.

Options for the Chesapeake Bay Recreational Fishery are somewhat more complicated.

The good news is that, at October’s Management Board meeting, the Board decided to move forward with only those options that would provide for consistent regulations across all the jurisdictions bordering the Chesapeake Bay, so anglers wouldn’t have to worry about different rules if they traveled between, say, Maryland’s and Virginia’s waters.  It is also good that at least some of the proposals yield estimated reductions well in excess of 14.5%.  Unfortunately, a few of those proposals don’t come close to that mark.

The options can be broken down into three groups, composed of Option A, the status quo, variants of Option B, and variants of Option C.  Option B provides for a 1-fish bag limit and a 19-inch minimum size; it is further broken down into Options B1, with a 23-inch maximum size (22.4% reduction), B2, with a 24-inch maximum size (15.9% reduction), B3, with a 25-inch maximum size (12.1% reduction), and B4, with a 25-inch maximum size (10.3% reduction).

Option C, like two of the options in the ocean recreational fishery, would provide special privileges for anglers fishing from for-hire boats, although in this case, the for-hire anglers' advantage is in bag limit, not size; the Option C group would set a 19-inch minimum size, with a bag limit of 1 bass for shorebound and private boat anglers, and 2 bass for those fishing from charter and party boats.  Option C1 would impose a 23-inch maximum size, and achieve a 17.9% reduction, while Option C2 would impose a 24-inch maximum size, and only achieve an 11.0% cut in landings.

Using the same criteria applied with respect to the ocean recreational fishery—choosing proposals most likely to result in an overall 14.5% fishing mortality reduction, and those that treat all anglers equally—Options B1 and B2 seem to provide the greatest benefit, with the others either failing to achieve sufficient landings reductions and/or failing to treat anglers equitably.

Two additional proposals would apply both to anglers fishing in the ocean and to those in the Bay.

One would only apply if anglers fishing from for-hire vessels were given privileges not enjoyed by other anglers.  Should that be the case, the Management Board will have to decide whether the same regulations would apply to both anglers and the for-hire boats' crews, or whether the captains and crews would be bound by the same rules governing private boat anglers.

There is no logical reason that the crew of for-hire vessels should be extended extraordinary privileges; the justification for providing such privileges to their fares—that it would help attract business—is irrelevant to those employed on the boats.  Arguably, given the state of the striped bass stock, the captain and crew shouldn’t be allowed to retain any fish at all when they're carrying passengers for hire.  Unfortunately, that’s not an option included in the Draft Addendum, so the best choice is Option B, limiting the captain and crew to private boat regulations.

The other proposal relates to states which allow anglers to fillet striped bass while the angler is still on a boat or at a shoreside fishing location.  Because such filleting can make it very difficult, and often impossible, for law enforcement to determine whether the filleted fish was of legal size, and even whether it was definitely a striped bass, there is good reason to support Option B, which would require anglers to retain the racks of the filleted fish, so that size could be determined; to leave the skin on the fillet, so that species could be determined; and to have no more than two fillets in possession for every rack retained, to better assure that the bag limit was not violated.

The Commercial Quota Reduction Options are much simpler than the options proposed to govern the recreational fishery.  The choice is only between the status quo—making no changes to the commercial quotas, and placing the entire burden of striped bass conservation on the shoulders of recreational fishermen—and reducing each state’s commercial quota by “up to” 14.5%.  When considering this option, it’s pretty clear that Option B, which would reduce commercial quotas, is the only viable choice, as everyone who benefits from the striped bass resource has a responsibility to contribute to the conservation and rebuilding effort.

Unfortunately, because not all of the annual commercial quota is caught—the amount of uncaught fish is relatively small on the coast, but amounted to about one-sixth of the entire 2022 quota in the Chesapeake Bay—a 14.5% reduction in quota does not equate to a 14.5% reduction in commercial fishing mortality, making it less likely that the overall reduction will meet the needed 14.5% cut.  Thus, commenters should urge managers to support the largest commercial quota reduction contemplated in the Draft Addendum, 14.5%, to come as close as possible to reducing overall fishing mortality to the target level.

It is also unfortunate that the Management Board’s August decision to delay action on the Draft Addendum will mean that any reductions in commercial quotas will not be in effect on the first day of 2024.  Such delay may well render any commercial quota reduction meaningless for, as acknowledged on the Draft Addendum’s cover page, the measures that it contemplates are intended to be

“Interim Management Measures,”

which probably won’t survive much past the release of the 2024 stock assessment update, and will most likely be superseded by January 1, 2005.  Because the commercial fishery in some states in the lower mid-Atlantic begins on January 1, the commercial quota cut may not be imposed in 2024; the Draft Addendum notes that

“the implementation schedule of selected measures may span 2024-2025.”

Should the commercial quota cuts not become effective in 2024, achieving the 14.5% overall fishing mortality reduction will not be possible.

Arguably, the final set of options, the Response to Stock Assessment Updates, is the most important single provision of the Draft Addendum.  Even in its best-case form, Draft Addendum II is a weak management effort that is unlikely to achieve its goals.  However, it should also be short-lived.  Once the 2024 stock assessment is released, it will probably indicate that additional management measures will be needed to rebuild the striped bass stock by the 2029 deadline.

Adopting such measures in time for them to do any good would be virtually impossible under the ASMFC’s normal procedures, which would see a new Addendum III authorized no earlier than October 2024, released for public comment late in the winter of 2025, and finally approved in May or August of that year, for implementation in 2026.  While Option A maintains that status quo, Option B would allow the Management Board to take immediate action should the assessment update reveal that there was less than a 50% chance of timely rebuilding the stock under Addendum II’s management measures.  Such rapid response may be needed to rebuild the stock by the 2029 deadline, and stakeholders should aggressively support the option that will allow it to happen.

As mentioned at the start of this essay, Draft Addendum II is a disappointing document, that fails to live up to the requirements established in the Management Board’s May 2023 motion. 

The Management Board intended Addendum II “to implement commercial and recreational measures for the ocean and Chesapeake Bay fisheries in 2024,” yet with the implementation of some management measures possibly delayed until 2025, it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen.

The Management Board’s motion also clearly stated that Addendum II should establish management measures that “in aggregate are projected to achieve F-target from the 2022 stock assessment update (F-0.17).”  Yet the reduction estimates associated with most of the proposed measures are below the 14.5% aggregate reduction needed to achieve F_target; it is difficult to understand why individual measures that would not achieve a reduction of at least 14.5% are even included in the Draft Addendum.

As it is, it seems that the Management Board has produced a management document that is almost certainly destined to fail.

Even so, those stakeholders concerned with the future of the striped bass stock, and of effective striped bass management, have good reason to turn out and comment on the Draft Addendum.

They need to support the most effective recreational management measures.  They need to oppose the proposed balkanization of the recreational community, by awarding special privileges to anglers on for-hire boats.  They need to demand that commercial quotas are cut by no less than 14.5%.

And they need to support the option allowing the Management Board to respond quickly to stock assessments and assessment updates, in order to continue rebuilding the striped bass stock.

The debate over Draft Addendum II isn’t going to be one of those consequential battles, like the fight over Amendment 7, that anglers and others can look back on with pride, because they made a real difference in conserving the striped bass stock.  Instead, it’s going to be a lower-key, but not insignificant, debate which, if concluded successfully, might set the scene for future progress.

It is a debate that can’t be ignored, because while even the best provisions of Draft Addendum II probably won’t make things much better, the worst provisions of the Draft Addendum, if adopted by the Management Board, can and probably will make things significantly worse.