2023: A FRUSTRATING YEAR FOR MARINE FISHERIES

Ever since this blog began, I have made it a habit to review the past year in fisheries management, before making some predictions about what the big issues in the next year will be.  Last year, my review of the past 12 months was relatively upbeat.

That was last year.

2023, on the other hand, probably didn’t see a single unqualified management success.  Instead, we had one or two “it could have been worse” situations, and a few others where “worse” is just what we got.

I’ll begin the review with the species that probably generated the most debate, at least on the East Coast—the striped bass—then move on from there.

Striped bass

The striped bass was definitely one of those “it could have been worse” situations.

A stock assessment accepted by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board in 2019 found the striped bass stock to be both overfished and experiencing overfishing.  While Addendum VI to Amendment 6 to the Atlantic Striped Bass Interstate Fishery Management Plan got overfishing under control in 2020, the stock remained overfished.  In October 2022, the Management Board received a stock assessment update which found that the striped bass stock had a 78.6% chance to be fully rebuilt by the 2029 deadline established by the fishery management plan.

Unfortunately, the stock assessment update failed to consider the impact that the big 2015 year class, which was entering the 28- to 35-inch slot size limit, would have on recreational landings.  The influx of legal-sized bass caused recreational landings to spike in 2022, with 2022 landings approximately 90% higher than they were in 2021; when commercial landings and a slight increase in recreational releases were added to the calculation, biologists found that the number of striped bass removed from the population had increased by about 33%.

The Management Board had not planned to revisit striped bass management measures until after a stock assessment update was released in 2024, and had no legal obligation to do so.  However, the combination of sharply increased recreational landings, poor recruitment in key spawning areas, and a 2015 year class that was largely encompassed within the slot limit caused managers to take preemptive action.  At the May 2023 Management Board meeting, motion

“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 well 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 2004, 2006) if the stock is not projected to rebuild by 2029 with a probability greater than or equal to 50%,”

passed unanimously, and the Management Board went on to adopt an emergency action that required all states (with the exception of Maryland’s “trophy” fishery) to adopt a 31-inch maximum size by July 2, 2023 with only New Jersey dissenting.

The May meeting marked the high point of 2023 striped bass management.  After that, things began to flow slowly downhill.

The Management Board was supposed to approve a draft of the new addendum, Draft Addendum II to Amendment 7 of the Interstate Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass, at its August meeting, when it would select the management options that would go out for public comment.  Such approval would let the ASMFC schedule hearings on the Draft Addendum in late summer and early fall, and allow the Management Board to consider such comments, and approve a final version of Addendum II, at its October meeting.  States would then have to adopt new regulations in time for the 2024 season.

That didn’t happen.  Because the Management Board didn’t have enough information on how some commercial options might impact states’ landings, it decided to defer final action until its October meeting, which had the effect of delaying final adoption of Addendum II until, at best, late January 2024.  Such late adoption will mean that regulations will not be in place for the start of some states’ commercial fishing seasons, and any changes to commercial regulations might have to be deferred until 2025.

The version of the Draft Addendum that was finally released for public comment was a pitifully weak management document that was more likely to fail than to succeed in achieving its goals.  The ASMFC’s Atlantic Striped Bass Technical Committee found that, depending on which options were ultimately included in the final version of Addendum II, such Addendum had between a 33% and 56% of reducing fishing mortality to the target level, and that, if fishing mortality was reduced to Ftarget, there would still only be a 48% chance that the stock would be rebuilt by the 2029 deadline; when all options in the Draft Addendum were considered, there was only a 33% to 51% chance that timely rebuilding would be achieved.

The Technical Committee warned against putting too much faith in such estimates, saying that the uncertainty around the projected percentages was very, very large, and that any percentages provided were far more useful for determining the relative value of competing proposals, rather than determining their actual effect.  At the same time, providing such low estimates of probable success, in the face of substantial uncertainty, should breed discomfort, as the level of precaution embodied in regulations should be directly proportional to the level of uncertainty in the data underlying such rules.

By that standard, Draft Addendum II is a badly flawed management effort.

At the same time, it at least represents some effort to preemptively avert a decline in the striped bass population, for which the Management Board should be commended, as they could have simply decided to sit on their hands and do nothing until the stock assessment came out, as a different Management Board, largely composed of different people, did in November 2011, arguably setting off the chain of events that led the striped bass down the path that it travels today.

Politics trumps science in Louisiana

A little earlier, while discussing the Fishing Effort Survey, I mentioned how many angling industry and anglers’ rights organizations prefer state management over the federal fishery management system, because state systems can usually be manipulated more easily, and political pressure more easily brought to bear.

No state illustrates that more clearly than Louisiana.

2023 saw Louisiana’s state fisheries managers try to implement more restrictive regulations for both speckled trout (more properly, spotted seatrout) and red drum, and saw their efforts stymied in both cases by recreational organizations, particularly the Coastal Conservation Association, that used their political clout to stymie science-based fisheries management.

In the case of speckled trout, the stock had been fished so heavily by recreational fishermen—the commercial fishery accounts for well under 1% of all landings—that few fish grew past the states tiny 12-inch size limit, and 95% of the population was made up of fish no more than two years old, and its spawning potential was the lowest ever recorded.  State fisheries managers, after long and diligent work, decided to reduce the bag limit from 25 to 15 fish, and increase the size limit from 12 to 13 ½ inches.

But the Louisiana chapter of the Coastal Conservation Association didn’t want anything to do with such conservation measures.  Making the absurd claim that

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

and declaring that

“Moving to a 13 or 13.5-inch minimum size seems drastic and unnecessary,”

CCA Louisiana opposed Louisiana’s fishery management efforts.  Its opposition helped to convince a legislative oversight committee to override the state’s professional fisheries managers, forcing them to come up with alternative management measures.  Fortunately, their second proposal, which called for a 15 fish bag and a 13- to 20-inch slot limit, and allowed anglers to keep two above-slot fish each day, still provided the speckled trout with a reasonable opportunity to rebuild, and made it past the legislative committee.

Red drum are now running the same gauntlet.

Red drum aren’t yet in a badly depleted condition.  While they’re experiencing overfishing, with too few fish escaping the slot limit and joining the spawning stock, they are not overfished.  Louisiana’s fishery managers are trying to end overfishing and return the stock to health.  Once again, overfishing is the sole province of the recreational sector, as Louisiana outlawed commercial fishing for red drum a long time ago.

Current regulations allow anglers to keep five red drum per day.  Such fish must be between 16 and 27 inches long, although one drum per day may exceed the 27-inch maximum size.  Louisiana’s regulators determined that by dropping the bag limit to three red drum per day, narrowing the slot limit to 18 to 24 inches, and prohibiting the retention of any over-slot fish, they could reduce landings by 55% and rebuild the stock within about 10 years.

But once again, Coastal Conservation Association Louisiana opposed any such conservation measures, with its executive director, David Cresson, stating at a public hearing that

“The majority of our members believe the [Notice of Intent to adopt the proposed regulations] goes a step too far.”

And once again, the politicians on the oversight committee vetoed the professional managers’ proposal.

So far, the red drum’s saga doesn’t end as well as the speckled trout’s.  Louisiana’s managers have proposed a new set of rules, which would drop the bag limit from five fish to three and adopt an 18- to 27-inch slot limit, while prohibiting the retention of over-slot fish and prohibiting captains and crew from keeping fish on trips carrying passengers for hire.

Such regulations will result in a much smaller reduction in recreational landings, and lead to a significantly longer rebuilding time.  As of now, it is not clear that they will pass oversight committee review.

Mid-Atlantic “Harvest Control Rule”

This topic, too, could fall into the “it could have been worse” column, although the outcome was already pretty bad.  T

he Mid-Atlantic “Harvest Control Rule” (quotation marks needed as, from a strictly technical perspective, it isn’t) was adopted at a joint meeting of the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council and the ASMFC’s Summer Flounder, Scup, and Black Sea Bass and Bluefish management boards in June 2022.

It represents the culmination, or at least a substantial mid-course victory, of the fishing industry’s efforts to evade the strict, data-based requirements of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, and replace them with a set of management actions largely decoupled from the recreational harvest limits and annual catch limits previously used to constrain recreational landings, and even from the allowable biological catch and overfishing limits used to prevent overfishing.  Such decoupling will, in many instances, allow recreational fishermen to kill substantially more fish than they were able to before, an outcome that the recreational industry views with considerable favor.

The National Marine Fisheries Service adopted final regulations incorporating the Harvest Control Rule on March 9, 2023, despite stakeholder comments noting that the Rule appears to conflict with key provisions of Magnuson-Stevens.  In response, the Natural Resources Defense Council filed a suit in federal district court, requesting judicial review of such regulations.  That challenge is still pending, with memorandums of law filed and oral arguments yet to be heard.

In the meantime, at the December 2023 joint meeting of the Council and the ASMFC’s Summer Flounder, Scup, and Black Sea Bass Management Board, the Control Rule was used to set 2024 recreational specifications for the summer flounder and scup fisheries, which are respectively facing 28% and 10% landings reductions, and was not used to set recreational specifications for black sea bass which, according to the clear and unambiguous language of the Rule, should have also been facing a 10% landings reduction.  However, the 2024 black sea bass landings target will remain unchanged because, thanks to advice from the Summer Flounder, Scup, and Black Sea Bass Monitoring Committee, which elevated the Committee’s view of the Rule’s intent above its clear language, both the Council and the Management Board decided that status quo was OK.

Marine Recreational Information Program/Fishing Effort Survey

In August, NMFS announced that it had found an error in the Fishing Effort Survey component of MRIP, which may have caused angler effort, and recreational catch and landings, to have been overstated by as much as 30% to 40%.

The problem was completely unexpected, and was only discovered because NMFS was engaged in quality control research intended to assure the integrity of MRIP data.  It came from an unexpected source.  The Fishing Effort Survey followed best practices in survey design, in that it asked the respondent a simple question—How often did you go fishing in the past two months?—before asking the supposedly more difficult question of how often an angler fished over the past year.  However, the researchers found that about 16% of respondents stated that they made more trips in the past two months than they made in the past twelve, which is an obviously impossible result.

Apparently, surveyed anglers were so willing to help NMFS out that they were overstating the number of recent trips, compressing their activity to include trips made over a longer period of time into a two-month window.  Researchers discovered that if they broke from the usual protocol, and asked how many trips were taken in the past year before asking about the last two months, the initial question provided a bound which limited responses to the two-month question to a more believable number.

NMFS is now engaged in a year-long study to determine whether the overstatement is limited to certain states and particular fisheries, or whether it occurs more widely.  The agency expects to be able to adjust MRIP data to better reflect the actual number of trips taken by 2026.

Predictably, the chronic critics of the federal fishery management system were quick to use NMFS’ announcement as new grounds to attack MRIP and resultant management decisions.  A September editorial in The Fisherman magazine was titled “NOAA Bombshell!  Angler Effort Surveys Still Flawed,” and criticized then-recent management actions to reduce the annual catch limit for summer flounder and impose an emergency, 31-inch maximum size limit on striped bass.

Farther south, the Center for Sportfishing Policy and its affiliated organizations, which have long tried to shift management of popular recreational species to more easily manipulated state management bodies which are not bound by the strictures of Magnuson-Stevens, issued a press release calling on NMFS

“to stop making the same mistakes, stop wasting taxpayer money, and stop causing chaos in recreational fisheries management and coastal communities.  It’s time for all parties to work together to properly fund state efforts to manage recreational fisheries.”

Of course, the critics fail to mention that the same sort of problems that affected the Fishing Effort Survey might lurk somewhere in state surveys too, but no one really knows because, unlike NMFS, no one is really trying to find them.

The critics also fail to understand that the Fishing Effort Survey’s problems, although not insignificant, have less of an impact on recreational fisheries management than they might choose to believe.  As Dr. Evan Howell, Director of NMFS’ Office of Science and Technology, announced when describing the Fishing Effort Survey issue on an August 7 conference call, the issue creates an error in the magnitude of recreational landings estimates, but does not impact trends in those estimates.  So if estimates show that landings were 25% higher in one year than they were in the previous season, the percent increase is still essentially accurate, even if the absolute size of the landings in both years was overestimated.

But some people just can’t help trying to spin the story to suit their own needs.

Summer flounder experience overfishing

The last benchmark assessment for summer flounder wasn’t filled with good news.  While the stock wasn’t overfished or, at the time, experiencing overfishing, recent surveys suggested that the fish were growing more slowly, being smaller at any given age, and producing fewer eggs per individual.  The biomass target was reset downward as a result.  In addition, recruitment had been below average since 2010, resulting in a spawning stock biomass that was below the target level.

A 2021 stock assessment update continued in the same vein, finding that spawning stock biomass was at about 86% of the biomass target.  The one bit of good news was that recruitment in 2018 seemed to have been significantly above average, providing some hope that both the population and the harvest were on the rebound.

The good news didn’t last long.  A 2023 assessment update determined that the size of the 2018 year class had originally been underestimated, and that summer flounder biomass had been overestimated.  As a result, recent annual catch limits, commercial quotas, and recreational harvest limits had been set too high, so that fishing mortality exceeded the fishing mortality threshold in 2022, meaning that overfishing had occurred.

As a result, the 2024 annual catch limit was reduced by about 40%.

Summer flounder recruitment has been below average for more than a decade, and it is possible that the current low recruitment, which has largely remained stable, represents a new normal for the species.  If that is the case, returning to higher levels of summer flounder landings may not be possible, at least in the near term. 

And those are some of the more significant fisheries issues that we faced in 2023.  On Thursday, I'll make some predictions about what we'll see in 2024.

THE INTRACTABLE PROBLEM OF SHIFTING FISH STOCKS

 

The ocean is warming, and fish are taking notice.  Instead of continuing to swim inthe latitudes where their ancestors have lived for the past few thousand years,many species are pulling up stakes and following the warmer waters poleward.

Thus, in recent years here on Long Island, dolphin have gone from a target of opportunity caught while chumming for sharks or trolling for tuna to a fish abundant enough to support directed trips.  Cobia are also becoming more and more common, to the point where they, too, are supporting directed trips, as well as bumbling into baits set out for other fish; although most cobia are caught inshore, I even had one wolf down a mackerel that was drifting in my shark slick last summer, a fish so intent on eating that it ignored an #18/0 hook and #14 wire.

Even the sharks themselves are getting more interesting.  Blacktip and spinner sharks, which were once rarely seen north of Delaware Bay, are now ripping through schools of menhaden within sight of Long Island’s coast, while the occasional bull shark is now being reported off Long Island’s beaches.

Less exotic species, such as black sea bass and summer flounder, have been moving northward as well.  That movement has caused some real problems, as fisheries managers have been slow to respond to stocks shifting north; both recreational regulations and commercial quotas often still favor more southern states, where the fish used to be, and frustrate northern fishermen, who often see fish teeming right outside their ports, but are not allowed to fully exploit such nearby abundance—even as the stocks of fish they used to depend on, such as winter flounder and cod, are collapsing, and the few survivors disappearing from the southern extent of their range.

Fisheries managers refer to such movements as “shifting stocks,” and it has proven to be a very difficult issue to address.

Part of the problem is just human nature.  Allocations, whether between sectors or between states, tend to rank among the most difficult fisheries issues to resolve, because people who may currently harvest the largest share of the catch—even if they have to sail 500 miles to do so—aren't very willing to cede quota to states located nearer productive waters. 

Congress has tried to intervene.  The Sustaining America’s Fisheries For the Future Act of 2022, introduced by representative Jared Huffman (D-CA) in the 117^th Congress,  contained a section that addressed the shifting stocks problem.  However, such section would merely have allowed the Secretary of Commerce to determine whether

“a substantial portion of a fishery is located in the geographical authority of more than one [regional fishery management] Council.”

If that proved to the case, the bill would have allowed the Secretary to either designate one of the affected regional fishery management councils to draft the management plan for such fishery, or declare that such management plan with be developed jointly, by multiple councils.

While even that small step forward might have improved the current management of species such as summer flounder, scup, and black sea bass, which are important recreational and commercial species in much of New England, but are managed by the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council, with only minimal input from New England fishermen, the bill did not provide any guidelines for how the regional fishery management councils ought to deal with the issue of shifting stocks.

Perhaps worse, it required a majority of council members on each council contributing to a joint plan to agree to the plan’s terms, which means that the deadlock that currently affects allocation changes would be allowed to continue unabated.

At this point, any discussion of the bill is only hypothetical, as it was not passed by the House of Representatives during the 117^th Congress, and has not, to date, been reintroduced, but it again demonstrates why the shifting stocks issue is so difficult to address.

Some aggrieved parties have turned to the courts for assistance but, like Congress, the courts have failed to provide any relief.  The most recent court decision addressing the shifting stocks issue was New York v. Raimondo, which was decided by the United States Court of Appeals for the 2^nd Circuit on October 12, 2023.

In a complaint filed on January 13, 2021, the State of New York alleged, among other things, that

“The summer flounder fishery has geographically shifted over the intervening three decades [since summer flounder allocations were set in 1993], with the center of the fishery moving dramatically northeast to the waters off Long Island—yet under the 1993 Allocation Rule, New York continued to receive only 7.65% of the coastwide quotaish in  each year, while Virginia and North Carolina together received nearly 50%.  The result has been devastating to New York fishermen, who frequently fish off Long Island within sight of boats that steam to and from southern ports and are permitted to catch and land far more summer flounder due to less restrictive limits for those states.

“On December 14, 2020, Commerce replaced the 1993 Allocation Rule…The 2020 Allocation Rule keeps in place the 1993 formula except for any surplus fish in years of abundance, which are distributed evenly among active states in the fishery…resulting in only marginal quota increases for New York in those years.  The Rule continues to ignore substantial changes in the fishery.  [numbering omitted]”

New York further alleged that the summer flounder allocation violated various provisions of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, including National Standard 2, which requires management measures to be based on the best scientific information available; National Standard 4, which requires all allocations to be “fair and equable” and “promote conservation;” National Standard 5, which states that management measures should, “where practicable, consider efficiency in the utilization if fishery resources;” and National Standard 7, which requires that management measures “where practicable, minimize costs and avoid unnecessary duplication.”

In a trial brief which expanded on the allegations made in its complaint, New York noted that

“According to Commerce data, 87% of 2016-2019 commercial landings were caught in northern mid-Atlantic and southern New England waters proximate to Long Island, while only 10% were caught off the North Carolina and Virginia coast, even though Commerce allocates around half of all landings to those southern states.”

Summer flounder were clearly a shifting stock, and the shift was certainly changing where the fishery was being prosecuted.

The Commerce Department’s trial brief contested New York’s allegations, and argued that no one national standard should dictate the outcome of the case.  Instead, Commerce argued that the National Marine Fisheries Service properly balanced the sometimes conflicting goals of the national standards, along with the conflicting considerations of the states, saying that

“NMFS carefully considered the precise data New York points to regarding the location of the summer flounder fishery and determined that it must be weighed against preexisting infrastructure and community reliance, which was in turn based upon historical landings data and the resulting 1993 Allocation formula.

“New York argues that recent fishery data ‘are more current, relevant, and reliable than the 1980s data.  But this argument conflates two sets of data measuring entirely different phenomena: fishery location versus landings.  NMFS did not disregard a superior version of the same data, but rather made a choice between prioritizing historical landings and current fishery location data in deciding among the management approach here…  [references deleted]”

In the end, the trial court accepted the Commerce Department’s argument, finding that

“the 2020 Allocation Rule is not arbitrary and capricious.  Indeed, the Court finds that NMFS carefully considered all the appropriate factors, explicitly considering applying all 10 MSA [national] standards and evaluating them against the proposed alternatives.”

On October 12, the 2^nd Circuit confirmed the trial court’s decision, writing

“By including ten [national] standards, the MSA contemplates that other fishery management considerations—here, the inertia of fishing industries established over decades—can outweigh equitability concerns that flow from the transitory movement of the summer flounder…

“The NMFS adopted a rule that sought to ‘balance preservation of historical state access and infrastructure at recent quota levels, with the intent to provide equitability among states when the stock and quota are at higher levels.  We cannot say that this adjustment to the previous rule—the result of balancing ten different national standards—lacked a rational basis articulated in the administrative record.  We therefore conclude the NMFS did not violate the MSA or the [Administrative Procedures Act] when it set summer flounder quotas through the 2020 Allocation Rule.  [references omitted]”

While that decision was probably good law—administrative actions are supposed to be difficult to overturn, with courts only stepping in where there is clearly no rational basis for the action, and not just because the court would have chosen a different course—it probably sounded the death knell for significant council actions to address shifting stocks.

Quite simply, as I once noted in a different post in a different blog on another website, when it comes to allocations, Billie Holiday probably said it all when she belted out “God Bless the Child,”

“Them that’s got shall get/Them that’s not shall lose…”

Armed with the 2^nd Circuit’s decision, states that have long harvested the lion’s share of a fishery have no reason to cede any portion of their quotas to other states, even if that fishery has shifted far from a state’s waters.  So long as such states control a majority of votes on a regional fishery management council—which may not always be the case—we can depend on them to frustrate any efforts to let quotas follow the fish into new waters.

Absent congressional intervention, which is badly needed, we can imagine some time far in the future, perhaps in a day when today’s fishing vessels have all been replaced with artificial intelligence-guided drones, a warming ocean has pushed the summer flounder fishery to the edge of the Canadian border, and only one thing remains of the fishery we know today: quotas will still be based what landings were when Ronald Reagan sat in the White House, quotas that North Carolina and Virginia will still, most certainly, defend.

 

FISHERY MANAGERS CAN'T CATCH A BREAK

 

I’ve said it more than once in casual conversation, and might have written it down once or twice somewhere in this blog:  Fisheries managers, whether state or federal, don’t get paid enough for the job that they do.

Let’s be honest—you don’t become a marine biologist to get rich.  Biology had fascinated me throughout all of my school years, and from the time that I was six or seven or so until the time I turned 17, I had no doubt that I’d spend my career happily studying the various creatures that lived in our seas. But about the time that I started taking a serious look at colleges, and career research turned from just thinking about what I’d like to do to thinking about what sort of job might keep me reliably supplied with a sufficiency of groceries, boats, and related gear, a career in biology slipped from my first choice to an unrequited dream.

But when I talk about folks being underpaid, it goes far beyond mere salary.  As I grudgingly settled into my job at various big financial institutions, observed the stultifying world of corporate America first-hand, and became more and more involved with the fishery management process in an effort to do at least something worthwhile with my life, I realized that the folks who run the fisheries management agencies, and the various subdivisions thereof, needed the same sort of organizational, budgeting, personnel, and public relations skills as the corporate set, but were paid—if they were very fortunate—maybe 10 percent of what they might earn as administrators in a similar corporate setting. 

It's pretty clear that someone enters the field of fisheries management out of a love for the subject and a dedication to the mission of rebuilding and conserving fish stocks, because they certainly don’t do it for the money.

They don’t do it for the public acclaim, either, for it’s hard to think of another career in which a person is confronted with the same degree of acrimony, just for trying to do the right thing.

Consider, for a moment, what happened down in Louisiana over the past few years.

The state’s two foremost inshore recreational species had fallen on hard times.  Speckled trout—more properly, “spotted seatrout”—and red drum have both fallen on hard times.  Of the two, the trout were facing the worst situation, with the stock badly overfished and the spawning stock biomass at the lowest level of abundance ever recorded.  Red drum were just beginning their slide, and presented managers with a chance to limit the damage and start the rebuilding before things got much worse.

Louisiana’s fisheries managers set about to make things right.

  The first item on their agenda was rebuilding the speckled trout stock, and modifying the state’s extremely liberal recreational measures, which still allowed anglers to keep 25 foot-long trout every time they left the dock, a bag limit significantly higher, and a size limit significantly smaller, than prevailed in any other Gulf state at the time.

To that end, Louisiana managers sat down and devised a few different sets of regulations that, they expected, would get the job done, then sent their proposals out for public comment, holding eight public hearings and sending surveys to a representative sample of Louisiana’s recreational fishermen. 

Based on the feedback received, the managers proposed new regulations which would decrease the bag limit to 15 speckled trout, and raise the size limit to 13 ½ inches, measures that received the strongest support from the angling public.

So it seemed that the Louisiana managers did everything that reasonable and prudent managers ought to do, first using their scientific expertise to craft alternative sets of management measures that would rebuild the speckled trout stock within a reasonable time, sending the alternative measures out to public comment to see which ones the public preferred, and then seeking to adopt the proposed regulations.

The only problem was that not everyone agreed with the rules, and that one of groups opposing such rules was the politically connected Louisiana chapter of the Coastal Conservation Association, which made the incredible statement that

“Based on our experience, changes in recreational regulations have rarely, if ever, resulted in a direct fishery recovery,”

CCA Louisiana argued for rules that would allow Louisiana anglers, most particularly including the chapter’s members, to kill more speckled trout, regardless of the state of the stock.

In the end, Louisiana’s professional fishery managers were slapped in the face for trying to do the right thing, as a committee of the state legislature, largely or wholly ignorant of fisheries science but fully cognizant of where both their votes and their donations come from, vetoed the new regulations.  Fortunately, it wasn’t a total loss, as a new set of management measures, not quite as effective as those initially adopted but still capable of rebuilding the stock within six years, was ultimately adopted and escaped further political interference.

Proposed red drum regulations followed a similar, if somewhat shorter path.

Louisiana’s drum aren’t yet overfished, but are experiencing overfishing.  Louisiana’s fisheries regulators noted that

“biological data [indicates] the red drum stock is experiencing overfishing resulting in an escapement rate below the 30 percent minimum limit, leading to a declining biomass.  To increase the escapement rate and avoid the stock biomass declining to an overfished condition, management changes are necessary.”

Once again, Louisiana’s fisheries managers tried to protect the fish stock, as well as the public’s long-term interests in a healthy red drum fishery, and proposed regulations that could rebuild the stock within about 10 years.

The proposal received the support of most of the stakeholders who commented before both the Louisiana Fish and Wildlife Commission and the same legislative committee that had torpedoed the proposed speckled trout management measures.  But once again, the Coastal Conservation Association opposed the conservation measures, with a spokesman saying

“The majority of our members believe that the [proposed management measures] passed in July [go] a step too far.”

And once again, politicians overrode professional fishery managers and shot down the proposed red drum rules, resulting in a less effective set of management measures being proposed in their stead.

Such disregard for professional fishery managers' expertise, standing alone, was bad enough, but then the outdoor media began piling on.

On December 12, an article appeared on the Outdoor Hub website, in which a writer named Keith Lusher complained,

“As recreational anglers in Louisiana acclimate to the new speckled trout regulations that have been imposed on them, the Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries Commission is continuing its push to tighten restrictions on redfish…

“Once again [the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries] is asking recreational anglers in Louisiana to comment on the new restrictions.  However, it’s blatantly clear that the comment session is more of an appeasement session giving the impression that the LDWF cares about what recreational fishermen think.  It’s because of this that frustration among recreational fishermen is growing after the state initiated a closed season on flounder just last year and the tighter restrictions on speckled trout last month.

“Roland Gardner has fished Southwest Louisiana for over 50 years.  Gardner says he’s seen ebbs and flows in redfish harvests through the years.  ‘To take a few down years and write new law to limit recreational fishermen is just a knee-jerk reaction.  I wouldn’t be surprised if some environmentalists got to them and put forth an agenda to reduce limits on all species.  It’s not going to stop with flounder, specks, and redfish,’ Gardner said.

“Jeff Dempster believes what’s happening on the East Coast of the country is coming to the Gulf of Mexico.  ‘They want us all off the water to have the Gulf all to themselves.  This is just the beginning.  Look at what’s going on along the East Coast with the windmills.  They’re killing whales and putting lobster fishermen out of business.  You can bet your last fed coin they have eyes on the Gulf,’ Dempster said.”

Thus, for trying to rebuild a badly overfished stock of southern flounder, a species that is in steep decline throughout the southeast, for trying to restore a speckled trout stock that has fallen to the lowest level ever recorded, and for trying to keep the red drum stock from following the same path—basically, for doing they job that they’re paid for—Louisiana’s fishery managers are being accused of collaborating with some imagined cabal of extreme environmentalists who are supposedly trying to push anglers off the water, so that such environmentalists can “have the Gulf all to themselves,” although what they plan to do with said Gulf, if they’re not planning to fish, isn’t completely clear.

Unfortunately, conspiracy theories of this sort aren’t unique to Louisiana.  Fishermen on the East Coast, and particularly in the mid-Atlantic region, long ago became inured to spokesmen for the now thankfully defunct Recreational Fishing Alliance ranting about how

“large, well-funded and politically active environmental organizations…are philosophically opposed to fishing and endeavor to remove as many fishermen as possible from the water.”

It’s probably not surprising that the same delusions have spread to conspiracy-minded recreational fishermen along the Gulf coast, although it is somewhat amusing that one such conspiracy theorist quoted in the Outdoor Hub piece rails against East Coast windmills for “killing whales and putting lobstermen out of business,” but doesn’t seem to expend the same sort of vitriol on Louisiana oil rigs and related infrastructure that not infrequently spring leaks and spill oil into the Gulf of Mexico, such as the recent spill of about 1.1 million gallons of crude into waters that host not only the endangered Kemp’s ridley turtle, but also the rare Rice’s whale, which some have called “the most endangered whale in the world.”

Such irrational attitudes, and such disdain for professional fishery managers, might be excused if they were only expressed by a single author in a single outlet.  Unfortunately, they seem much more widespread.

In a December 9 article in The Advocate, writer Joe Macaluso accuses Louisiana fishery managers of playing “kick the can” with the state legislature, because after seeing their proposed science-based regulations shot down by a legislative committee, the managers failed to completely capitulate to the politicians, and instead came back with a new set of rules that maintained their preferred 3-fish bag limit, but coupled it with a more broader, more permissive slot size of 18 to 27 inches, rather than the originally proposed 18 to 24.

More troubling, on December 22 the same writer published an article in Louisiana Sportsman titled “Time to right the ship—leadership—of our state’s wildlife and fisheries,” in which he wrote,

“Without naming names—and didn’t your Momma tell you ‘if you can’t say anything nice about someone, then don’t say anything’—Louisiana’s Department of Wildlife and Fisheries has been run as if it was a red-headed stepchild (with all apologies to anyone red-headed and anyone who’s a stepchild).

“The hope is these folks will go away, these folks who made life a growing misery when it came to fish (especially fish) and wildlife issues.

“The heart-felt hope is that newly elected governor Jeff Landry has found the just-right people to run this vital state agency, and appoint the just-right people to the Wildlife and Fisheries Commission.”

And thus we come to understand why the professional fishery manager can’t catch a break.

If he or she does their job, promoting healthy fish stocks and healthy fisheries that are sustainable in the long term—they are pummeled in the press by people focused only on their short-term kill, and not on the future.  They are the subjects of inane conspiracy theories, and accused of trying to throw fishermen off the water (which might be the most ignorant comment of all, for just about all of the fishery managers that I’ve ever met were also inveterate anglers).  They are stymied, and often criticized, by opportunistic politicians with no real understanding of fisheries biology, but with very well-developed instincts for the right sound bite at the right time—politicians who often have the final say on whether those fishery managers remain employed.

On the other hand, if a fishery manager just goes through the motions, bending to the will of politicians and an often-hostile angling press that is driven more by a desire for advertising revenues than a desire to tell the truth, such manager can avoid political peril and public castigation, but will still have to face the most strident critic of all—themselves, and the conscience-driven knowledge that, in their inaction, they have betrayed the public trust.

I’ve met a lot of professional fishery managers over the years, at the state, regional, and federal levels, and can say that, with very few exceptions, they have eschewed the latter path, and instead executed their duties professionally and well, standing up to the politics as well as they could, while withstanding the cries of the critics.

Maybe they can’t catch a break.  Maybe, whatever they do, someone will scream and cry that it’s wrong.  Nonetheless, they endure.  And we, our sport, and the fish we pursue are better off for what they do.

 

 

 

 

 

GULF OF MEXICO RED SNAPPER MANAGEMET: THEY'RE STIRRING THE POT ONCE AGAIN

 

Every coast seems to have one or two fish that stir up most of the trouble at fishery management meetings.

Striped bass undoubtedly claim that title at the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission.  At the New England Fishery Management Council, it’s the cod; at the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council, black sea bass and summer flounder probably cause the most heated debates.  

In the southeast, red snapper seem to be the species causing most of the contention, at both the South Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico fishery management councils.

But it’s at the Gulf Council where red snapper really star, where just the mention of red snapper management can cause tempers to blaze and more-or-less reasonable people to begin taking unreasonable stances.  It’s Gulf of Mexico red snapper that inspired an angler-led assault of the federal fishery management system that has shown no sign of abating, and may be getting ready to flare up again.

Evidence of such a possible flare up came in the form of two separate articles, written by two different authors, which appeared in to unrelated publications, but came out within a week of each other and were written by people with very clear ties to an organization that has long been dedicated to undercutting federal red snapper management.

The first such article was an opinion piece published in the Mississippi Clarion Ledger on December 12.  That piece, titled “NOAA has let down Mississippi’s anglers too many times,” was written by Jason Osborn, who is not only a member of the Mississippi Advisory Commission on Marine Resources, but is apparently also a “Patron” member of the Coastal Conservation Association, meaning that he has donated a significant sum of cash to one of the organizations making the greatest effort to undermine federal fishery managers—particularly with respect to red snapper.

Given such connection, his attack on NMFS—NOAA Fisheries—comes as no surprise.

The second article was published the next day, December 13, on the website AL.com, which deals with Alabama news and events.  Titled “When it comes to red snapper, Alabama can do it better,” that opinion piece was written by Dr. Bob Shipp, a very experienced and respected marine biologist who is intimately familiar with red snapper issues, but who also served for 12 years as a Director of the Coastal Conservation Association’s Alabama chapter.

Trusting people might believe that it is mere coincidence that two different outlets, in two different states, would publish op-ed pieces authored by two different people who voice similar concerns and happen to have connections to the same organization.  Folks familiar with the players in the Gulf red snapper debate, and how they go about their business, are more likely to believe that the editorials mark the start of a new assault on the federal fishery management system.

The editorials have the same common theme.

Osborne’s piece in the Clarion Ledger complains that

“Anyone who has fished for red snapper in the Gulf of Mexico over the decades has been treated to a roller coaster of shifting seasons, perplexing data and a stubborn insistence on the status quo,”

and attacks the data used by federal fishery managers.  He focuses on NMFS’announcement, made earlier this year, that recreational fishing trips, and sorecreational landings, might be overstated by as much as 30 to 40 percent, and attacks NMFS' efforts to calibrate federal fisheries data and that gathered by the five Gulf states, each using a different methodology, into what managers refer to as a “common currency,” data sets that make sense when compared to one another.

After criticizing the federal management system, Osborn comes to the conclusion that

“It is time for Mississippi to get off this crazy ride and opt out of the federal data collection process entirely.  The state can operate its own system that local anglers and managers alike can understand and have faith in.”

His reason—which we can assume is also the Coastal Conservation Association’s reason—for seeking such an outcome is simple, for as Osborn noted,

“Mississippi began the Tales n’ Scales program, which is a mandatory reporting system that is almost a census of exactly how many fish are caught.  For a couple of years, our seasons were significantly longer under the state management model, and all was well.  [emphasis added]”

Shipp got to the same place with respect to Alabama, but he is a respected scientist, so had to get there the long way around, first informing readers that

“my years of research on red snapper has found that this species does not migrate.  In my work at the University of South Alabama, we organized hundreds of research cruises to tag red snapper at reef sites all over the Alabama coast and found that the species demonstrates tremendous site fidelity.  In some instances, we recorded tag recaptures for 20 years at the same reef site!  The research demonstrates that red snapper could be managed more effectively as a resident species according to the population and habitat characteristics off our coast.”

That statement, of course, sets the stage for state-level management, and allows Shipp to then follow the same path pioneered by Osborn, arguing that

“recreational catch is one of the crucial data streams at the heart of every management decision, and yet federal efforts to accurately quantify it have failed miserably for decades.”

He also uses the recently discovered problems with NMFS’ Fishing Effort Survey to impugn the federal management process, and condemns NMFS’ efforts to convert all of the federal and state data into a common currency that allows such information to be compared and utilized in a statistically sound manner.  

After laying out issues that are, in his opinion, hindering the red snapper management process, Shipp reaches a similar conclusion to Osborn, that

“The simple solution is for Alabama to leave the federal recreational data program altogether…Texas has never been part of the system and Louisiana opted out five years ago.  It’s time for Alabama to do the same!”

While some might find it remarkable that two different people came to the same conclusions about red snapper management at the same time, the two articles are far less remarkable for what they say—for, in the end, they do nothing more than parrot the Coastal Conservation Association’s long-held position—than for what remains unsaid.

For example, Osborn tried to make NMFS seem incompetent by saying that

“On NOAA’s watch we had year-long seasons on depleted stocks, and three-day seasons on booming stocks.”

What he didn’t mention is that people don’t fish as often, and don’t catch as many fish, when stocks are depleted as they do when stocks are in better shape (although the Gulf red snapper stock has notbeen “booming” since the early1950s, it has been recovering, and coming closer to being rebuilt, in recent years).  So in 2000, when stocks were low, Mississippi anglers made only about 28,000 trips targeting red snapper, despite the year-long season, while in 2022, even during the shorter season, the number of trips increased more than five-fold, to nearly 155,000.

Osborn also “forgot” to mention that back in the days of the year-long season, states tended to match their regulations with those set by NMFS.  The three-day federal season was a necessary response to states going out of compliance with the federal rules, and adopting much more liberal management measures; since Gulf red snapper are managed as a single stock, federal regulations had to be much more restrictive to offset the large numbers of snapper being caught within state waters when federal waters were closed.

One of the most interesting omissions from the Shipp piece was related to his comment that red snapper don’t migrate and demonstrate “tremendous site fidelity.”  He used that fact to support state management, but it also does something else—it negates CCA’s argument that “The Great Red Snapper Count,” a comprehensive assessment of the Gulf’s red snapper population that discovered that two-thirds of the fish were widely scattered over low-profile bottom, and that the population was three times as large as previously believed, justified a relaxation of red snapper regulations.  

If the fish on the various Gulf reefs—which are the fish generally targeted by anglers—represent local populations that do not mix with fish from elsewhere, then the majority of the red snapper, which aren’t found on the reefs, are largely irrelevant to anglers and so to the recreational rulemaking process, which must focus on the populations of fish that are targeted by anglers, which are the fish which abide on the higher-profile reefs and other obvious structure.

Regulations must effectively address the one-third of the stock that is targeted by anglers, and not the two-thirds that recreational fishermen largely leave alone.

But perhaps the biggest omission from both opinion pieces deals with the recreational data issue.  It’s not surprising that both opinion pieces appeared in Alabama and Mississippi news outlets, because it is the data developed by those states’ recreational data programs—Alabama’s “Snapper Check” and Mississippi’s “Tales n’ Scales”—that, according to NMFS, underestimated recreational red snapper landings.  The recreational data programs maintained by Florida and Louisiana provided estimates very similar to those produced by NMFS.

That presents both Osborn’s and Shipp’s criticisms of NMFS’ data in a very different light, for contrary to what Osborn implied when he wrote,

“the Gulf Coast states won the ability to collect data on what their recreational anglers were really catching because no one believed what NOAA was reporting,”

that is, that the state data systems produced landings estimates different from those produced by NMFS, so that the state data was right (“what their recreational anglers were really catching”) and that the NFMS data was wrong, Louisiana’s and Florida’s landings estimates actually confirmed the NMFS’ data, meaning that either the estimates produced by NMFS, Louisiana, and Florida were all wrong, and that Alabama’s and Mississippi’s estimates were correct, or that the latter two states’ estimates were wrong, and the former three data sets were the ones that reflected reality.

Osborn’s and Shipp’s assumption that the Mississippi and Alabama estimates represented the most accurate data is not justified by the preponderance of the objective evidence; such statements were more akin to wishful thinking.

Osborn, and particularly Shipp, as the more experienced scientist, also omitted the impact that overestimation of recreational landings would have on estimates of red snapper abundance.  Recreational landings are one of the datasets used in the red snapper stock assessment, and such estimate contributes to the estimates of red snapper abundance.

Because it takes a larger biomass to support a higher level of recreational landings, an overestimation of recreational landings will of necessity lead to an overestimation of red snapper biomass.  Thus, if recreational landings are actually lower than NMFS believed—something that both Osborn and Shipp suggested is true—then the red snapper biomass, and particularly that portion of the biomass that relates to high-profile bottom and is targeted by anglers, would also be lower than previously believed.

Such lower biomass would justify more restrictive regulations.

Both Osborn and Shipp omitted that point.

So, in the end, what we need to ask is why an anglers’ rights group such as the Coastal Conservation Association might want to use coordinated editorials to stir up public opinion against federal red snapper management at this particular time.

Perhaps it was merely done in anticipation of the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council setting state quotas for the 2024 recreational red snapper season, in an effort to stymie the calibration process and win larger quotas for Alabama and Mississippi.

Perhaps it was done as part of a larger program to convince both of those states to secede from NMFS Marine Recreational Information Program, and in doing so, again achieve the goal of larger red snapper quotas.

Or perhaps the editorials represent the first shot in a more ambitious effort to win support for legislation, not yet introduced, that would shift red snapper data collection, or even the entirety of red snapper management, from NMFS to the several Gulf states.

Right now, looking in from the outside, the endgame is hard to discern.

But whatever it is, we can be sure of of two things.  The two editorials were part of a coordinated effort to undercut federal red snapper management.

And pretty soon—maybe right after New Year’s—the debate over recreational red snapper management in the Gulf will heat up again.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

AN IMPORTANT NEW MILESTONE FOR MAGNUSON-STEVENS

 

Just two months ago, the National Marine Fisheries Service announced that, thanks to the provisions of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, it has rebuilt the Snohomish run of coho salmon, the 50^th once-overfished stock to be fully restored by the agency since it rebuilt Atlantic sea scallops in 2000.

But just saying that NMFS has rebuilt 50 once-overfished stocks doesn’t tell the whole story.

In 2000, 92 fish stocks were overfished.  Today, that number has fallen to 48 (not 42, as one might hope given the state of stocks in 2000 and the 50 since rebuilt, but the sad truth is that a few stocks go the other way and decline instead of improve, often due to environmental conditions that NMFS can’t control).  NMFS' successful rebuilding—typically defined as restoring the spawning stock biomass to a level that can produce the maximum sustainable yield from the resource—of about half the stocks that were overfished less than 25 years ago is a meaningful accomplishment.

The list of rebuilt species includes some that presented significant challenges to fishery managers, including various species of Pacific rockfish, which are generally long-lived and exhibit irregular spawning success.  Such a life history can make a stock more difficult to rebuild, yet in late November, NMFS announced that many areas off the Pacific coast that were closed for 20 years have been reopened to fishermen, with almost all species of rockfish now completely rebuilt.

Unfortunately, some of the stocks that have been declared rebuilt have not been restored to former levels of abundance.  Probably the best example of that is Southern New England/Mid-Atlantic winter flounder, which was declared rebuilt in 2022, not because the spawning stock biomass had finally increased to its former target of 12,322 metric tons, but because biologists sharply decreased the spawning stock biomass target to a mere 3,314 metric tons, due to the very low level of recruitment that the stock has exhibited for the past decade or more.

Here in the mid-Atlantic region, three of the most important commercial and recreational species, summer flounder, scup, and black sea bass, were once overfished, but have since been fully rebuilt.  Although summer flounder biomass has slipped significantly below its target level, both scup and black sea bass are at very high levels of abundance, well above their spawning stock biomass targets.

No other fishery management program can boast a similar level of success.

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission was empowered to draft coastwide fishery management plans in 1993, when the Atlantic Coastal Fisheries Cooperative Management Act became law.  Since then, it has successfully rebuilt the Atlantic striped bass stock—although it subsequently allowed that stock to become overfished once again—and is on the threshold of fully rebuilding the Long Island Sound and DelMarVa tautog stocks.  While that marks some progress, it doesn’t come close to the level of rebuilding attributable to Magnuson-Stevens.

For fisheries managed solely by individual states, success is even harder to come by.  Perhaps the best—or, given how things have played out, the worst—example of this is Louisiana’s management of its speckled trout (a/k/a spotted seatrout) resource, which was allowed to languish for years; when the state fishery managers finally put together a plan to rebuild the overfished speckled trout population, their efforts were frustrated by politicians in the state legislature, which heeded special interests opposed to needed conservation measures.

It’s difficult to think of a recent—and by recent, I mean any time in the current century—when state fishery managers successfully rebuilt a depleted species.  Instead, state management has generally been characterized by political interests dominating the debate and, in many cases, frustrating the best efforts of professional fishery managers.

Thus, it’s a little strange that federal fishery managers, following the dictates of the Magnsuon-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, are not only the most successful fishery managers, but also the most criticized.  Despite their many successes, they often face assertions that the federal fishery management system is “broken.”

Such claims generally arise from within the recreational fishing community, from organizations which object to the discipline imposed by Magnuson-Stevens, which requires fishery management measures to prevent overfishing requires rebuilding within a time certain, typically no longer than 10 years; and not only requires annual catch limits for virtually all managed species, but also requires NMFS to hold fishermen accountable when such limits are exceeded.

It's probably human nature, but as much as people claim to want others to take responsibility for their actions, the same people don’t really want to be held accountable when their own actions have negative impacts.  Recreational fishermen are no exception to that rule; thus, they often call for additional restrictions on commercial fisheries, but rail at recreational restrictions mandated by Magnuson-Stevens, and clamor for more “flexibility” in federal fisheries law.

In some cases, efforts to weaken the discipline imposed by Magnuson-Stevens have gained ground.  Probably the most successful effort to date occurred at the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council which, in June 2022, adopted a misnamed “Harvest Control Rule” using what was deemed a “Percent Change Approach” that effectively decoupled recreational regulation from the statutorily mandated annual catch limits.

The Natural Resources Defense Council has initiated a court challenge to such approach to managing important Mid-Atlantic fisheries, including summer flounder, scup, black sea bass and, once the stock is rebuilt, bluefish.  The trial court will probably decide the question sometime during the first half of 2024. 

In the meantime, the Council seems to be following the principle that, after you decide to do the wrong thing once, it becomes easier to do the wrong thing again.  By adopting the Harvest Control Rule/Percent Change Approach, the Mid-Atlantic Council sought to avoid the discipline imposed by Magnuson-Stevens.  Now, the same Council seems to be trying to escape the discipline imposed by the Harvest Control Rule itself.

At its recently-concluded December meeting, the Council decided to maintain status quo regulations for black sea bass, even though, under the existing circumstances of a very high spawning stock biomass and a calculation that 2024 recreational landings are expected to exceed the recreational harvest limit if regulations remain unchanged, the Harvest Control Rule/Percent Change Approach called for a 10% reduction in landings.

The Council ultimately approved status quo management measures, despite the fact that nothingin federal fisheries regulations, which adopted the Percent Change Approach formanaging mid-Atlantic black sea bass, authorized a status quo option under theprevailing circumstances.  Instead, the Council chose to step outside of the regulatory framework and adopt an unauthorized option.

While its logic for doing so was not unreasonable, the legality of doing so was, at best, questionable, although the action will almost certainly not face a court challenge.  The Council just took it upon itself to read a sort of “flexibility” into the rules that did not exist in the plain language of such regulations.

The genius of Magnuson-Stevens, and the reason behind its demonstrated success, is that it places very strict sidebars around the discretion that may be exercised by members of the several regional fishery management councils.  Just about everyone sitting on such councils, other than, perhaps, the state fisheries managers, has an economic interest of some sort in the issues that they’re deciding.  Under most circumstances, such council members should be expected to vote in a way that benefits their own personal and sector interests.

And on other management bodies, they typically do.

But because Magnuson-Stevens creates legally enforceable requirements that stocks be rebuilt within a time certain, that overfishing be prevented, that annual catch limits be established, and that fishermen be held accountable for exceeding those limits, it creates an environment where even persons with financial or other interests in a managed fishery must largely put those interests aside and instead do what’s right for the fisheries resource itself.

By doing so, they benefit themselves in the end.

Creating “flexibility”—what some might call “loopholes”—that allow fishermen to escape the discipline imposed by the law might seem sensible in the short term, as it will allow greater exploitation of currently abundant fish stocks.  But in the long term, the same loss of discipline will sap regional fishery management councils’ will to make hard decisions to avoid overfishing or begin the rebuilding of declining and depleted fish stocks.

By rebuilding 50 once-overfished stocks in less than 25 years, Magnuson-Stevens has demonstrated its worth, and the worth of its disciplined management system.  With 48 stocks still overfished, and others still on the path toward rebuilding, it would be foolish to hamstring the law, and abandon its discipline now.