“The trouble with the world is not that people know too
little, but that they know so many things that ain’t so.”
While the author was undoubtedly thinking of
the world as a whole when he uttered that statement, it applies to the narrow
world of fisheries management equally well.
Fisheries science is far from
cut-and-dried. Every new stock
assessment typically brings new information; some of the data merely builds on
existing knowledge, but other information,
particularly that which comes from so-called “research track” assessments, can
forge new ground. We often spend too
much time guessing at what an assessment might say; often, our guesses are
right, but at other times, we’re surprised by something unexpected and new.
Unfortunately, fishermen tend to be a
conservative bunch, who feel most comfortable when the future resembles the
past. To them, new information and ideas
are often suspect, particularly when it leads to restrictions on landings and
fishing effort. When that sort of thing
happens—and sometimes, even when it doesn’t—fishermen tend to believe whatever
makes them comfortable, even if such beliefs are untrue.
That sort of thinking was showcased at an Atlantic
States Marine Fisheries Commission hearing held in Kings Park, New York last
December 4, to hear stakeholders’ thoughts on the Draft
Addendum II to Amendment 7 to the Interstate Management Plan for Atlantic
Striped Bass. Addendum II is
intended to put management measures in place for the 2024 season, which will
reduce fishing mortality to its target level and provide the bass some interim
relief until a stock assessment update, scheduled for release next October, can
provide a better understanding of what managers must do to rebuild the stock by
the 2029 rebuilding deadline.
However, many of those who attended the
December 4 hearing represented the for-hire fleet, which typically opposes any
management measure, no matter how badly needed, that might have even a
short-term negative impact on their businesses.
Thus, those attending the hearing heard repeated comments to the effect
that the bass stock
“is as healthy and strong as [it has] ever been,”
but that the fish are merely changing their
behavior and so not showing up in the various surveys used to monitor the
population.
One of the recurring themes that appeared in the
for-hire fleet’s testimony was that the recruitment failure observed in the Chesapeake
Bay, which has historically produced between 70 and 90 percent of all striped
bass on the East Coast, doesn’t mean that the striped bass stock is in
trouble, because warming waters are causing the fish to move farther north, and
to concentrate their spawning in New York’s Hudson River, as well as
Connecticut’s Housatonic and Connecticut rivers. One party boat captain said that those rivers
are “where the fish are from,” and that, collectively, they “produce tons of
striped bass.” After a biologist explained
that the striped bass stock assessment didn’t include bass that spawned in the
Housatonic River, the captain commented that
“Not having the Housatonic River in the stock assessment
is like not having the Dallas Cowboys when you’re looking at cheerleaders.”
Yet, while the for-hire operators could
provide plenty of comment suggesting that the center of striped bass spawning
has moved northward, they could not supply an iota of data to support that
contention; it turns out that they lacked such data for a very good reason—what
they were claiming is simply not true.
I honestly think that the for-hire
representatives believed what they were saying.
Striped bass fishing was very good in some places, particularly in the
ocean between western Long Island and northern New Jersey, during 2023, and the
folks who operate party and charter boats in that vicinity were unable to
square their observations of locally abundant striped bass with the
stock assessment’s finding that the stock is overfished and that, because of
poor recruitment, could be headed for even worse problems.
By deciding to believe that, contrary to the
assessment’s findings, the striped bass stock was actually healthy and
abundant, but merely shifting north, such stakeholders could both explain their
observations and create a story that justified their opposition to proposed
conservation measures.
Although I do most of my striped bass fishing
along the western Connecticut shore, and my experiences didn’t support what the
for-hire people were saying, I didn’t want to dismiss their contentions out of
hand; I wanted to make a few inquiries, and see whether what they were saying
might, in fact, be the truth. So I
contacted the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection,
seeking a local scientist’s thoughts on whether there was any merit in the
for-hires’ assertions.
The biologist confirmed my suspicions. There was no wholesale shift of striped bass
spawning into Connecticut rivers. I was
told that
“I think its pretty easy to dismiss that striped bass
spawn in the Housatonic or Thames Rivers.
The head of tide extends almost to the most downstream dam in both
systems—there’s very little freshwater habitat available below those dams—just not
suitable spawning habitat for striped bass.”
So it would seem that leaving the Housatonic
River out of the stock assessment is less like omitting the Dallas Cowboys when
looking at cheerleaders, and more like omitting the Cowboys when looking for the
next winner of the National
Hockey League’s Stanley Cup.
And while some bass are spawned in the
Connecticut River—the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental
Protection conducts regular surveys of river herring there, which have found
both young-of-the-year and Age 1 striped bass, as well as ripe, egg-bearing
females and males with flowing milt—the river’s contribution to the coastal
migratory striped bass population is probably not very large.
“While there is enough collective evidence to suggest
there is some level of striped bass spawning happening in the CT River, I don’t
think the body of evidence suggests there is a large cohort of striped bass
reliably produced on an annual basis.”
But the most significant point of the Connecticut
biologist’s comments were not his thoughts about striped bass spawning in
specific rivers, but rather the impact of any and all spawning outside of the
major spawning areas.
“While I agree that there are coastal rivers where
striped bass spawn where no one is doing a scientific survey to produce annual
indices of [young-of-the-year] relative abundance in those rivers, and
therefore trends in YOY production in those rivers are not incorporated
in the assessment—but—it is not then a logical step to assume
there is some body of striped bass out there on the coast that is somehow “invisible”
to the assessment and therefore the management process. The striped bass spawned in those rivers will
leave those rivers and recruit to the coastal stock—and when they do—they will
be caught by recreational anglers, they will be harvested by commercial
harvesters, and they will be captured by the many scientific surveys operating
along the coast—and all of this information feeds into the assessment to
produce estimates of [spawning stock biomass], fishing mortality, relative
strength of various year classes, etc. It’s
a fallacy to assume that just because we don’t have a YOY survey in a given
river, that somehow the fish produced in that river are never “counted” in the
stock assessment over the course of their lifetime. [emphasis added]”
Thus, as much as some people would like to
believe otherwise, there is no cryptic mass of striped bass swimming somewhere
beyond fisheries managers’ ken. If they are
spawned, and survive long enough to leave their natal rivers, they are counted
and considered in the stock assessment.
As far as the northernmost producer river
that is subject to regular surveys—that is, the Hudson—it isn’t showing
any indication of increased productivity.
Over the past five years, one year—2020—appears to have produced a very
strong year class, while a slightly above-average class was produced in
2022. The other three years were below-average,
with both 2019 and 2023 falling below the 25th percentile of all
recorded spawns; 2023 produced the smallest year class of striped bass since
1985.
Even so, the belief that the center of
striped bass abundance, as well as the bulk of the striped bass spawning, is
shifting north remains a popular legend among some in the striped bass fishery,
and particularly among those in the for-hire fleet. I don’t expect that to change
It’s not because there are any facts
supporting the notion, but because people nonetheless know that it’s true.
Even though it ain’t so.
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