REP. PELTOLA STANDS UP FOR BRISTOL BAY

 

On May 1, 2024 Rep. Mary Peltola (D-AK) introduced a bill, titled the “Bristol Bay Protection Act,” in the House of Representatives. Such legislation, if passed and signed into law, would finally end the long-running conflict that has pitted proponents of the so-called “Pebble Mine” against Alaska Native peoples and others who have long harvested, enjoyed, and depended upon the abundant natural resources of Alaska’s Bristol Bay watershed.

 

Bristol Bay is one of the last, and certainly one of the largest, remaining sanctuaries for wild Pacific salmon. Its waters host naturally spawned populations of all five salmon species and support not only healthy runs of Chinook, coho, chum and pink salmon, but also the largest sockeye salmon run in the world.

 

Approximately 46 percent of the world’s wild sockeye salmon return to the Bristol Bay watershed and run up its six rivers to spawn. Those salmon support large and economically valuable commercial and recreational fisheries, as well as subsistence fisheries that have supported Indigenous peoples for millennia. Two cultures present in the watershed, the Yup’ik and Dena’ina, are some of the last remaining sustainable, salmon-based cultures in the world.

 

Yet salmon are not the only wildlife in the watershed. It is home to 29 species of fish, 190 species of birds, and over 40 species of mammals. Such diversity of life, in turn, provides social and economic benefits for people, supporting not only subsistence hunting, but also businesses that attract sport hunters, wildlife watchers, and other tourists.

 

The Bristol Bay watershed also contains substantial mineral resources, particularly copper and gold. However, the metal ores are of low quality, so that only very large mines, producing very large quantities of mine-related waste, would be economically viable.

 

The varied natural resources of the Bristol Bay watershed have led to a clash of values that will determine the future of the region, as traditional users of Bristol Bay’s living resources have come into conflict with those who covet its mineral deposits, and would develop mines and related infrastructure that would pose a serious threat to the watershed’s fish and wildlife. Since that conflict began nearly a quarter-century ago, the living resources of Bristol Bay, along with their traditional users, have ridden a roller coaster of legal and political actions that has seen their status change from protected to threatened to protected again, sometimes over the course of a very few weeks.

 

The roots of the conflict date back at least to 2005, when Northern Dynasty Minerals (Northern Dynasty) purchased the rights to the so-called “Pebble Deposit,” a deposit of copper, gold, and molybdenum ore that Northern Dynasty hoped to exploit, despite possible harm to the Bristol Bay ecosystem. That conflict grew more intense in 2014, after the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) completed its assessment of the impacts of large-scale mining on the fish, wildlife, and people of the Bristol Bay watershed, and issued a proposed determination under section 404(c) of the Clean Water Act “to restrict the use of certain waters of the Bristol Bay watershed for disposal of dredged or fill material associated with mining the Pebble Deposit…”

 

The EPA took such action “because of the high ecological and economic value of the Bristol Bay watershed and the assessed unacceptable environmental effects that would result from such mining.”

The proposed determination preemptively halted the permitting process that had to be completed before the Pebble Mine could be developed. Northern Dynasty responded by bringing a lawsuit challenging the agency’s action.

The EPA initially defended against the lawsuit, but on May 12, 2017 it issued a press release announcing that Scott Pruitt, the new EPA administrator appointed by President Donald Trump, had reached a settlement with the Northern Dynasty. That settlement, which was allegedly intended to guarantee “a fair process for their permit application,” included EPA’s agreement to withdraw the proposed determination and take no further actions pursuant to the Clean Water Act until at least four years had passed, or until the Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) issued a final environmental impact statement, whichever came first. Northern Dynasty agreed to withdraw its lawsuits and to refrain from filing any Freedom of Information Act requests during that period.

 

With the natural resources of the Bristol Bay watershed again in jeopardy, a period of turmoil began, which saw the EPA halt its withdrawal of the proposed determination in response to strong public comment, despite the terms of its agreement with Northern Dynasty, then begin the withdrawal process again after the EPA’s general counsel directed the relevant EPA regional office to do so.

 

A press release announcing the EPA’s withdrawal of the “outdated, preemptive proposed determination to restrict use of the Pebble Deposit area as a disposal site” was issued on June 30, 2019.

On July 24, 2020, the Corps released a final environmental analysis that found the mine “would not be expected to have a measurable effect on fish numbers” in the Bristol Bay watershed, making the development of the Pebble Mine seem certain.

But then the seesawing began again.

Just a month after releasing its final environmental analysis, the Corps announced that it had made “factual determinations that discharges at the mine site would cause unavoidable adverse impacts to aquatic resources and, preliminarily, that those adverse impacts would result in significant degradation to those aquatic resources. Therefore…in-kind compensatory mitigation within the Koktuli River Watershed will be required to compensate for all direct and indirect impacts caused by the discharges into aquatic resources at the mine site.” Other adverse impacts at other locations would also require mitigation.

It would be very difficult for Northern Dynasty to perform the required mitigation, yet if it failed to do so, it would not receive the permit needed to develop the Pebble Mine.

At the same time that Northern Dynasty struggled with that issue, political pressure against the mine was growing. In September 2020, environmentalists secretly recorded Northern Dynasty’s chief executive officer telling prospective investors that the mine would ultimately be much larger, and would continue operations far longer, than was specified in the permit application. The public release of such statements caused the project to be scrutinized much more closely. And it turned out that some people very close to then President Trump, including his son Donald Jr., hunted and fished in the Bristol Bay region, and didn’t want to see the mine destroy any part of the watershed.

 

Ultimately, the Corps did a surprising about-face, and determined that the permit sought by Northern Dynasty should not be issued, citing problems with the waste disposal plan and declaring that “the proposed project is contrary to the public interest.” Northern Dynasty appealed that decision to the headquarters of the Corps’ Pacific Ocean Division, but that appeal was denied on April 25, 2024.

 

While that was going on, conservation advocates brought a suit challenging the EPA’s withdrawal of the proposed determination. It resulted in a federal appellate court decision that invalidated the withdrawal, and found that the proposed determination could be withdrawn “only if the discharge of materials would be unlikely to have an unacceptable adverse effect” on the watershed. Following that decision, the withdrawal of the proposed determination was vacated, and the Clean Water Act review was resumed.

 

That review resulted in an extended period of public comment and agency deliberations which culminated on January 30, 2023, when the EPA issued a final determination finding that “the discharges of dredged or fill material associated with developing a mine evaluated in this final determination will have unacceptable adverse effects on anadromous fishery areas in the Bristol Bay watershed,” and prohibiting “the specification of and restricting the use for specification of certain waters in the Bristol Bay watershed as disposal sites for discharges of certain dredged or fill material associated with development of a mine at the Pebble deposit.”

 

While that was good news for the salmon, for the fishermen, and for the other traditional users of the Bristol Bay watershed, it did not end the controversy over the Pebble Mine. In March 2024, to no one’s surprise, Northern Dynasty initiated yet another lawsuit, this one alleging that the EPA’s final determination was “arbitrary and capricious” because of its failure to adequately consider the economic consequences of its decision, as well as its supposed gross overestimation of the extent of the mine discharges.

 

More surprising, and probably far more bizarre, was Alaska’s decision to sue the United States in the Court of Claims, asking for more than $700 billion in damages. In its complaint, Alaska alleged that “mining is the only economically productive activity that can occur on these [Pebble deposit] lands,” and claimed that the EPA’s final determination, which prevented development of the Pebble Mine, was therefore a “taking” pursuant to the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which entitled Alaska to “just compensation” for its loss of mining revenues.

 

The Bristol Bay Protection Act, if signed into law, would put an end to such litigation and provide enduring protection for the Bristol Bay watershed, by incorporating the EPA’s final determination, which currently takes the form of a regulation, into a federal statute. It does so through language which simply states, “The final determination of the Environmental Protection Agency, published on February 3, 2023, and titled “Final Determination To Prohibit the Specification of and Restrict the Use for Specification of Certain Waters Within Defined Areas as Disposal Sites, Pebble Deposit Area, Southwest Alaska”…shall have the force and effect of law.”

 

Once so enshrined in federal law, the final determination would be immune from legal challenge, except on Constitutional grounds.

In introducing the Bristol Bay Protection Act, Rep. Peltola stated, “I came to DC to stand up for fish—to make fishing and the livelihoods of our fishing communities the national issue it deserves to be. Whole communities depend on Bristol Bay’s watershed for subsistence and as a deeply interwoven part of their social and cultural practices. In introducing this bill, we’re moving to protect our fisheries and streams, water supply, and the deep value these waters have had to Alaska Natives who have relied on them for thousands of years.”

 

Passage of the bill would provide lasting protection for such natural resources and the communities, cultures and fisheries which have long depended upon them, and finally end the decades-long threat posed by the Pebble Mine.

-----

This essay first appeared in “From the Waterfront,” the blog of the Marine Fish Conservation Network, which can be found at http://conservefish.org/blog/

 

MALIGNING MRIP FOR FUN AND PROFIT PART II: FOR PROFIT, FULL COOLERS, AND POLITICAL GAINS

Last Thursday, I described how the Marine Recreational Information Program, which the National Marine Fisheries Service uses to estimate recreational effort, catch, and landings, has become the favorite punching bag for anglers, the angling industry, and the angling press, who blame it for every tightening of recreational fishing regulations, without ever bothering to take the time to figure out how MRIP actually works.

Today, we’ll look at a more cynical group of MRIP critics, the organizations, industry spokesmen, and politicians who have at least a basic understanding of MRIP’s workings, yet continue to pour out unjustified criticisms in an effort to undermine the federal fishery management system and so generate higher recreational landings, greater short-term profits, and more political support.

The situation has existed for quite a while, well before MRIP even existed.  Back then, recreational data was generated by something called the Marine Recreational Fishing Statistical Survey, or “MRFSS,” which really was badly flawed; MRIP was only developed after a National Academy of Sciences report revealed how bad MRFSS actually was.

MRIP, on the other hand, received a mostly favorable review from a similar National Academy of Sciences panel before it was adopted as NMFS' standard data-gathering tool.

That doesn’t mean that MRIP doesn’t have flaws.  There is unavoidable uncertainty in every estimate that MRIP produces, with such uncertainty higher in estimates based on a smaller number of samples.  And last year, NMFS did discover that anglers were unintentionally entering inaccurate data into the Fishing Effort Survey, which has probably inflated effort estimates, and so estimates of catch and landings.

But those problems are being addressed, the former with guidelines for the proper use of MRIP data, particularly data derived from very limited samples, the latter with a multi-year program that will determine the extent of the issue and develop a workable fix.

However, entities seeking to undercut the the fishery management system for their own gain are always quick to jump on any real or imagined flaw in order to advance their arguments that they system is  broken.  Thus, it was hardly surprising to see Ted Venker, Vice President of the Coastal Conservation Association, perhaps the largest “anglers’ rights” group in the country, place an article on the Sport Fishing website which began,

“When NOAA Fisheries announced that yet another major flaw had been discovered in its recreational data collection program, called the Marine Recreational Information Program—Fishing Effort Survey (MRIP—FES), it didn’t come entirely as a shock.  After all, this data system that NOAA uses to estimate recreational (rec) catch and effort on various species has been reworked three times in the last 13 years and has been labeled ‘fatally flawed’ by the National Academies of Sciences.  It is known for producing results that leave rational people scratching their heads.”

Such comments are dishonest and intentionally deceiving on multiple levels.  They conflate MRFSS and MRIP, implying that there is no difference between the two when, as noted above, MRIP was designed as a replacement for MRFSS that addressed the older survey’s shortcomings and represented a substantial improvement over its predecessor.  It was MRFFS, not MRIP, that was deemed ‘fatally flawed.”  MRIP estimates were first used in 2017, and so clearly could not have been “reworked three times in the last 13 years.”  And it was particularly misleading to start off with the statement that “yet another major flaw has been discovered [emphasis added],” in MRIP, since the issue with the Fishing Effort Survey represents the first time that MRIP has run into any sort of systemic hitch.

But such misstatements are to be expected in an opinion piece that is intended not to enlighten, but to misdirect readers into taking the author’s preferred political path.

Why would the representative of a major anglers’ rights group provide such less-than-forthright information?  For those attuned to fisheries politics, the answer is right in the accompanying photo, which shows six presumably recreational fishermen posing with a bunch of dead red snapper.

For at least the past 15 years, the Coastal Conservation Association and allied industry groups, currently gathered together under the umbrella of the Center for Sportfishing Policy, have defended anglers’ chronic overfishing of red snapper in the Gulf of Mexico, demanded a larger share of the overall landings, and attacked federal fishery managers and the management system for denying their demands.

Their ultimate goal is to replace MRIP with state data-gathering systems, which often return lower landings estimates and thus allow managers adopt more liberal recreational regulations.  The Sport Fishing article, which concludes that

“This latest break in the federal fisheries management system offers a brief window of opportunity to et out of this repeating, dysfunctional cycle, and it is up to anglers to motivate their states agencies [sic] and elected officials to seize it,”

makes that goal perfectly clear.

At the same time, when it comes to MRIP, the anglers’ rights crowd finds itself whipsawed.  It’s easy for them to criticize MRIP when estimates of high landings lead to more restrictive regulations.  But in many cases, not only in the Gulf of Mexico, but also in management actions like the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council’s Summer Flounder, Scup, and Black Sea Bass Commercial/Recreational Allocation Amendment, the higher MRIP landings estimates resulted in fishery managers increasing recreational allocations while reducing the commercial sector’s share of fish landings.

When that happens, you never hear spokesmen for the recreational fishing industry or the anglers’ rights groups saying that the MRIP numbers are wrong.  Instead, they defend the reallocation, even if that means going to court, as it did in the case of red grouper in the Gulf of Mexico.

Thus, even in the midst of Venker’s screed against MRIP, we find the following:

“The agency confessed a couple of months ago in a series of dramatic conference calls with Congress, Councils and stakeholders that its data program is overstating recreational effort by 30 to 40 percent, and the more cynical among us were somewhat expecting it.  As the latest iteration of the rec data system, the MRIP-FES was driving corrections in the allocation of allowable catch to the rec sector in some prized fisheries.  NOAA Fisheries is loath to reallocate fisheries under any circumstances, and being forced to correct its allocation in favor of the rec sector because of its own data system was undoubtedly a bitter pill for a commercially oriented agency to swallow.”

Thus, at the same time that he was blasting NMFS for maintaining MRIP, and blasting MRIP for overstating recreational effort, Venker was hinting that NMFS’ announcement of errors in MRIP estimates was a predictable effort by the agency to minimize reallocations of fish to the recreational sector, intimating that NMFS might have either fabricated, or overstated the extent of, the alleged error in order aid the commercial fishing sector.

Thus, the reader is led to Venker’s preferred conclusion that no matter what NMFS does, if its actions lead to either more restrictive recreational regulations or reduced recreational landings, such actions can only be based on bad data, bad intentions, or both.

Thus, the effort to undermine federal fisheries management proceeds.

The recreational fishing industry, represented by the Center for Sportfishing Policy, the American Sportfishing Association, and the National Marine Manufacturers Association, has also used the error discovered in the Fishing Effort Survey to seek alternatives to MRIP.  As part of such criticism, such organizations reveal the reasons for their concerns, noting that

“using incorrect recreational estimates to inform the status of fisheries and make management decisions could have severe implications for fish stocks, anglers, businesses, communities and the economy.”

There’s little doubt that, in their eyes, the implications for “businesses…and the economy” prevail, as along with endorsing the strategy of replacing MRIP with state data programs, such organizations endorse “alternative management” which will

“(1) provide stability in the recreational bag, size, and season limits; (2) develop strategies to increase management flexibility; and (3) achieve accessibility aligned with availability/stock status.”

It’s significant to note that all three points enhance anglers’ ability to keep and kill fish; none prioritize maintaining fish stocks at healthy and sustainable levels.

That emphasis also comes through loud and clear in legislators’ criticisms of MRIP and the federal management system.

Last month, 24 federallegislators, led by Rep. Garret Graves (R-LA) and Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS) senta letter to NMFS complaining about the agency’s continued use of MRIP and itsfailure to adopt the data developed by state fisheries agencies and other non-federal sources.  Not surprisingly, given that both legislators come from states bordering the Gulf of Mexico and frequently work with and receive meaningful support from the Center for Sportfishing Policy, it’s hardly surprising that they repeat the same arguments made by that organization and its affiliates, and provide the same lack of objective support for their claims, and use some of the same misleading arguments.

For example, the letter complains that

“MRIP-FES estimated that recreational anglers landed a staggering 1.6 million pounds of gag grouper in the Gulf of Mexico in 2023, prompting concerns that reactionary management measures will follow.”

Yet that’s just not true. 

A quick look at NMFS’ “Recreational Fisheries Statistics Queries” website will show that anglers landed an estimated 954,650 pounds of gag in 2023, not 1.6 million.  The only way that the estimate might be inflated to something close to 1.6 million pounds is to consider the uncertainty inherent in the estimate, and assume that landings were at the upper extreme of the possible range.  Even that only gets you to 1.5 million pounds, not 1.6.  Andd if the legislators want to argue that the landings could have been as high as 1.5 million pounds, they should also admit that, given the lower end of the confidence interval, landings may also have been as low as 380,000 pounds.

Similarly, the letter states that

“This fishery exists almost exclusively in Florida in the Gulf, and thus can reasonably be compared to the Florida State Reef Fish Survey—which estimated only one-seventh, or about 15 percent, of the federal estimate.  Notably, the percent standard error (PSE) for the MRIP FES surveys ranged from thirty-three to ninety-eight percent.  By NMFS own admission, data sets with PSEs beyond 30 percent should only be used with caution.  Said another way, these data from MRIP-FES are worthless and should not be used to inform management decisions.”

That argument is flawed from more than one perspective.

First, the key MRIP datum used to set regulations would be the point estimate of 954,650 pounds (readers should note that a recent change to the fishery management plan will require the use of Florida’s State Reef Fish Survey data to gauge private vessel landings, rather than MRIP, going forward, although NMFS’s data will still be used for shore-based anglers and for-hire vessels), which had a percent standard error of 30.7, very slightly over the level subject to NMFS’ cautionary warning.

One only begins to see excessively high PSEs when the data is broken down by mode (e.g., shore, charter, etc.), state, and 2-month “wave,” at which point the percent standard error for data relating to shore anglers in Florida during September and October is, in fact, 98, while the PSE for Alabama charter boats during the same period is 83.1.  With respect to such high PSEs, NMFS advises

“MRIP does not support the use of estimates with a percent standard error above 50 and in those instances, recommends considering higher levels of aggregation (e.g., across states, geographic regions, or fishing modes).”

Thus, the letter’s reference to a PSE of 98, while technically true, is also a red herring, as using such estimate would constitute a misuse of MRIP data.  Using the MRIP data properly, which would mean basing management measures on the aggregate estimate of 954,650 pounds, and perhaps adding a buffer for management uncertainty, in case the actuallandings were substantially higher.  When used in that manner, the MRIP data would be far from “worthless.”

Perhaps more to the point, while the legislators’ letter and associated press release were quick to criticize the use of data with a PSE in the low 30s, and repeatedly referred to state data surveys as

“more exact,”

“better and more precise,”

“the best availabler science,”

and

“more precise, accurate, and timely”

(the “timely” comment is undoubtedly true), nowhere do the legislators provide the PSEs associated with state landings estimates to support their claims.  Instead, like the various organizations that such legislators consult with and represent, they present naked claims of state superiority but provide no objective evidence to support their claims.

Instead, it would appear that, like the various industry organizations, the legislators prefer state data because state estimates tend to be lower and allow more relaxed regulations.  Such motivations are made clear in statements made by both Sen. Wicker and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), with the former stating that

“It’s up to the federal government to listen, incorporate states’ data, and, in turn, give Mississippi anglers more chances to catch red snapper [emphasis added],”

while the latter commented that

“Not utilizing state-led fish surveys…hampers both economic and recreational opportunities for Texas fishermen and the entire nation.  [emphasis added]”

It’s probably notable that neither senator asserted that using state data would reduce the likelihood of overfishing, make it easier to rebuild overfished stocks, or better maintain healthy, sustainable fish stocks in the long term, since it’s likely that, for such legislators no less than for the various industry and anglers’ rights organizations that they represent, such considerations are not among their highest priorities, if in fact they are priorities at all.

It's all about increasing harvest and economic gain (and, most likely, the votes and campaign contributions that might be engendered should such increases occur).

But all that is typical of MRIP critics, whenever and wherever they might make themselves heard. 

Instead of seeking to improve a valuable fishery management tool that, if used correctly, could help managers to maintain the healthy fish stocks that are essential to maintaining sustainable fisheries in the long term, they seek to discredit MRIP and federal fishery managers, in favor of state programs of uncertain—and certainly unspecified—precision, in order to increase landings and profit regardless of how that might impact the stock.

MRIP is imperfect, and still needs some work, yet it nonetheless comes closer to perfection than do its usual critics, who seem driven by little more than the chance to kill more fish, make more money, or enjoy other, similar personal gains.

MALIGNING MRIP FOR FUN AND PROFIT PART I: FOR THE SHEER JOY OF BEING WRONG--LOUDLY

 

There is no such thing as the typical angler.  Some fish for food, some fish for fun, most seek a little of both.  Some anglers fish only lures, some stick with bait, some use whatever works at the time.  Some fish offshore.  Some stay in the bays.  Some fish despite rain and wind, some wait for fair weather.  

Some…

But that’s enough.  I've hopefully already made the point that even anglers fishing in the same place can be very different; anglers fishing for different species, along different parts of the coast are likely to be even less alike.

Yet despite all those differences, there seems to be one common thread connecting them all.  Just about no one has anything good to say about the Marine Recreational Information Program, the survey that the National Marine Fisheries Service uses to estimate recreational effort, catch, and landings.

The hostility toward MRIP is, in many ways, understandable.

After all, MRIP is the tool that both NMFS and the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission use to set recreational fishing regulations, and people usually dislike anything that restricts or regulates their actions.  Speed limits, customs inspections, and MRIP all attract the same sort of disdain.

That’s particularly obvious when it comes to MRIP, because every time a bag limit or season is cut, or a size limit upped, as the result of MRIP data, you hear all sorts of folks crying that MRIP is flawed, that “the numbers are bad” or that, for some other reason, MRIP data is faulty and should not be used.  But when the opposite happens, and the MRIP data allows managers to increase a bag limit, lengthen a season, or let anglers take home smaller fish, you never hear a single angler complain that such data is wrong and should not be believed, or that regulations should remain more restrictive.

It is almost a cliche that "bad data" reduces landings, while "good numbers" let anglers kill more fish.

Which is enough to tell you where a lot of the hostility toward MRIP comes from.

But then, it comes from other places, too.

People tend to distrust the unfamiliar, and things that they don’t understand, and the fact is that MRIP is a complex construct involving multiple surveys and intricate statistical calculations.  Most anglers don’t really understand how MRIP works, and few in the angling community (myself very much included) have the mathematical background needed to understand its statistical basis.

So they fall back on arguments like “No one ever asked me what I caught” and “I don’t know anyone who was surveyed,” write off the math as the next thing to witchcraft, and label MRIP a fraud.

Unfortunately, the angling press is often complicit in such misdeeds.  One of the most recent examples of that appeared in an article in Delaware’s Cape Gazette, titled “The problems with the Marine Recreational Information Program.”

There, the author, a local outdoor writer, led off with the somewhat remarkable statement that

“The Marine Recreational Information Program is the basis of all regulations made by federal and state agencies, and these regulations are what we have to live with.  The regulations are formed by scientists, many of whom do not know a striped bass from a sea bass, and then these regulations are reviewed by the Scientific and Statistical Committee that is made up of people who are supposed to know what’s going on in the field.  But after looking at the numbers, I must conclude they do not.”

He then goes on to pick a few specific estimates which, in his view, demonstrate that MRIP is badly flawed.

In reality, he only demonstrated his own ignorance about MRIP and about the greater management process.

It would be easy to write off the first line—that the biologists who manage East Coast fisheries “do not know as striped bass from as sea bass”—as mere hyperbole, and not something that readers were meant to believe, if we didn't hear something very similar at most management meetings, where someone from the recreational or commercial fishing industry will get up and announce that the scientists are mere pencil-pushers who only view fisheries through their data sets, and have no idea of “what’s really going on out on the water.” 

There are far too many people, including those who ought to know better, trying to convince us that such things are true.

The problem is that such folks, to the extent that they actually believe what they're saying, likely just don’t know enough fisheries scientists.

Over the course of my life, I’ve had the privilege of knowing, conversing with, and even fishing with, quite a few fisheries scientists, people who range from fledgling biologists still working on their graduate degrees to experienced researchers who have been in the field for decades, and can assure anyone reading this that every one of them can tell the difference between a striped bass and a sea bass—and distinguish between the various species of skates, herrings, and hakes, too, which is something that I doubt the author of the piece in question could manage.

The plain truth is that many fisheries scientists are attracted to the career because of their early appreciation of the outdoors, whether as anglers, scuba divers, or members of a commercial fishing family.  Even as students, they participate in trawl surveys and other activities that require them to sort, count, and identify a host of fish species as part of their day-to-day activities.  Suggesting that they can’t tell common fish apart is absurd.

Yet the writer’s comment does more than demean fishery scientists; it demonstrates his ignorance of the fisheries management system.  

Regulations and underlying fishery management measures, at least at the federal level, where MRIP plays the greatest role, are not determined by scientists, but by regional fisheries management councils dominated by members of the fishing community.  While such councils are guided by scientific advice, the management measures themselves are determined by council vote; by law, NMFS may only approve, disapprove, or partially approve such council actions.  Except under very unusual circumstances, the agency itself is not authorized to initiate management actions.

And when regulations/management measures are adopted, they are not “reviewed by the Scientific and Statistical Committee," for that’s not the SSC’s role.  Instead, Magnuson-Stevens states that

“Each scientific and statistical committee shall provide its Council ongoing scientific advice for fishery management decisions, including recommendations for acceptable biological catch, preventing overfishing, maximum sustainable yield, and achieving rebuilding targets, and reports on stock status and health, bycatch, habitat status, social and economic impacts of management measures, and sustainability of fishing practices.”

The SSC might play many roles, but reviewing regulations is definitely not one of them.

Having said those things, MRIP is far from perfect.  All of its estimates are just that—estimates—and all include some degree of uncertainty.  Sometimes the degree of uncertainty can be very large.  And sometimes, as in the case of the recent discovery of error generated in the Fishing Effort Survey, there can be flaws in its methodology that need to be fixed.

But that doesn’t mean that MRIP is as badly flawed as its detractors insist.  Often, the biggest flaws are in its detractors’ notions of how MRIP ought to be used.

The Cape Gazette article illustrates that very clearly, when it makes statements that intend to impeach the overall accuracy of MRIP by citing particular estimates, limited to a single state and a single sector, which may seem to be wildly inaccurate, when MRIP already warns users about such estimates' their flaws.

MRIP is no different than any other statistical survey, in that the probable level of error is reduced when the number of samples is increased.  Estimates that, by their nature, reflect very few samples are likely to include a high degree of uncertainty.  Thus, when the author of the Cape Gazette article questions the data related to summer flounder landings by party boats based in Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia, he reveals his ignorance about how the survey actually works.

Uncertainty in MRIP estimates is calculated by a statistical measure called “percent standard error.” The percent standard error in the estimates of Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia party boat landings of summer flounder in 2022 are 89.3, 57.8, and 91.9, respectively; the NMFS website on which such estimates appear warns, in bold red type, that

“MRIP does not support the use of estimates with a percent standard error above 50 and in those instances, recommends considering higher levels of aggregation (e.g., across states, geographic regions, or fishing modes)."

The website also warns that because of the estimates’ high percent standard error, such estimates are not significantly different from zero, effectively warning that they are meaningless.  In answer to the question

“Does Harvest…Total Weight (lbs) Meet MRIP Standard,”

States “NO” on all three occasions.

Yet the author of the Cape Gazette article, who has been warned by NMFS that the MRIP estimates he cites are not accurate enough for management use, nonetheless uses them as examples of why MRIP ought not to be trusted.

In view of such clear misrepresentation of MRIP's precision, it could be easily argued that it isn't MRIP, but the author, that ought not to be trusted.

Yet such misrepresentation of MRIP data, and how it ought to be used, often occurs in the angling press, in articles and editorials that either reflect the ignorance of their authors or, more darkly, seek to impugn MRIP as part of a greater effort to undermine the federal fishery management system, in an effort to increase landings beyond prudent levels in order to increase short-term economic benefits.

Next Sunday, we'll look into the latter situation in greater detail in "Maligning MRIP for Fun and Profit Part II:  For Profit, Full Coolers and Political Gains."

STRIPED BASS: A TIME OF UNCERTAINTY

 

Over the past twenty years, striped bass have arguably been the single most important recreational species in the northeast and mid-Atlantic regions.  While there are different ways to measure a fishery’s importance, using what may be the simplest gauge, pounds landed, shows that striped bass led all other species harvested by recreational fishermen 13 out of the last 20 years in New England, and 19 out of the last 20 in the mid-Atlantic.

Some might object, arguing that pounds landed isn’t the correct gauge of importance for recreational species, but given that anglers have released about 90% of the bass that they caught over the last two decades, the striped bass is also a very important species for those who don’t necessarily bring fish home.

Unfortunately, the last benchmark stock assessment found striped bass to be both overfished and subject to overfishing.  While fishery managers have managed to get overfishing under control—although fishing mortality may still be somewhat above its target level—the stock remains overfished, and rebuilding efforts still have a long way to go.

The fishery management plan developed by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board calls for the stock to be rebuilt by 2029, which may very well be possible, but five consecutive years of very low recruitment in the Maryland portion of the Chesapeake Bay, three years of poor recruitment in Virginia’s portion of the Chesapeake and in the Delaware River, and what has probably been average recruitment over the past five years in the Hudson River is causing many anglers to wonder what will happen in 2030 and beyond, even if the stock is successfully rebuilt by the 2029 deadline.

Some fishermen have convinced themselves that a stock collapse is at hand, and have asked regulators to impose a moratorium that would shut down the fishery until the stock rebuilds.  Others are whistling past the graveyard, telling all who will listen that the stock is doing fine and no further management measures are needed.

The truth is that no one—not even the fishery managers themselves—know exactly what’s going on or what the future will look like.  Thus, there are a lot of people looking forward to the stock assessment update that will come out this fall, and even to the next benchmark assessment, which is currently scheduled for 2027, hoping that the facts that they reveal will banish some of the current uncertainty.

By the time the ASMFC’s Annual Meeting, which will include the October meeting of the Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board, rolls around, we should have the answers to two important questions:  We should know what it will take to fully rebuild the spawning stock biomass by the 2029 deadline, and we will know whether the striped bass finally managed to break the chain of poor spawns in the Maryland tributaries of the Chesapeake Bay.

It’s virtually certain that some sort of additional management measures are going to be needed to rebuild the stock by 2029.  After the 2021 season, which saw fishing mortality drop slightly below the fishing mortality target, it looked very likely that such rebuilding would occur.  However, recreational landings spiked in 2022, as much of the large 2015 year class grew into the 28- to 35-inch slot that was in place at the time, and dropped the probability of timely rebuilding to somewhere around 15 percent.  

To help get rebuilding back on track, in 2023 the Management Board adopted an emergency measure that capped the maximum size in the recreational ocean fishery at 31 inches, effectively creating a 28- to 31-inch slot.  While that did prevent recreational landings from reaching 2022 levels, 2023 landings were only reduced to about 2.6 million fish, a figure halfway between the 1.8 million landed in 2021 and the 3.5 million landed in 2022.

It is very unlikely that reduction will be enough to make timely rebuilding likely, particularly given that the somewhat above-average 2017 and 2018 year classes are now entering the current 28- to 31-inch slot and will serve to keep landings relatively high.  More will almost certainly have to be done.

What we won’t know until the assessment update comes out is how much more fishing mortality must be cut to achieve a timely rebuilding.  We also don’t know exactly how the Management Board will choose to achieve the needed reduction.

What we do know is that the current one-fish bag limit, and the narrow slots that prevail in the ocean and Chesapeake Bay recreational fisheries, are not going to provide much opportunity for further harvest reductions.  As I’ve noted in earlier posts, the only effective tool left in the box is some sort of season, so the only big decision left is whether that season will merely prohibit harvest while allowing catch-and-release, or whether it will prohibit all targeting of striped bass.

As I also noted in a recent post, implementing a no-target season would be a mistake for a number of reasons.  Perhaps the most important of those is that it would not be enforceable.  

Except at the very start of the year, striped bass do not swim alone.  Depending on where an angler is fishing, the time of day, and the time of the year, it is very typical to have bluefish, weakfish, fluke, black sea bass, scup, speckled trout, Atlantic bonito, Spanish mackerel, red drum and/or other species hit baits and lures intended for striped bass.  That being the case, should a no-target closure be put in place, it would be very simple for anglers to claim that they were targeting other sorts of fish, but couldn’t help unintentionally catching the striped bass that “just happened” to end up on their lines. 

The many, many anglers who seek to evade the prohibition on striped bass fishing in federal waters by claiming to target bluefish are a good example of how that would work.

Beyond that, a no-target closure makes little sense from an economic standpoint. 

Last year, anglers in the New England/mid-Atlantic region made slightly over 62.6 million salt water fishing trips.  Nearly 17.8 million of those trips—a little over 28 percent—primarily targeted striped bass.  So the question is, if managers impose a no-target closure on the striped bass fishery, where is that displaced effort going to go?

At one time, displaced striped bass anglers might have shifted over to bluefish, but these days, bluefishing tends to be spotty, with fish abundant in some places and completely absent in others, not an unusual situation when a population is only at about 60 percent of its biomass target.  At other times, weakfish might have absorbed some of the effort, but that population is badly depleted, in far worse shape than the bluefish, and offers even less opportunity to accommodate effort formerly expended on striped bass.

Bottom fish also fail to offer realistic opportunities for displaced striped bass anglers.  Overfishing has already forced a 28 percent reduction in summer flounder landings this year, anglers are chronically exceeding their scup landing limits, and the most recent stock assessment suggests that black sea bass may be experiencing overfishing.

That being the case, there is a very good chance that many, and very possibly most, of the striped bass anglers displaced by a no-target closure would merely stop fishing until the striped bass season reopened (assuming that they didn’t decide to just keep on fishing for bass and, if stopped by enforcement personnel, claim that they were actually targeting something else), which would result in an economic hardship for tackle shops, marinas, gas docks, for-hire operators, and other businesses serving the striped bass fishing community.

Nonetheless, many on the Management Board are singling out catch-and-release fishing, and the resultant release mortality, as a particular problem in the fishery.  At its last meeting, the Management Board authorized the creation of a special work group to look into the issue.  While it’s not at all certain what action such work group will recommend, we should note that a memorandum from ASMFC staff, sent to inform the Management Board on the release mortality issue, advised that

“it is assumed that maximum reduction of effort, and thus maximum reduction in number of releases, would be achieved with no-targeting closures.”

Why the memo emphasized a “maximum reduction in number of releases,” rather than the overall reduction in fishing mortality, regardless of source, is not clear. 

Aside from rebuilding issues, the results of this year’s spawn, and particularly that part of the spawn which takes place in Maryland’s waters, is also unclear.  Water temperatures and water flows look far more favorable than they have in the recent past, so there is reason to hope that we will see an improvement in the generally dismal recruitment of the past five years.  

Speaking just for myself, based on the very limited information that I have obtained and the opinions of professional fishery managers whom I respect, I expect that the Maryland juvenile abundance index will, at worst, be close to the long-term average of 11.2, is more likely to be somewhere in the high teens, and could realistically exceed 20.

But some experienced fisheries professionals are reportedly doubtful, and think it more likely that the index will be below average once again.

That low recruitment will have only a limited impact on striped bass rebuilding, as significant numbers of bass don’t become sexually mature until they’re between five and six years old.  However, continued low recruitment would inevitably have a big impact on the striped bass’ future.  Even if a strong year class is produced this year, its affect on the future of the striped bass stock will depend on what comes after.  If recruitment in 2025 and beyond falls back to the levels of the last five years, a strong 2024 year class would provide only a temporary reprieve.  On the other hand, if recruitment returns to more typical levels in 2025 and beyond, a strong 2024 year class could act like the strong year class of 1989, jump-starting a recovery that is then sustained by future spawning success.

That doesn’t mean that the following year classes all have to be big.  If we look at spawning patterns prior to 1970—that is, prior to the big 1970 year class that ushered in the boom-or-bust era that has prevailed for the past 50 years—we find a fishery that has its smaller peaks and valleys, with above-average year classes, including one that reached 23.5, in 1958, 1961, 1962, 1964, and 1966, and severely below-average year classes in 1957 (2.89), 1959 (1.38), and 1963 (4.03).  While that early period didn’t see any year classes as large as some of those of the late 1990s and early 2000s, what it did see was reliably mediocre production—that is, a lot of year classes that were neither above-average nor notably below average, but instead fell between 7 and 8 and, combined with the stronger years, were enough to maintain the female spawning stock.

A similar string of mediocrity, with a strong year class popping up every third or fourth or fifth year, would certainly be an improvement over what we have now and, if coupled with responsible management, would probably be all we need to maintain a sustainable, quality striped bass fishery.

Whether we are likely to see that sort of sustainable fishery, or whether the stock might be headed for long-term trouble, is something that might be revealed in the 2027 benchmark assessment, which will take an in-depth look at the state of the stock and might even adopt a new and different approach to evaluating the stock’s health and sustainability.  Until that assessment is completed, our thoughts about the future of the striped bass will necessarily include a large amount of speculation.

Thus, this is neither a time for despair nor for undue optimism.  Until we receive more information including, at a minimum, an updated stock assessment and juvenile abundance indices for Maryland and, ideally, the other three major spawning areas, it is instead a time for precaution.  It is a time for acting conservatively, and for resolving any ambiguities in the data or outlook in favor of the striped bass.

But we should never overlook the fact that it is also a time for hope, for while the new information might bring bad news, it may also tell us that rebuilding can occur by 2029, and that an end to the recruitment drought could promise a better future.