HONORING THE PROMISE: REBUILDING STRIPED BASS

 

I’m always willing to try something new, or consider new facts or a new idea, but in one way at least, I remain a traditionalist who is very much rooted in the past:  Despite the fact that I’m an attorney, and am very aware of the value of written contracts, if you’re the sort of person who reneges on your word, and needs a written agreement to keep you at least halfway honest, I have no real desire to do business with you, written agreement or not.

I’ll admit that such outlook colors the way that I look at fishery management actions, and none so much as the current efforts to rebuild the striped bass.

And in the case of striped bass, we even have it neatly put down in writing,

“If the [Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Atlantic Striped Bass] Management Board determines that the biomass has fallen below the threshold in any given year, the Board must adjust the striped bass management program to rebuild the biomass to the target level within [no more than ten years]  [emphasis added]”

The Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board made that promise in 2003, when they first inserted such language into Amendment 6 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass, and they renewed and reaffirmed it a little over two years ago, when Amendment 7 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass was adopted.

In doing so, they created a solemn obligation owed to the public, that the Management Board would do all in its power to rebuild a depleted striped bass stock, should ever the need arise.

The Management Board hasn’t always lived up to its promises.  In 2013, a benchmark stock assessment demonstrated that spawning stock biomass had been below target for consecutive years, and that fishing mortality had been above its target during the same time.  That combination of factors triggered a related provision of Amendment 6, which also required the Management Board to implement a 10-year rebuilding plan.

However, even though Amendment 6 explicitly stated that the Management Board “must” initiate a 10-year rebuilding program under such circumstances, the Board nonetheless opted not to execute the duties spelled out in the management plan, and instead only reduced striped bass fishing mortality.  Richie White, New Hampshire’s Governor’s Appointee, asked at the August 2014 Management Board meeting,  

“in the document it says even with proposed measures [to reduce fishing mortality], probability of stock being overfished in 2015 and 2016 is high.  If that happens, are additional steps necessary?”

Such comment would have seemed to open the door to the required rebuilding plan, but Michael Waine, then the ASMFC’s Fishery Management Plan Coordinator for striped bass, downplayed the need for a rebuilding plan, perhaps even if the stock became overfished, saying

“technically if [spawning stock biomass] fell below the threshold, that would trigger Management Trigger 2.  This is in Amendment 6.

“Management Trigger 2 in Amendment 6 says that you need to rebuild the [spawning stock biomass] back to its target over a specified timeframe that should not exceed ten years.  I think that there is sort of a combination of things happening.  The Board is acting to reduce [fishing mortality].  Through that action we see the projections showing that [spawning stock biomass] will start increasing towards its target, but we’re uncomfortable with projecting out far enough to tell you when it will reach its target because the further on the projections we go the more uncertainty that is involved.  Therefore, I think the trend is to get back towards the target, but we can’t tell you exactly how quickly that will happen.”

When people qualify a statement by saying that something is “technically” required—particularly when such requirement is, in truth, explicit and unequivocal—it’s usually a prelude to finding a reason to circumvent the required action.  In this case, Waine never suggested that the Board already had an obligation to initiate a rebuilding plan, since another management trigger, Management Trigger 4, had been tripped by the 2013 assessment.  Instead, he was more than willing to assume that the stock would rebuild itself without any formal plan in place, and saw no need to encourage the Board to do what Amendment 6 clearly required. 

In retrospect, of course, we know that the stock wasn’t able to recover, and that instead of trending back toward the target, it instead became overfished.

While it’s impossible to know what might have been, had the Management Board dutifully discharged its obligations under the ASMFC’s striped bass management plan a decade ago, instead of merely reducing fishing mortality in the hope that the stock would manage to heal itself, there is an excellent chance that the scientists monitoring progress under the rebuilding plan that should have been put in place would have detected the further decline in the spawning stock biomass.  In such case, the Management Board would have been able to put corrective measures in place before the stock became overfished, while the large 2011 year class was still young and abundant, and perhaps before the even larger 2015 year class was large enough to harvest.

Had that been done, it is very possible that the Management Board could have prevented the stock from becoming overfished or, at worst, started the rebuilding before the recruitment drought of 2019 through 2023 occurred, putting the stock in a far better position to weather the poor recruitment years.

Unfortunately, that was never done

Instead, even after the 2018 benchmark stock assessment found the stock to be both overfished and experiencing overfishing, the Management Board again failed to promptly put the required rebuilding plan in place.  Instead, it reduced fishing mortality quickly, then embarked on the multi-year process of drafting and adopting Addendum 7.  Only after Addendum 7 was completed, and after three years of the 10-year rebuilding period had already passed by, did the Management Board take a serious look at the rebuilding process.

What it now faces is daunting.

In order to meet its obligations under the management plan, the Management Board must rebuild the spawning stock biomass to its target level by 2029.  Although it got off to a slow start, busying itself with Amendment 7 before getting down to the business of rebuilding the stock, once Amendment 7 was out of the way the Management Board has taken multiple actions to support rebuilding, including 2023’s emergency management action and the adoption of Addendum II to Amendment 7 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass early this year.

However, it now seems clear that such actions will not be enough to make timely rebuilding likely, and when the Management Board meets in October, it will need to consider additional reductions in fishing mortality to get the job done.

With a 1-fish recreational bag limit, and narrow slot limits in both the Chesapeake Bay and on the coast already in place, it is clear that any new management measures are going to be painful.

But they are also going to be necessary, if the stock is to rebuild and be in a position to cope with the consequences of the five years of poor recruitment, including the lowest 5-year average of the Maryland Juvenile Abundance Index ever recorded.

Yet there are those who are already suggesting that the Management Board ought to again renege on its promise to the public, and not rebuild the striped bass stock in accordance with the terms of the management plan.

A few weeks ago, Michael Waine—the same Michael Waine who failed to remind the Management Board of its obligation to initiate a rebuilding plan back in 2014—appeared on a podcast, called “The Qualified Captain,” in his current role as a hired gun for the American Sportfishing Association, the largest fishing tackle industry trade association.  One of the topics he touched on was striped bass, when he talked about intentionally failing to fully rebuild the stock, in order to allow anglers to kill—he preferred the weasel-word “access”—a few more fish.

He described striped bass management as

“Another scenario where management has gotten more strict through time.  We’re in a rebuilding period for the striped bass population.  The trajectory is good right now, the rebuilding trajectory.  (Remember that you’ve got to take all this with a grain of salt.  I think it’s better to talk about trajectories rather than talk in absolutes given all the uncertainty.)”

Of course, he also said that the striped bass stock was headed in the right direction—would be on the right trajectory—back in 2014, yet we all know where the stock stands today. 

In any event, when the Technical Committee met a week or so ago, it made it clear that the current trajectory of the stock will probably not achieve rebuilding by the 2029 deadline, so there’s objective evidence indicating that the stock’s trajectory is not quite as good as Waine suggests.

But then he went on:

“So we have an increasing trend for striped bass, but we know on the horizon there’s been poor recruitment in the Chesapeake Bay, which is a major spawning area for striped bass and that’s been a good indicator of future, or what the fishery will look like in the future, right.  You cannot catch an adult striped bass without starting with a lot of babies.  We know these, what we call “poor year classes,” that have been spawned over the last five years are coming down the road, meaning when the fish get large enough to be a part of our fishery, that we’re catching, there are going to be fewer of them, and so the question becomes, like what do we do in the meantime, to plan for that?”

It’s a fair question to ask, and Waine laid a good foundation before asking it, so people could understand what was going on.  But after that, he makes his real intentions clear, and they aren’t something that will make many striped bass anglers happy.

“And so that coupled with very ambitious conservation goals, very ambitious, like we’re trying to rebuild the striped bass population to a level that it has rarely ever been to in the history of striped bass, that we’ve been measuring.  And so the question becomes like how far are we willing to go from a management and policy side to meet these very ambitious conservation goals, and you can see the byproduct of that, we have a very narrow slot limit.  And so where we, where we’re currently focused is where do we go from here?  We want to avoid like the scenario like southern flounder and a scenario like red snapper [where recreational landings are sharply curtailed].  We want to make sure that management…is aware of the headwinds but also allows for access for anglers to go out and catch a fish, and so how do we balance these values?  How do we balance building back a population to a conservation level that we can all agree on, which we never likely will, with fishing access, with the ability to actually go out and catch these fish, and what worries me, worries on this specifically is like we’ll go too far, meaning we’ll actually tell people to stop fishing for striped bass, which is where I think everyone loses…”

From those comments, there’s little question that Waine is more than willing to compromise the health of the striped bass stock in order to promote striped bass fishing, which is exactly what you’d expect from someone paid to protect the interests of the fishing tackle industry.  But his comments are misleading enough to deserve a little special attention.

In debunking those comments, it’s probably best to begin near their start, with the statement that
“we’re trying to rebuild the striped bass population to a level that it has rarely ever been to in the history of striped bass, that we’ve been measuring,” because such statement, while true, is also very misleading. 

In recent times, spawning stock biomass only exceeded the target level during a four-year period in the early 2000s.  Looking at the status of the stock at that time, it’s surprising that the biomass managed to reach target levels for even those few years, because fishing mortality exceeded the threshold level for 25 consecutive years; from 1995 through 2019, the striped bass stock experienced overfishing, yet even under such adverse conditions, biomass managed to rise above target from 2002 through 2005.  

Waine ignores that critical detail—excessive fishing mortality—when describing how rarely spawning stock biomass achieved its target level.  But such details matter, and if managers did their job properly, as they have been trying to do in recent years, and constrained fishing mortality to its target level, a biomass that hovers near, and even above, it target level should be readily achievable.

Waine also ignores the fact that stakeholders have already had a long, thorough, and heated conversation about whether the striped bass stock should be fully rebuilt, or whether the target level should be lowered to allow a larger striped bass kill.

That conversation occurred just a couple of years ago, during the debate over Amendment 7, after fisheries managers from a handful of states, most notably Delaware and Maryland, argued for a reduction of the target level and an increase in landings.  Such suggestion was incorporated into the Public Information Document for Amendment 7 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass, which was sent out for comment in the spring of 2021. 

Stakeholders thoroughly rejected the proposal to compromise striped bass rebuilding in the name of higher landings.

Out of 2,764 comments received on the issue, only 18 supported reducing the spawning stock biomass target in order to allow more striped bass harvest.  When only 0.65%--that is, just sixty-five one-hundredths of one percent—of the stakeholders support reducing the biomass target in order to allow more fishing activity, and 99.35% of such stakeholders oppose the reduction, it’s pretty safe to say that the people have spoken and that the issue should not see the light of day for a very, very long time.

The Management Board seemed to agree with that conclusion, and removed the issue from further Amendment 7 deliberations.  The matter should be deemed resolved, and not reopened so soon after such a clear rejection by the striped bass fishing community.

Yet Waine continued to harp on the point, saying

“At what point do you, you know, how far do you want to take it?  Is it really where we are in the striped bass conversation, and I think things got to be some really hard decisions pretty soon, because we’re going to be in a scramble where if you want to reach this goal you basically have to tell people to stop fishing for striped bass…

“I think at some point a conversation about where are we really going with this fishery.  Like are we willing to accept a slightly lower conservation goal to still allow people to go fishing for striped bass, or are we wanting to reachg this conservation goal at the expense of telling people you can’t even go and fish for them, and that is what’s coming on striped bass.”

But, as I noted above, that conversation was already held, in detail, as part of the Amendment 7 debate, when stakeholders came out by the thousands and, nearly unanimously, said that conservation, not more fishing, should be the Management Board’s guiding star.

And should anyone believe that the stakeholders may have had a change of heart over the past couple of years, they only need look at the comments on Addendum II to realize that conservation remains most striped bass fishermen’s primary concern.

Out of 2,488 stakeholders who commented on the recreational size limit in the ocean fishery, 2,289, or 92%, preferred the most restrictive option, the 28- to 31-inch slot size, along with a one-fish bag.  And out of the 2,399 stakeholders who commented on recreational regulations for the Chesapeake Bay, 2,275, or 94.8%, again supported the most restrictive management measures, a 1-fish bag limit and a slot that spanned either 19 to 23 or 19 to 24 inches.

So when Waine tries to claim that

“What we feel our responsibility is, making sure that we understand the needs of our community and really trying to craft policies that allow for all the different individuals within our community to be able to access the resource the way they want to, and not pick winners and losers in the decision-making,”

he’s really either trying to kid himself or to blow smoke at us.

When it comes to striped bass, the stakeholders have spoken, not once but multiple times.  And they spoke with remarkable unanimity, with the diverse stakeholder community of surfcasters and boat fishermen, fly fishermen, trollers, pluggers, and bait fishermen, all coming together in the common cause of conservation.  Each time they spoke, they made it clear that rebuilding the stock, and not killing more fish, is their primary goal. 

While Waine is focused on what he calls “access,” which is a more polite way of saying “dead fish on the dock,” he might be better off recognizing that the report of public comments on the Amendment 7 Public Information Document noted that

“Most comments related to harvest control supported a moratorium on all commercial and recreational harvest for some period of time.  Suggested time periods ranged from 3 years to 10 years or until the stock is rebuilt.”

Although that wasn’t a majority position, 170 of the approximately 3,000 comments supported such action, a substantial number of stakeholders willing to give up their ability to harvest a bass in order to rebuild the depleted spawning stock.  And while, at this point, talk of a moratorium is probably premature, there are few dedicated striped bass anglers who wouldn’t be willing to forego keeping their fish if that was necessary to rebuild the spawning stock.

Because the conversation on conservation vs. “access” has been held, and conservation won in a walk.

As the date of the October Management Board meeting approaches, and as managers get closer to the day when they are going to have to decide whether to honor their promise to the public, we can expect to see more people like Waine, arguing that half-measures are fine.  Like Waine, most will represent some aspect of the fishing industry, and will be seeking to elevate short-term profits above the long-term health of the stock.

It is up to the stakeholders, and the responsible members of the Management Board—who, I hope, are in the majority—to resist such arguments, and rebuild the stock.

Because Waine was right about one thing:  Given the poor recruitment in the Chesapeake Bay, hard times are coming to the striped bass fishery.  And when those hard times come, the striped bass will be in far better shape to survive them if it enters those trials fully rebuilt, and not already somewhat diminished, because people were willing to compromise conservation imperatives in exchangefor a few more deead fish.

I saw the striped bass collapse once, more than 40 years ago.  That time, managers were largely caught by surprise.

That excuse won’t gain them much sympathy if they let the stock collapse again.

 

A REVERSAL OF FORTUNE FOR GULF RED SNAPPER?

 

For perhaps the last two decades, the recreational red snapper fishery in the Gulf of Mexico has been embroiled in controversy, as fishery managers slowly but successfully rebuild the once-overfished stock, while many recreational fishermen, and the “anglers’ rights” groups that such fishermen support, constantly complain that bag limits are too small, and seasons too short, to support the recreational fishery.

For years, we’ve heard that the National Marine Fisheries Service is undercounting the number of fish in the water, and overcounting recreational landings.  We’ve seen the results of the so-called “Great Red Snapper Count” heralded when it found unexpected numbers of fish living on open, low-profile bottom, and saw the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council’s Scientific and Statistical Committee reviled when it didn’t automatically increase annual catch limits to match the Snapper Count’s findings.

For year after year after year, we’ve heard the organized angling community in the region constantly whine that they aren’t being able to kill nearly enough red snapper, considering how many swim in the Gulf.

But as George and Ira Gershwin noted nearly ten decades ago, “It ain’t necessarily so.”

Although some of the loudest voices in the management debate don’t want to admit it, there are signs that the Gulf’s red snapper population, and in particular the eastern Gulf’s red snapper population, may be in decline.

Over the years, I’ve come to know some charter boat captains down in the Gulf who provide me with running updates on the state of the fishery.  One of the consistent comments I hear is that the fishing isn’t as good as it was a few years ago.

One captain down in Alabama tells me that there are fewer and fewer quality snapper on the inshore reefs, and that he and the rest of the charter boat fleet is having to run farther and farther offshore to find fish of any size, particularly after the season has run for a few days.  

Such comments were reflected in the website of one boat that fishes out of Orange Beach, which advises potential customers that

“A half-day trip during the beginning in June, the first month of red snapper season you may catch a mess, if you work hard and everyone participates (and the fish cooperate).  However, if you come during the second week of June or during July or August, you may catch a few for dinner.  You will catch a lot of smaller fish, but they will likely be too small to harvest.  This is due in part to too much fishing pressure in the areas close to shore.”

The fact that recreational fishermen, who may legally only retain two red snapper per day, can clean most of the legal fish off readily accessible reefs (and because of Alabama’s very active artificial reef program,that state has a lot of readily accessible reefs) provides reason to question whether the snapper population is in as good a shape as some of the more vocal organizations would have folks believe.

Now, there is additional reason to ask whether the red snapper population in the eastern Gulf is headed downhill.

Earlier this year, Florida’s angling press was celebrating the fact that Ron DeSantis, the state’s governor, had declared the longest red snapper season in recent history.  Florida Sportsman magazine wrote,

“How does the 2024 announcement compare to last year’s season?...

“This year, the news is even bigger and better and visitors to the state and resident saltwater anglers on the Gulf side have even more reason to smile as the recreational season for red snapper received a boost of an additional 16 days…And that boost left [Fish and Wildlife Commission] Commission chairman Rodney Barreto quite enthusiastic about the record season’s length…

“In a state with multiple world class freshwater and saltwater angling opportunities from the Panhandle to the Keys, the recreational red snapper season on the Gulf side of Florida is an economic boon for resident anglers and it lures in many who want to sample the fishery while visiting…

“[Fish and Wildlife Commission] officials and the Governor’s office also note that Florida is able to offer this long season in 2024 due to data driven management of the red snapper fishery on the Gulf Coast…”

But it may be that Florida Sportsman, and some of the Florida officials, began gushing about the 2024 season a little too soon.  And it may be that they ought to have taken a second look at the data that is driving red snapper management in the Gulf before extending the season or otherwise relaxing management measures.

An article published on the website of The Destin Log a few days ago announced,

“Destin charter captains on longer red snapper season:  ‘Worst I have seen in a long time.’”

Since Destin is one of the most important recreational red snapper ports—arguably, the most important red snapper port—on the west coast of Florida, a headline like that deserves some real attention.  Apparently, there just weren’t enough red snapper around to justify the length of the season, for as the article noted,

“For some, it was business as usual.  But most all agree that the red snapper season was a bit long.”

The article quoted one charter boat owner, Capt. Tyler Brielmeyer, who said that the red snapper fishing was “tough,” felt that the season should have ended on August 1 rather than on August 28, and opined that

“This long season is going to make next year even tougher,”

presumably because, at least in the waters off Destin, more red snapper were removed from the Gulf than the population can replace in time for next year’s season.

Another vessel owner, Capt. Alex Hare, was quoted as saying,

“The snapper fishing was by far the toughest snapper season I’ve ever fished.  They were tough from the get-go, and became almost non-existent at the end of the season…The numbers just weren’t there, and it was a little scary to see…I believe the long season, even though it is good for business, is not good for the fishery.  I hope they make a change.”

Another captain stated that

“We were able to find snappers throughout the season, but it wasn’t necessarily easy and for sure the overall size was smaller than I’d like,”

while a fourth charter boat operator, who had more than forty years’ experience in the fishery, commented that the 2024 red snapper season was

“the worst I have seen in a long time.”

Red snapper getting harder to find, the size of the fish declining, and fish quickly getting cleared off bottom structure, to the point that they were “almost non-existent at the end of the season”—none of those things are signs of a robust and sustainable fishery.

Unfortunately, fishery managers don’t currently have a good handle on the state of the Gulf’s red snapper population.  The most recent research track stock assessment, was completed within the last year, did not pass peer review.  Thus, fishery managers lack updated information needed to manage the stock.

In the face of such uncertainty, and in view of the warning signs being generated in some important recreational fisheries, it is worth asking whether state managers may have been given too much flexibility to set fishing seasons and other management measures, and whether it might be prudent to scale back seasons and fishing effort until such time as a new stock assessment can provide informed guidance on what a sustainable red snapper fishery would look like.

The red snapper stock was badly overfished not too long ago, but has since experienced a strong recovery.  It would be unfortunate to see that progress reversed, and the stock allowed to decline, because some in the recreational fishing community want to go too far, too fast, without first securing a solid scientific basis for the relaxed management measures that they so stridently seek.

 

 

ASMFC VOTES TO IGNORE BEST AVAILABLE FISHERIES SCIENCE

 

On Wednesday, August 14, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s (ASMFC) Summer Flounder, Scup, and Black Sea Bass Management Board voted to ignore the results of the Black Sea Bass 2024 Management Track Stock Assessment Report (Management Track Assessment), and leave the acceptable biological catch (ABC) and annual catch limit (ACL) for 2025 unchanged from those set in 2024.

A New, Improved Stock Assessment

The Management Track Assessment represents a significant improvement over the Black Sea Bass Operational Assessment for 2021 (Operational Assessment) that was previously used to gauge the health of the stock. It utilizes a new population modeling approach first described in the peer-reviewed Report of the Black Sea Bass (Centropristis striata) Research Track Stock Assessment Working Group (Research Track Assessment), which was released by the National Marine Fisheries Service’s (NMFS) Northeast Fisheries Science Center in November 2023.

At the August 14 meeting, the science center’s Dr. Jon Hare explained to the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council and the management board that the methodology used in the Management Track Assessment has eliminated much of the uncertainty inherent in the Operational Assessment’s estimates. Unlike the Operational Assessment, it considers age- and time-dependent variability in black sea bass survival and the size selectivity of the black sea bass fishery, the latter consideration being particularly important in the recreational fishery in New York and New England, which has seen significant changes in the minimum size of the fish that may legally be retained. It also reduces estimates of the number of young sea bass that have recruited into the population in recent years.

The Management Track Assessment found that spawning stock biomass was 24,572 metric tons (mt), 20 percent below the 30,774 mt estimate of the Operational Assessment. The Management Track Assessment also determined that maximum sustainable yield for the black sea bass stock was about 24 percent below, and target biomass about 23 percent below, the Operational Assessment’s estimates.

Dr. Hare assured the managers at the meeting that the Management Track Assessment represented a “significant improvement” over the Operational Assessment and other previous attempts to gauge the health of the black sea bass stock.

In accordance with established council procedure, the Management Track Assessment, once released, was reviewed by the council’s Scientific and Statistical Committee (SSC), which determined that it represents the best scientific information available regarding the black sea bass resource. In accordance with the Management Track Assessment’s findings, the SSC then recommended that the ABC be reduced by 20 percent, from 7,557 mt in 2024 to 6,027 mt in 2025.

Neither the Management Track Assessment’s findings nor the SSC’s recommendation went over well with stakeholders or with state fishery managers.

The Science, Rejected

A summary of comments made at the August 5, 2024 meeting of the Summer Flounder, Scup, and Black Sea Bass Advisory Panel, which was provided to the council and management board, noted that “Advisors were very frustrated with the 20% decline in the 2025 black sea bass acceptable biological catch (ABC) limit recommended by the Council’s Scientific and Statistical Committee (SSC), compared to the 2024 ABC. Advisors did not understand the need for a decrease in the catch limits when the most recent assessment shows biomass is 219% of the target level.”

In making their comments, the advisors also did not seem (or, perhaps, just did not want) to understand that, because the Management Track Assessment’s estimates of spawning stock biomass, target biomass, and maximum sustainable yield were somewhere between 20 and 24 percent below the Operational Assessment’s estimates, the SSC’s decision to reduce the ABC by 20 percent was perfectly in line with the updated data.

But the advisory panel is composed of laymen, not scientists, and many are members of the fishing industry. Thus, their dismay at the new ABC, and their rejection of the SSC’s findings, are arguably understandable. The reaction of the Summer Flounder, Scup, and Black Sea Bass Monitoring Committee, which is made up of state, ASMFC, and federal fisheries professionals, was somewhat more surprising.

A summary of the monitoring committee’s August 1, 2024 meeting, which was also provided to the council and management board, reported that

Six MC members expressed concern with the 20% decline in the 2025 ABC compared to 2024 as there was not a clear explanation for why biomass was projected to decline so sharply. Four of these six MC members said they could not endorse the use of the SSC’s recommended 2025 ABC…

The four MC members who could not endorse the 2025 ABC said a decrease in the ABC is not justifiable given that biomass is so far above the target level. One MC member noted that the most recent stock assessment shows a consistently increasing biomass trend during many years when recruitment was variable and catch exceeded the SSC’s recommended ABC. The noteworthy decline is only in the projection years…

While it is true that, despite earlier projections, black sea bass abundance continued to increase despite high levels of removals, and the reason for such seemingly anomalous behavior deserves further attention, the monitoring committee, like the advisory panel, seemed to overlook the fact that the 20 percent reduction in the ABC reflected a similar reduction in the estimate of current spawning stock biomass and the related reference points.

When the August 14 meeting began, council and management board members raised the same questions, and the same objections, raised by the monitoring committee and advisory panel. In response, Dr. Paul Rago, who serves as chairman of the SSC, reminded everyone in the room that the Management Track Assessment reduced the biomass target by 23 percent and the estimate of maximum sustainable yield by 24 percent, and told them that those were “really important pieces to keep in mind when considering the proper changes” to the 2025 black sea bass specifications.

However, management board members seemed more concerned with placating stakeholders than with following scientific advice and, realizing that there would be stakeholder pushback if the recreational landings limit was reduced, gave little heed to Dr. Rago’s advice.

Such pushback was evident in comments made by Michael Wayne, an advisory panel member who is on the payroll of the American Sportfishing Association, the angling industry’s biggest trade organization, when he asked that additional analysis be conducted, which might alter the findings of the Management Track Assessment. After being told that such assessment, having been completed, having passed peer review, and having been accepted by the SSC, would not be reopened due to other scheduled demands on the science center’s time, Wayne responded that it was “difficult to carry that message back to the industry…It’s just an unacceptable answer.”

Management board members clearly wanted to avoid provoking the angling industry. Emerson Hasbrouck, New York’s legislative appointee, asked how managers could go back to stakeholders and tell them that their landings would be cut, when the monitoring committee couldn’t understand why such cuts were necessary. John Manascalco, a New York fishery manager, expressed concern that managers were “at great risk of alienating our many stakeholders.” Other managers representing New Jersey and Maryland expressed concern that more restrictive regulations would result in more dead discards.

Federal Managers’ Strict Discipline

Yet, regardless of advisory panel, monitoring committee, and stakeholder discontent, the course that the council had to take was clear. The Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (Magnuson-Stevens) requires that each regional fishery management council “develop annual catch limits for each of its managed fisheries that may not exceed the fishing level recommendations of its scientific and statistical committee.”

Michael Pentony, NMFS regional administrator for the Greater Atlantic Region Fisheries Office, which includes the mid-Atlantic, read that provision to the council and warned that if the council took any action inconsistent with the dictates of Magnuson-Stevens, such action would be rejected by the regional office.

Thus, the council had no choice but to adopt the SSC’s recommended ABC, and adopt corresponding ACLs, commercial quotas, and recreational harvest limits for the 2025 season. Such actions illustrated the greatest strengths of the federal fishery management system, where Magnuson-Stevens legally obligates fisheries managers to adopt management measures based on the best available science, which are unlikely to lead to overfishing.

The ASMFC’s Broad Discretion

However, the ASMFC isn’t governed by Magnuson-Stevens; there is no federal statute to impose the same level of discipline on the management board. Although the ASMFC’s Interstate Fisheries Management Program Charter (Charter) clearly states that “Conservation programs and management measures shall be based on the best scientific information available,” such Charter also states that “an effective fishery management program must be carefully designed in order to reflect the varying values and other considerations that are important to the various interest groups that are involved in coastal fisheries. Social and economic impacts and benefits must be taken into account.”

Thus, the management board is effectively in the same place as federal managers were prior to the passage of the Sustainable Fisheries Act of 1996; they are free to exercise virtually unlimited discretion, which allows them to adopt management measures based not on science, but on short-term economic, social, and political concerns, even if such regulations lead to, and effectively condone, overfishing.

For many years, such imprudent management measures were never adopted, because the council and the ASMFC’s various management boards held joint meetings, and agreed that neither management body would adopt measures inconsistent with those adopted by the other. Because the council was obligated to adhere to the provisions of Magnuson-Stevens, that arrangement effectively, if unofficially, bound the management board to adhere to such provisions as well. It also assured that, whether anglers and commercial fishermen fished in state or federal waters, they would be governed by a consistent set of rules.

So long as that joint management policy remained in effect, there was no chance that mid-Atlantic fisheries would experience the sort of chaos that occurred in the Gulf of Mexico red snapper fishery after states bowed to angling industry-imposed pressure and went go out of compliance with federal fisheries managers, adopting regulations that were less restrictive than those that prevailed in federal waters. Such concessions on the part of the five Gulf states ultimately led to severe recreational overfishing, very restrictive federal regulations on anglers, and a bitter dispute that has continued for well over a decade.

But joint management of mid-Atlantic black sea bass ended on August 14th when James Gilmore, New York’s legislative proxy, rose to “move to suspend the joint management process rules for the Board to take action on the 2025 black sea bass regulations.” John Clark, the Delaware fishery manager, seconded the motion.

It was clear from the outset that most, if not all, of the people sitting around the management table were expecting the motion, and that most of them, particularly the state fisheries managers, lent it their strong support, for it allowed them to keep their constituents happy while remaining within the letter, if perhaps not the spirit, of the law.

There was only one strong objection, which came from Chris Batsavage, North Carolina’s fishery manager, who recognized that abandoning the joint management process was risky, and “we need to be careful when we take [such action] and not make a habit of it.” He acknowledged that “Jon Hare and Paul Rago did an excellent job of” explaining the Management Track Assessment, and was one of the few people at the meeting, perhaps the only one on the council or management board, who publicly recognized that the reduced ABC was a direct result of the “rescaled biomass estimate,” and did not try to find ways to undermine the SSC’s decision. While he said that “I understand that the advice coming from the assessment is a tough sell for the stakeholders and the managers,” he also made it clear that such difficulty did not justify ignoring the scientific advice.

In the end, the motion to abandon joint management passed in a lopsided vote, with only North Carolina in opposition and Michael Pentony, as NMFS’ representative, abstaining.

At that point, Gilmore and Clark teamed up on a new motion, this one to maintain status quo black sea bass specifications in 2025.

Although Michael Pentony abstained on the motion to suspend joint management, he was not as indifferent to the motion for status quo, saying, “I do caution the Board that I will vote against it for the agency.” He was concerned that, by adopting specifications different from those adopted by the council and NMFS, the management board would set the stage for divergent quotas in state and federal waters, and noted that existing regulations governing the black sea bass fishery authorized his office to take administrative action to prevent such divergence, although he wasn’t quite certain what such action might be.

Otherwise, there was little debate, and the motion passed with broad support, although North Carolina, Rhode Island, and NMFS did vote against.

The Consequences of Doing Nothing

In adopting the motion for status quo, the management board created a rift between the specifications that will govern black sea bass fishing in federal waters, more than three miles from shore, and those that will govern fishing in inshore waters that are under the jurisdiction of the states.

It’s difficult to predict exactly where that rift will lead.

Absent some sort of remedial action by the regional office, it will almost certainly force federally-permitted commercial fishermen to fish under smaller quotas than those enjoyed by their state-licensed counterparts, but the impact on the recreational fishery is less clear.

In recent years, the council has adopted a “non-preferred” set of coastwide recreational regulations, then granted the ASMFC the authority to manage each state’s recreational fishery by using regulations that might be different, but still have the same conservation impact, as the coastwide rules. For the 2024 season, the council carried forward the non-preferred measures from 2023, which included a 15-inch minimum size, 5-fish bag limit, and a season that ran from May 15 through September 8.

However, after the management board applied its policy of “conservation equivalency,” the final state rules looked much different. States between New York and New Hampshire adopted 16 or 16 ½-inch size limits; bag limits that varied by state and season, but ran somewhere between two and seven fish; and, with the exception of Massachusetts, seasons that began sometime in May or June and ran through the end of the year. New Jersey adopted a 12 ½-inch minimum size, a patchwork of open and closed seasons that began on May 17 and ended on December 31, and a bag limit of between one and 15 fish, which changed with each open season. Between Delaware and Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, a 13-inch size limit and 15-inch minimum size prevailed, along with seasons that began in mid-May and ended on December 31, but generally included a brief mid-season hiatus.

The council agreed that all such state regulations would also govern anglers fishing in federal waters.

Such state regulations are probably going to remain unchanged in 2025, although it is possible that when the council and management board meet in December, the “Percent Change Approach” used to set management measures will call for a small adjustment.

But even if state angling regulations remain unchanged, the 20 percent reduction in the ABC makes it virtually certain that federal recreational management measures will be more restrictive in 2025, while the decision to abandon the joint management process probably means that conservation equivalency is no longer an option, and that a single set of coastwide management measures will govern the federal waters fishery.

Anglers would be bound to follow federal rules when fishing more than three miles offshore, even if those rules were more restrictive than those prevailing in state waters. (It’s probably important to note that in the northern states, where very restrictive state regulations prevail, federal regulations might be more lenient than the state rules.)

That will create a serious law enforcement problem. Poaching has long been rife in the black sea bass fishery, particularly in the party boat fleet, where captains and crew often turn a blind eye to illegal activities.

For example, one notable incident that occurred off the New Jersey coast saw fishermen retain hundreds of illegal black sea bass, but the captain dismissed any obligation to police such conduct, saying “I’m not getting paid by the state of New Jersey to take fish out of people’s buckets.” In another well-publicized case, customers of a Montauk, New York party boat were cited for taking many illegal black sea bass, and about 1,800 additional fish were left on board by customers who abandoned their loaded coolers rather than face stiff fines for taking scores of fish above and beyond the 3-fish bag limit.

Those incidents occurred a few years ago, but the September 2024 newsletter of the Suffolk [County, New York] Alliance of Sportsman carried a report authored by Capt. Tom Gadomski of the Department of Environmental Conservation’s police unit, who described environmental conservation officers’ recent boarding of another Montauk party boat, writing, “Once the officers started to board the vessel, passengers started throwing illegal fish, from their coolers, into the water. The officers ordered all the passengers to not dump their fish. The officers observed many individuals in possession of mostly over limit and undersized Black Sea Bass…Multiple tickets were issued, for unlawful take or possession of fish not of legal size, unlawful take or possession of species over limit and one individual was charged with dumping, upon signal to stop.”

Given the limited resources available to enforce fisheries laws, and also given the lawless attitudes that prevail in some segments of the angling community, it is all too easy to envision vessels sneaking across the three-mile line into federal waters to take advantage of their abundance of fish, landing many sea bass that don’t comply with federal regulations, and then, if boarded back at the dock, claiming that all of the fish were taken legally in state waters and in compliance with all applicable state rules.

Because black sea bass are managed as a single stock, with no distinction made between state and federal waters landings, the disparate regulations could see high landings in state waters resulting in extremely restrictive federal waters regulations that place traditionally productive offshore wrecks and rockpiles off-limits to anglers for almost all of the year.

But perhaps the greatest threat posed by the decision to abandon joint management of the black sea bass resource is that it set a precedent that the management board, or other ASMFC species management boards, will fall back on in the future when confronted by a difficult and potentially unpopular decision.

Many members of the management board were conscious of that issue when they cast their votes, and made comments that expressed their concern. Michael Luisi spoke about the importance of joint management, and noted that “the outcome can be chaotic” if such management was abandoned, but voted to suspend the joint management process anyway. Joseph Cimino, the New Jersey fisheries manager, recognized the potential issues, but opined that “the pros outweigh the cons.”

Even James Gilmore, who made the motion to abandon joint management, acknowledged that “Our jobs are to serve the resource,” and admitted that “If we don’t follow the rules…it would just be chaotic.” But in the end, if a person tries hard enough, they can always find a good reason to do the wrong thing and so, in reference to the stock assessment, the SSC’s advice, or perhaps to both, he declared that “this one, it doesn’t make any sense,” and moved to sever the skein of cooperation between the council and management board, thus greasing an already slippery slope and making it that much easier to do the wrong thing the next time a difficult decision looms.

Now, managers, stakeholders, and the black sea bass resource can only wait to find out what long-term consequences his decision might bring.

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

ARE STOCK ASSESSMENTS TOO OPTIMISTIC

 

A peer-reviewed stock assessment represents the gold standard for fisheries management, a document representing the best scientific information available, which will form a firm foundation for management measures.

Or so we always believed.

Admittedly, there have been doubters.  It is a virtual certainty that every time a new stock assessment is released, if that assessment suggests that the stock is in decline, and that more restrictive management measures are needed to conserve and rebuild the fish population, a motley assortment of commercial and recreational industry members will come out of the woodwork to cry, “The science is wrong!,” because any science, no matter how thoroughly peer-reviewed and how carefully done, will always be wrong if it threatens those folks’ short-term cash flows.

In such cases, we will be regaled with tales of fish being abundant somewhere, whether farther offshore than they typically travel, for farther north, or south, or anywhere else than where the scientists were looking, usually salted with comments about how “people who are out on the water every day” have a far better idea of the health of fish stocks than “scientists who don’t know where the fish are and spend their time sitting behind computers.”

But regardless of the precise nature of the comments, the underlying assumption that such people make is always that the assessment is wrong, because there are really more fish in the ocean than the assessment suggests.

Recently, a team of scientists published a paper which suggests that the truth lies in the opposite direction—that assessments have historically been somewhat biased toward optimism, and overstate the size of fish stocks, particularly those that are suffering from overfishing.

Titled “Stock assessment models overstate sustainability of the world’s fisheries,” and appearing in the August 22 issue of Science, the paper avers that

“For stocks that were overfished, low value, or located in regions with rising temperatures, historical biomass estimates were generally overstated compared with updated assessments.  Moreover, rising trends reported for overfished stocks were often inaccurate.  With consideration of bias recognized retrospectively, 85% more stocks than currently recognized have likely collapsed below 10% of maximum historical biomass.  The high uncertainty and bias in modelled stock assessments warrants much greater precaution by managers.”

That is certainly a startling finding.  As the editor of the article noted,

“Assessment of the status of fisheries stocks is a key component of their management.  Although there has been much debate around how to do fishery assessments, there has been a general belief that estimates are roughly accurate.”

If the article’s authors are correct about many assessments having an optimistic bias, their findings could place the efficacy of many fishery management programs in doubt.

The authors argue that

“Best practice methods for assessing fisheries involve complex models integrating past catch data with biological and other information.  Complex stock models can include more than 40 different parameters and setting related to fish life history (e.g., natural mortality, length and age at maturity, and growth rate), catch (e.g., landings, gear selectivity, and discards), effort (e.g., days fished and number of hooks), and management controls (e.g., fleet allocations and allowable catch).  The many estimated parameters and settings can lead to model overfitting, whereby uncertainty accumulates with each additional estimate.  Accuracy of simpler stock assessment approaches is typically evaluated relative to complex models; however, the accuracy of complex stock models remains unknown because the true fish biomass is not directly observed.”

In their study, the authors took advantage of the fact that the most recent year in any stock assessment is the year that tends to be plagued by the most uncertainty, as the estimates are only based on a single year of data.  As time passes and additional years of data are added to the available data set, the uncertainty surrounding earlier estimates is steadily reduced.  Thus, in evaluating the precision of earlier assessments, and determining whether such assessments’ conclusions tended to overestimate stock size, the researchers noted that

“In the absence of accurate biomass data, a retrospective analysis of differences in estimated stock biomass reported over time can indicate the magnitude of uncertainty and test for systematic bias.”

Thus, they wrote,

“we relate past stock assessments to the most recent assessment.  Our reasoning is that modeled output of the most recent assessment should, on average, be the most accurate because estimates are hindcast using the longest time series and with the most knowledge for defining model structure.”

Their goal was to determine

“whether systemic bias exists between past and most recent assessment estimates and how that bias varies with stock status,”

observing that

“Bias matters because overfished stocks might not be identified for recovery actions if stock size is overestimated, or recovery actions may have unnecessary economic consequences if stock size is underestimated.”

The study encompassed 128 species or species complexes, 230 stocks, and 986 stock assessments; on average, the  biomass estimates for each stock spanned 47 years.  It found that annual estimates of biomass often swung wildly from year to year, with such swings sometimes “greatly exceeding” the uncertainty levels calculated in the stock assessments.  The study also found that there was a general trend indicating a rebuilding/recovery of fish stocks, although

“The recent over-all rise was driven by sustainable stocks…whereas overfished stocks remained low in recent years on average.”

It also revealed that older stock assessments tended to be more optimistic, when compared to the most recent assessments of stock status, with the level of optimism growing as the researchers looked farther back in time.

“[P]lots for overfished stocks generally featured upward slopes in the final 2 years of older assessments—suggesting improving stock size—that were no longer evident in the most recent assessments.  Such phantom recoveries progressed across assessments as updated stock assessments were released.

“…Large downward revisions in stock biomass in later assessments, and a consistent tendency for phantom recoveries, typified overfished stocks.”

The researchers found that

“Uncertainty associated with stock assessments include interrelated process, observation, model, and estimation uncertainties.  These uncertainties led to high interannual variability and consistent bias evident in our analyses, raising doubts about the accuracy of integrated stock assessment models regardless of sophistication.  Bias erred toward stable stocks, with overestimation of biomass for overfished stocks and underestimation for sustainable stocks.”

They suggested that

“The tendency for bias to inaccurately imply stable stock trajectories for both increasing and declining stocks suggests systematic technical issues or confirmation bias, where overfitted models align with modeler’s expectations.  Some model parameters are particularly relevant in this context, including natural mortality and the steepness of the stock-recruitment relationship…Subjective decisions on such highly uncertain parameters provide a possible pathway for systematic bias and management failures.  In particular, poor parameter choices can delay recognition of collapsing stocks, which become obvious only with subsequent data and hindsight.”

And noted,

“Although some stock assessment reports candidly discuss parameter adjustments needed to avoid projections of stock collapse, parameter tweaking is rarely well communicated to managers and policy makers.  Modeled output presented in reports typically depicts uncertainty generated through randomization routines included in the model algorithms.  By contrast, the much higher uncertainty contributed by model adjustment, choice of model structure (including spatial dynamics), input parameters, and inadequacy of input data is frequently overlooked…Nevertheless, recognition of uncertainty by managers is not enough unless it also elicits precaution, such as reducing catch quotas to allow for assessment errors.  [emphasis added]”

The researchers also warned,

“Although inadequate precaution can generate short-term catch benefits, it erodes long-term societal interests through loss of species with immense economic, environmental, cultural, recreational, and spiritual value.  Considering just the economic value, an inability to reverse decline when fish numbers are decreasing ultimately has far-reaching negative impacts on the fisheries workforce, ecosystems and their stability, and the world’s capacity to provide protein to an increasing population.”

So will the recent paper spur fisheries managers to employ greater precaution when analyzing stock assessments and setting management measures?

Probably not.

As the New York Times reported soon after the paper was released, it experienced a very mixed reception.  The Times noted that Dr. Boris Worm of Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia, Canada,

“said that the study breaks new ground in revealing a bias toward optimism,”

while Dr. Ray Hilborn of the University of Washington was unimpressed.

“Many fishery managers, he explained, already look back at historical trends to correct for a possible tendency to over or undercount fish populations.”

And Dr. Steven Cadrin at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth went a step farther than that, calling the paper’s findings “invalid,” in part because the researchers assumed that the most recent stock assessments were the most accurate when, in his view, that was not necessarily true.

So at this point, the impact that the paper might have on fisheries management is not particularly clear, although given the institutional inertia found in any government body, the odds are probably against it inspiring managers to adopt a greater level of precaution when setting annual catch limits in United States fisheries.

Still, the very fact that the paper is out there will spur some discussion, and that alone would be a good thing.