STRIPED BASS CONSERVATION: DEFEATING THE AXIS OF EVIL

 

According to Wikipedia,

“The phrase ‘axis of evil’ was first used by U.S. President George W. Bush and originally referred to Iran, Ba’athist Iraq, and North Korea.  It was used in Bush’s State of the Union address on January 29, 2002, less than five months after the September 11 attacks and almost a year before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and often repeated throughout his presidency.  He used it to describe foreign governments that, during his administration, allegedly sponsored terrorism and sought weapons of mass destruction.”

Never one to let a good phrase go to waste, I stole the ex-president’s phrase back in February 2021, to describe Delaware, Maryland, and New Jersey, states which, in my view,

“constitute an ‘axis of evil’ on the [Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Atlantic Striped Bass] Management Board, that will continue to threaten the long-term sustainability of the striped bass stock unless they are decisively defeated.”

Unfortunately, although those states have suffered a few setbacks in recent years, their decisive defeat has not yet occurred, while their performance at yesterday’s striped bass management board meeting made it plain that they still constitute a serious threat to the resource.

A newly released stock assessment update revealed that the striped bass stock remains overfished, although fishing mortality in 2023, the terminal year of the assessment, was only slightly above the fishing mortality target so the stock is not currently experiencing overfishing (even if it appears that the stock did experience a very modest degree of overfishing in 2022). 

Last week, Maryland and Virginia both released their 2024 striped bass juvenile abundance indices, and both were the worst in recent years, falling well below the 25^th percentile in the states’ respective young-of-the-year surveys.  In Maryland’s case, the 2024 index represented the sixth consecutive year of striped bass recruitment failure, and the lowest six-year average juvenile abundance index in the history of the state survey, which goes back to the late 1950s.

Next year, the 2018 year class, the last reasonably strong striped bass year class produced on the East Coast, will enter the recreational ocean slot size limit, and be vulnerable to recreational harvest, even though maximizing the abundance of the 2018s may be the key to rebuilding the spawning stock biomass by the 2029 rebuilding deadline.

So it’s clear that the striped bass stock is facing some serious challenges, and is in need of some help from fisheries managers.  But while many members of the Management Board are girding themselves to face those challenges, what was is also clear--at least to anyone who attended or listened in to yesterday’s Management Board meeting--is that the representatives of three "axis" states—Maryland, Delaware, and New Jersey—were doing all in their power to delay or derail efforts to rebuild and conserve the striped bass.

Yesterday’s Board meeting was a very drawn-out affair, with scientists and others presenting an broad array of information relating to the stock assessment update, the likelihood of rebuilding the stock by 2029, and the possibility of reducing the number of fish that die after being released.  It wasn’t until about 5:00 p.m., three and a half hours after the meeting began, that Nichola Meserve, a Massachusetts fishery manager, rose to observe that

“We are going to fall off our rebuilding timeline for 2029,”

state that

“The only error I see is not acting,”

and make a motion that read,

“Move to schedule a special Striped Bass Management Board meeting in December 2024 to consider Board Action in response to the 2024 Stock Assessment Update.  The Board will consider action to revise the 2025 recreational seasons or size limits and 2025 commercial quotas to achieve a 50% probability of rebuilding by 2029 under the “low 2024 removals with F increase in 2025 only” projection.”

Martin Gary, New York’s chief marine fisheries manager, seconded the motion, observing that holding a stand-alone Management Board meeting in December would provide time to obtain stakeholder input, and perhaps hold an Advisory Panel meeting; he said that he hoped that such meeting could be held in person.

Immediately, John Clark, a Delaware fisheries manager, announced his intent to oppose the motion, arguing that the spawning stock biomass reference points, which established both the biomass target and the threshold denoting an overfished stock, were “exceptionally high” (even though such reference points were thoroughly discussed during the 2021 debate over Amendment 7 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass, and supported by 2,668 of the 2,678—(99.6%)—stakeholders who commented on the issue).  He then made the remarkable statement that if no further management action is taken, the stock is still likely to be above the spawning stock biomass threshold,

“which is better than now,”

observed that fishermen are already facing more restrictions than they did when the stock crashed in the early 1980s, and called any further landings reductions an

“almost gratuitous cut,”

 earning his state a prominent place on the axis.

Not to be outdone, Michael Luisi, the Maryland fishery manager, then sought to delay management action by making a substitute motion that would maximize exploitation of the 2018 year class when it entered the recreational ocean slot in 2025:

“Move to substitute and initiate an addendum to address reducing total removals (harvest and discard mortality/recreational and commercial) in the coastwide striped bass fishery using the technical committee’s most likely projection scenario (F2024=Low Removals, F Increases in 2025 Only and Returns to 2025 Low Levels) and a 50% probability of achieving the spawning stock biomass (SSB) target level by 2029.  The intent of this addendum is to provide the Board with coastwide and regional alternatives for the recreational and commercial fishery for implementation on January 1, 2026.”

By January 1, 2026, when Luisi's proposed addendum would become effective, the 2018s would be moving out of the ocean recreational slot, and most of the damage would already be done.

Not surprisingly, the motion was seconded by Delaware’s Clark.

In making his motion, Luisi argued that the provision in Amendment 7, which was fully debated by the Board and which allowed the Board to take immediate action in response to unfavorable information in the stock assessment update “was an experiment,”  (although one would think that, as in any experiment, you need to fully carry it out to its conclusion in order to know whether or not it would yield a favorable result), and said,

“We owe it to the public to be heavily involved in the addendum process.”

To the best of my knowledge, he never also expressed the opinion that the Management Board owes it to the public to fulfill its obligation to rebuild the striped bass stock by 2029.  Instead, he stated that

“I’m concerned about the longevity and the durability of the actions that we take,”

which is a legitimate concern, for it’s certainly nice to have management measures that don’t change from year to year.  But it’s far nicer to have management measures that actually achieve their goals and provide the public with a fully rebuilt stock that, if the Management Board does its job, will be healthy and sustainable in the long term.

The debate on the substitute motion lasted a while, as supporters and opponents of the proposal motion rose to speak.  One of the most interesting comments came from Chris Batsavage, the North Carolina fishery manager, who opposed Luisi’s effort to delay action.  

He noted that the Management Board was running out of time, and needed to move faster given the likely increase in 2025 fishing mortality that it was facing.  He noted that North Carolina no longer has an ocean striped bass fishery, in part because

“There aren’t a lot of fish out there,”

and in so doing, pointed out that not taking action to rebuild the population has real consequences.

But Pat Geer, Virginia’s fishery manager, supported the substitute, largely for bureaucratic reasons, as his state was already well into the process of obtaining 2025 striped bass tags for its commercial fishermen.  He suggested that, while it might be appropriate to change recreational management measures for 2025, commercial measures should not be altered until 2026.

Max Appelman, speaking for the National Marine Fisheries Service, favored the substitute because it allowed for more “robust public comment.”

But others disagreed.  David Sikorski, the Legislative Proxy from Maryland, argued that

“It’s more responsible to act more quickly,”

and to stop “playing games” with the management process by adopting regulations that fall short of what is needed to achieve their goals.  He also objected to those who tried to cause dissention within the angling community by neatly dividing catch-and-release from catch-and-keep anglers, noting that anglers often release fish on one trip, while keeping fish on another.  He also noted that, because of existing regulations, anyone who fishes releases fish, even if they are focused on harvest.

Dennis Abbott, New Hampshire’s Legislative Proxy, also opposed the substitute, saying that it represented

“a dereliction of our duty to protect the 2018 year class.”

In the end, although it had the support of New Jersey, Maryland, and Delaware, as well as the support of NOAA Fisheries, Virginia, and the Potomac River Fisheries Commission, the substitute motion failed on a 6 to 9 vote, with Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, the District of Columbia, and North Carolina voting against, while the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service abstained.

At that point, Virginia’s Pat Geer, driven by the bureaucratic issues he faced, made another motion to substitute that read

“Move to schedule to substitute a special Striped Bass Management Board meeting in December 2024 to consider Board Action in response to the 2024 Stock Assessment Update.  The Board MAY consider action to revise the 2025 recreational season and/or size limits and 2026 commercial measures with an addendum for 2026 and beyond to achieve a 50% probability of rebuilding by 2029 under the low 2024 removals with F increase in 2025 only projection.”

Once again, Delaware’s Clark was more than happy to second the motion.

Mr. Geer explained that he made the motion because the states bordering the Chesapeake Bay couldn’t adopt amended commercial measures in time to provide tags to their fishermen before the fishing season began.

His plea drew some sympathetic comments, but Ms. Meserve noted, in a comment that probably expressed the views of the many people, both on the Board, in the audience, and on the water, who are concerned with the striped bass’ future, that

“I remain disappointed and frustrated that the states with writing on the wall”

are attempting to delay needed management measures.

Mr. Batsavage expressed his agreement with Ms. Meserves statement, and added,

“We shouldn’t let process get in the way of conservation of striped bass.”

Still, Mr. Geer’s motion almost attracted enough sympathy to pass, failing on a 7-7 vote, with the two federal agencies abstaining.  Along with the expected favorable votes of Delaware, Maryland, and New Jersey, it won the support of New Hampshire, the Potomac River Fisheries Commission, the District of Columbia, and Virginia, while Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina voted against.

Yet Delaware’s Clark made one more attempt to disrupt the process, moving to amend the original motion so that the phrase “commercial quotas” was replaced by “commercial measures.”  Mr. Sikorski seconded the motion, making clear that he did so only for the purposes of discussion.

Clark argued that, instead of reducing the commercial quota, the Management Board should require that all commercially-caught bass be tagged at the point of capture (as they already are in many states) instead of at the point of sale.  He alleged that such point-of-capture tagging would prevent fish from being sold to illicit buyers without being reported, and would reduce actual commercial landings more than a quota cut would.

Some Board members expressed opposition, arguing that there was no time to consider measures other than quotas, but once again, the motion failed on a tie vote, with eight in favor and eight opposed.

At that point, Ms. Meserve’s original motion was finally on the table.  14 jurisdictions voted in favor; even Maryland conceded defeat and voted its approval.  New Jersey was the sole state to vote against, while the Delaware delegation was split and, unable to reach a decision, cast a “null” vote.

Despite Delaware’s, Maryland’s, and New Jersey’s efforts to disrupt the process, in just a couple of months the Management Board will address 2025 management measures for both the recreational and commercial fisheries.  Hoipefully, it will make meaningful changes to the managment plan.

But based on other comments made at yesterday's meeting, the opposition to effective management action will not go away.

Even before Ms. Meserve made her original motion, opposition to such measures began.

Delaware’s Clark tried to argue that, ten years after the first halting measures to conserve the stock began, the spawning stock biomass appeared to be following “a natural population cycle," going up and down.  He claimed that 

“we can’t guarantee anything by keeping [the spawning stock biomass] at a very high level,” 

and fretted that

“People are going out of business,”

while asking

“Do we have any sense of whether the stock would recover if spawning stock biomass went down even further than it is now?”

a question that caused a member of the Technical Committee to remind him that biomass is what people are fishing on, that a decrease in biomass means that fewer fish are available to fishermen, and that poor recruitment will not support the current level of fishing pressure.  But such response had no impact, with Clark suggesting, as he had in the past, that the biomass reference points should be lowered to allow higher harvests, and that

“We have been very precautionary [about the impact of management on striped bass].  We need to be precautionary about what we are doing to people.”

The importance of a healthy striped bass stock to the people who fish for them apparently did not cross his mind.

Adam Nowalsky, New Jersey’s Legislative Proxy, took a different tack, trying to cast doubt on the data and the need for further management action.  

He first tried to question the importance of the juvenile abundance index, asking why the trends in the JAI data did not exactly track the trends in recruitment of Year 1 bass into the population.  After being told that the differences could be due to either “noise” (that is, uncertainty) in the data or to mortality events during the juvenile fish’s first year, he then tried to raise doubts about the Year 1 recruitment, noting that years with notably high recruitment, to which he attached the disparaging label “outliers,” skewed the time series mean upwards.  He asked if it was possible to adjust or remove such high recruitment years, apparently without regard to whether such estimates accurately reflected the recruitment in the relevant years, in order to reduce the time series mean, an action which would degrade the accuracy of the time series as a whole and, in a period of low recruitment, make the stock look healthier than it actually is.

He claimed he was questioning such data because he was

“Looking for another way to possibly interpret this information to…stabilize the fishery,”

a somewhat cryptic way of saying that he was looking for a way to keep management measures unchanged and avoid putting needed conservation measures in place.  Such intent to avoid adopting such needed became obvious later in the meeting, when Nowalsky asked,

“As we sit here today, does the management plan mandate a reduction in 2025?”

He was undoubtedly hoping for an answer of “No,” although the real answer to that question was, of course, up to the discretion of the Board, based on how it applied the information presented by the Technical Committee to the language in the management plan.

Thus did the Management Board members from Delaware, Maryland, and New Jersey attempt to prevent the Board from adopting new management measures for the 2025 season.

So far, their efforts have failed.  But when the Management Board next meets, to put needed rule changes in place, we can be certain that the three states will again try to frustrate the rebuilding effort, in order to provide their stakeholders with a few more dead bass for a few more years, until the stock buckles under the strain.

For in the world of striped bass, they represent the axis of evil, and that is what they do.

We must never let them prevail.