ICCAT INCREASES WESTERN ATLANTIC BLUEFIN QUOTA, TO MIXED REVIEWS

 

The recreational fishing community was generally unhappy with this year’s early closure of the bluefin tuna fishery.  The recreational fishing industry—both the for-hire fleet and the fishing tackle purveyors—were particularly upset, with many calling for an increase in the United States’ quota of western Atlantic bluefin tuna.  When the closure occurred, such increase seemed unlikely, as no other nation was likely to yield part of its own quota to the United States.  As I noted at the time,

“About the best we can hope for is that, when a new stock assessment is released in 2026 or 2027, it will suggest that everyone’s quotas can be increased, and that such rising tide will float the United States’ anglers’ boat along with everyone else’s.”

However, in writing that, I didn’t consider another possibility: that even though a new stock assessment has not yet been released, other scientific work might be used to justify a quota increase.

That is what happened this year.

Dr. Walter Golet is an Associate Professor at the University of Maine, who serves as the Lead Principal Investigator at the Pelagic Fisheries Lab at the university’s School of Marine Sciences, where he has done extensive work researching Atlantic bluefin tuna.  His expertise has resulted in him heading up the United States’ ICCAT Advisory Committee; he also sits on the National Marine Fisheries Service’s Highly Migratory Species Advisory Panel, where I have an opportunity to meet him and have some brief conversations about various fisheries issues.

One of the projects that his team is working on is something they call “Genetics for Giants and Juvies,” a cooperative research project that employs recreational and commercial fishermen willing to provide fin clips from the bluefin tuna that they catch.  The project involves something called “Close-Kin Mark Recapture,” which the lab describes as

“a new technique used to determine the ratio of genetically matched fish to larvae (i.e. parent-offspring pairs or POPs).  In other words, we are using DNA to map out the family tree of [Atlantic bluefin tuna] in the Western Atlantic!”

The lab goes on to say that using the new technique,

“we can estimate where the fish come from (Western or Eastern stock), the absolute population abundance, and the future productivity of the stock.  This information will provide managers with more accurate and real-time data to sustainably manage the Atlantic bluefin fishery!”

(As an aside, active bluefin fishermen who might like to assist Dr. Golet with his work can sign up at the project webpage, which can be found at https://umaine.edu/pelagicfisherieslab/2025/06/05/genetics-for-giants-juvies/).

Each year, the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas holds its regular meeting in November.  Well before that occurs, sometime during the spring and summer, the various “species groups” hold what ICCAT deems “intersessional meetings,” where biologists review scientific information regarding the various ICCAT-managed species.  At last April’s intersessional meeting for the Bluefin Tuna Species Group, Close-Kin Mark-Recapture data was considered for the first time.

The data didn’t result in any startling new revelations.  It’s estimate for the size of the western Atlantic bluefin population fell within the range or earlier estimates, although it was toward the higher end of that range.  As noted in the report of the intersessional meeting,

“Overall, the [western Atlantic bluefin tuna close-kin mark recapture] study analyzed approximately 9000 adults from the West Atlantic mixed fisheries paired with [about] 4000 larvae from the Gulf of Mexico western spawning area, and found 56 parent-offspring matches, which provided estimates of spawner detection probability in the US and Canadian fisheries, and in turn, an estimate of the absolute abundance of the western spawning population for 2018.

“The analysts explained that the [western Atlantic bluefin tuna close-kin mark recapture] analysis provided an abundance estimate of adults age 8+ potentially spawning in the West Atlantic, either Gulf of Mexico (GOM) or other areas, including the Slope Sea…

“The [Close-Kin Mark Recapture] model formally estimates a quantity known as Total Reproductive Output (TRO), which is not strictly comparable to estimates from the operating models (OMs).  The TRO was converted to a comparable metric of spawning stock biomass (SSB) using known age structure and the total biomass of all fish age 8+.

“The Group initially saw a comparison of [close-kin mark recapture] SSB with the actual spawning biomass from the OMs.  During the meeting the actual biomass of age 8+ fish was extracted from the OMs.  The Group discussed the comparison shown between the estimate of SSB in 2028 obtained from the [close-kin mark recapture] analysis (21 kt with a CV-0.19) with the 48 values of SSB in 2018 corresponding to the OMs used in the Management Strategy Evaluation (MSE).  Although the SSB estimate from [the western Atlantic bluefin tuna close-kin mark recapture] is inside the range of values from the OMs, its value is larger than the majority of values from the OMs.  Despite this difference, the Group noted that a major benefit is that the [close-kin mark recapture] results can considerably reduce the spread of uncertainty in population scale (the most influential axis of uncertainty in the MSE) with respect to what was assumed in the OMs...”

Thus, it seemed that, while the close-kin mark recapture data suggested that the size of the western Atlantic bluefin tuna population probably did fall within the range of previous estimates, it also served to narrow that range of estimates, presumably eliminating some estimates from the lower end of the range.

But there was still a question of what to do with the data.

In 2022, ICCAT had adopted a Management Procedure for Atlantic bluefin tuna which, complementing the Management Strategy Evaluation adopted in the same year, was intended to automatically calculate the total allowable catch for both the eastern and western stocks, requiring that such TAC be set at a level that had at least a 60% probability that the stock would neither become overfished nor be subject to overfishing.  The Management Procedure specifies that the total allowable catch be calculated by removing a fixed proportion of the bluefin from each of the East or West areas, with overall abundance of bluefin in each area being estimated based on a weighted average of each abundance index that exists for the relevant area.

Based on such calculations, the western Atlantic bluefin tuna quotas for 2026, 2027, and 2028 would probably be substantially the same as they were for the three previous years.

However, the Management Procedure also includes the concept of “exceptional circumstances,” which might occur if

“there is evidence that the stock and/or fishery dynamics are in states not previously considered to be plausible in the context of the management strategy evaluation,…there is evidence that the data required to apply the management procedure are not available or sufficient, or are no longer appropriate, and/or…there is evidence that the total catch for either the West area or the East area is above the total allowable catch for the respective area set using the [management procedure].  [formatting and internal references omitted]”

If one or more exceptional circumstances exist, the total allowable catch calculated by application of the Management Procedure might still be adopted, but if the

“[Standing Committee on Research and Statistics] determines that [the exceptional circumstance or circumstances] precludes the application of the [Management Procedure] or makes the application of the [Management Procedure] or the implementation of its results (i.e., TACs) unadvisable,”

alternative management options may be adopted.

So the question became:  Do the results of the Close-Kin Mark Recapture study rise to the level of an exceptional circumstance?

At last April’s Bluefin Tuna Study Group intersessional meeting, opinions on that were split.

“While the Group agreed [the western Atlantic bluefin close-kin mark recapture study] was a large step forward in the knowledge of the scale of the western stock, the Group struggled to reach consensus on if this new information fell within the definition of [exceptional circumstances]…Some participants felt the [western Atlantic bluefin tuna close-kin mark recapture] results were a large step forward in the knowledge of western scale and a substantially different understanding of stock scale compared to the assumptions incorporated in the 2022 [Management Strategy Evaluation] results.  Others felt that while the [close-kin mark recapture study] was a solid new piece of information, the results were not beyond anything seen in the full range of the 2022 [Operating Models] results and, therefore, they did not consider that these new [close-kin mark recapture] results warranted triggering [exceptional circumstances.”

But, in the end, after what ICCAT characterized as “long and intense discussions” at the recently-concluded meeting, the Commission agreed to increase the western Atlantic bluefin tuna quota by 17%, to 3,081.6 metric tons, for the period 2026-2028.  That would increase the United States quota from 1,316.14 metric tons during the period 2023-2025 to 1,490.38 metric tons, plus an additional bycatch allowance for longline vessels fishing near the boundary delineating the eastern and western management areas, for the period 2026-2028.

While some fishing industry organizations expressed low-key approval of that outcome, more conservation-focused organizations criticized both the decision and how it was reached.

A post on the website Harveststrategies.org, which is supported by multiple conservation organizations, voiced concern that, after

“ICCAT scientists could not agree on whether the new [close-kin mark recapture] information constituted an official exceptional circumstance…[they] did a light revision of the [Management Strategy Evaluation] and subsequently updated the original [Management Procedure], providing two separate [Management Procedures] and associated TACs to the Commission as the scientific advice—BR, the officially adopted [Management Procedure], and BR*, the new revised [Management Procedure].

“This unfortunately opened the door to extensive negotiations…on the [Management Procedure] and how to implement it.  After days of debate on 10 separate formal proposals, ICCAT ended by continuing to operate under the originally adopted BR [Management Procedure], but with incomplete implementation…[I]n the West, the new measure sets a TAC 20% higher than allowed under the originally implemented [Management Procedure], with an extra 100 [metric ton] from the East to the West to use for bycatch in the vicinity of the West/East management boundary.  The final TAC represents a 17% increase in the western TAC, counter to the [Management Procedure].

“This is not how the [Management Procedure] process is supposed to work.  First, the [exceptional circumstances protocol] for Atlantic bluefin tuna is very clear.  The first step is to answer the question, ‘Is there evidence of an exceptional circumstance?’  If the answer is yes, then further investigations should be considered, such as revising the [Management Procedure].  But ICCAT scientists did the revision before first answering the question…Thankfully, there is [a Management Procedure] review scheduled for the next few years that provides an opportunity to get back on course with a bluefin [Management Procedure] that is likely to achieve Commission objectives.”

The World Wildlife Fund was more sharply critical, complaining that

“WWF hailed the 2022 adoption of the Management Procedure for Atlantic bluefin tuna as a landmark achievement—a science-based tool designed to both secure the long-term sustainability of stocks and to showcase the Atlantic bluefin tuna as an ICCAT success story.  Yet, just after completing the first management cycle, it is deeply disappointing to see political pressure overriding and threatening to compromise science-based, sustainable management.  We strongly believe that deviating from the agreed management framework—developed through such an extensive and resource-intensive process—would set a negative example potentially undermining the future governance of other stocks managed under this Convention.”

And that may be the real lesson to be taken from ICCAT’s recent action.

Right now, there seem to be a lot of bluefin tuna in the western Atlantic.  East Coast anglers caught their bluefin quota so quickly last year precisely because there were a lot of fish available for them to catch.

That wasn’t true a couple of decades ago, when bluefin were much harder to come by.  It was only thanks to concerted, international action that the western Atlantic bluefin population began to rebuild.

ICCAT’s decision to increase the bluefin tuna quota for the next three-year period was less an affront to the bluefin—the fish are abundant enough, and the increase was small enough, that it probably won’t do significant harm to the stock before remedial action can be taken—than to the management process itself.

Because, whether the species in question is bluefin tuna, striped bass, or something else, once managers begin to ignore their established management protocols, and instead either sidestep them, or use dubious excuses to create exceptions to the established rules when an opportunity to increase yield arises, then discipline is lost, and it becomes ever easier to sidestep the management process again.

Hopefully, Dr. Golet’s data, which suggests that western Atlantic bluefin are somewhat more abundant than previously believed, will prove to be correct, and the tuna will suffer no harm at all.

And hopefully, the lax process used to increase the western Atlantic bluefin quota for the upcoming three years, and the criticism that laxness engendered will serve as a warning to ICCAT to be more hesitant to amend an established procedure again, just because it seems to be the politically popular thing to do.

IMPROVIDENCE

 

About a year and a half ago, I became a member of the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council’s Summer Flounder, Scup, and Black Sea Bass Advisory Panel.  While I spend most of my time chasing sharks and tuna offshore, I also get a lot of enjoyment out of wreck fishing for black sea bass and scup, and do it enough, and have done it for long enough, that I have a lot of thoughts about how those species ought to be managed.

That’s particularly true of black sea bass, which is one of my favorite “inshore” species—with “inshore” in quotations marks because I usually fish for them in the ocean, well outside of state waters, although almost always inside the 20-fathom line.

I’ve fished for black sea bass for long enough to have seen massive changes in the fishery, dating back to the days when the overfished stock provided few and generally small fish, to the rebuilding years when good-sized black sea bass—sea bass between three and four pounds, with the occasional fish even larger—were a regular part of midsummer trips, to today’s situation, when black sea bass are extremely abundant, but have also drawn so much fishing effort that it has become difficult to find many that exceed New York’s current 16 ½-inch minimum size.

Throughout that time, I’ve watched fisheries managers at the Mid-Atlantic Council and at the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission struggle to properly manage the species.  That, too, has changed, from the arguably over-cautious approach employed prior to 2016, when there was no reliable stock assessment available to guide the management process; to the data-driven, yet uncertainty-plagued approach used for a few years after the 2016 stock assessment passed peer review; to the overly risk-prone stance taken by managers, beginning in the 2020 season, when they repeatedly found excuses not to respond to anglers chronically exceeding the recreational harvest limit; and, finally, to the current management mode, which began in the 2023 season, when managers adopted something that they called the “Percent Change Approach” which allowed anglers to legally exceed both the recreational harvest limit and the sector annual catch limit with near-complete impunity, so long as the spawning stock biomass remained sufficiently high.

Managers’ excuse for allowing such high recreational harvest limits was the black sea bass’ very high spawning stock biomass which, according to the most recent management track stock assessment, was estimated to be 29,934 metric tons, about 275% of the spawning stock biomass target of 10,877 metric tons, in 2025.  However, the same management track assessment predicts that spawning stock biomass will decline sharply in the near future, falling to 22,809 metric tons (210% of target) in 2026 and 17,563 metric tons (161% of target) in 2017.

Despite the declining trend, even a spawning stock biomass that is “just” 161% of the target level is still very high, particularly in a world where the summer flounder SSB hovers somewhere between its target and the threshold that defines an overfished stock (although, fortunately, a little closer to the target) and the striped bass stock, which supports the most important recreational fishery on the East Coast, remains overfished.

Fishing mortality is also relatively low, with the 2024 fishing mortality rate the lowest it has been over the last 10 years.

So it is easy to understand why managers might be willing to take an optimistic view of stock health, and allow anglers to kill more black sea bass than they ought to, and why they might be unwilling to place additional restrictions on landings, at a time when spokesmen for the recreational fishing industry are not hesitant to point out the size of the spawning stock biomass and call for more relaxed regulations.

Yet there is one reason to believe that the black sea bass stock might not be facing quite as rosy a future as everyone seems to believe, and that is the very small number of older, larger fish in a population.

Generally, a healthy fish stock, regardless of species, will include many different year classes of fish.  The number of different year classes depends on the species in question—shorter-lived species will, naturally, contain fewer year classes than those that live longer—but a perfectly healthy stock, which is experiencing no fishing  mortality at all, would consist of individuals ranging from Year 0s, which were produced only a few months before, to a handful of individuals representing the maximum age that the species can reach.

We can envision such a population represented as a triangle, with the youngest, and most abundant, individuals making up the triangle’s broad base, with the preceding year classes, which grow smaller with time, stacked atop it, until the triangle’s very narrow tip is made up of the handful of fish that have managed to reach their maximum age potential.  (Because some year classes are larger or smaller than average, a better analogue would be a child’s jagged drawing of a Christmas tree, with strong year classes represented by the branches jutting far from the trunk and weaker ones the spaces in between such branches, but for the purposes of this discussion, the triangle’s image will serve.)

Once a population is subject to fishing mortality, the shape and size of the triangle changes.

Intuitively, one might think that the triangle of a stock that’s being fished would stay just as tall, but become skinnier, with a narrower base, as fishing activity removes a similar proportion of fish from all of the different year classes.

But that’s not what happens.

Instead, imagine someone making a cut parallel to one of the triangle’s sides.

Such a cut would remove the top of the triangle completely, reducing the triangle’s height, while also narrowing the base.  That means, in the context of a fish population, that because of fishing mortality,  fish would no longer be able to reach their full age potential; the oldest year classes would probably be lost completely, while the older, larger fish that remained would make up a smaller proportion of the overall population.

Because the oldest, largest fish would no longer be present, and the older year classes that remain would be removed from the population at a higher rate, the spawning stock biomass would be  composed primarily of younger individuals, and perhaps by only a very few year classes.  Such a population might still sustain itself for years, and perhaps indefinitely, provided that the recruitment of new fish into the spawning stock remains strong.

However, such a population is also more vulnerable to periods of poor recruitment.  With fishing mortality removing most of the older fish from the population and truncating its age structure, there are fewer age-classes in the spawning stock biomass, so if the stock experiences a few consecutive years of below-average spawns, its spawning potential could quickly be reduced.

On October 24, biologists produced Recreational Demand Model predictions of what the black sea bass population will look like on January 1, 2026, assuming that regulations remain unchanged.  Those predictions include a chart which shows that, at the beginning of the next year, three age-classes of sea bass—the five-year-olds, the six-year-olds, and those fish that are seven years old and older—each make up less than 5% of the black sea bass population.  The chart is denoted in intervals of 20%, so the precise contribution each age-class makes to the overall population is difficult to determine by eye, but none seem to rise above 3% or so.

To put that in context, consider this length-at-age chart that I recently received from a biologist who sometimes follows this blog, which I understand was developed by the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection:

age 1: 5”
age 2: 10”
age 3: 12”
age 4: 13.5”
age 5: 15”
age 6: 17”
age 7: 18.5”
age 8: 19”
age 9: 20”
age 10: 21”

That chart isn’t completely precise, because fish, just like people, grow at different rates and, particularly as they get older, the size difference between individuals of the same age can be marked.  However, it proves as a good general guide, and what it tells us is that, for a black sea bass to be large enough to meet the 16 and 16 ½ inch size limits that prevail in New York and New England, that fish will probably have to be between five and six years old. 

The chart of relative age-class abundance suggests that black sea bass of that age make up only a very, very small proportion of the population, and corroborates the anecdotal information provided by a number of fishermen and for-hire captains in the region—including myself—that legal-sized black sea bass have become very hard to find.

It also shows that the black sea bass population is largely dependent upon three age-classes—the two-year-old (when about 50% of females are mature), three-year-old, and four-year-old fish—to maintain the health of the stock, particularly that portion of the stock that spends most of its time north of Hudson Canyon.

Such dependence on just a few year classes might not matter quite as much with black sea bass as it does with most other species, as black sea bass are considered “atypical protogynous hermaphrodites,” which means that most—but not all—of the fish start life as females, and most—but not all—of the females later transitioning to males, so the majority of the egg production is concentrated in the younger age-classes.   However, it still makes black sea bass vulnerable to poor recruitment, should it occur.

So while the stock isn’t facing any immediate problems, managers probably shouldn’t become too sanguine about what the population might look like five or ten years from now.

And that’s where the November 19 meeting of the Summer Flounder, Scup, and Black Sea Bass Advisory Panel comes in.

Ahead of the Advisory Panel meeting, we were provided with four documents, which included a memorandum addressing 2026-2027 black sea bass recreational measures.  Among other things, that memorandum noted that

“The updated Recreational Demand Model predicts that if 2025 measures were to remain in place in 2026, this would result in 5.86 million pounds of black sea bass harvest, with an 80% confidence interval of 4.22-8.50 million pounds.  The 2026-2027 [recreational harvest limit] of 8.14 million pounds is within this confidence interval.  Therefore, given that the stock is not overfished, the Percent Change Approach requires a ‘no liberalization/reduction’ outcome…”

That probably makes sense.  Yes, the decline in the number of older, larger black sea bass is troubling, and could foreshadow problems with the stock, and the size of the spawning stock biomass is expected to decline in the upcoming years.  But with the spawning stock biomass nearly triple the SSB target, and a fishing mortality rate that is almost 25% below the overfishing threshold, managers could easily maintain current regulations and, even if landings are a little too high, not do any real harm to the stock before the 2027 management track assessment gives them an updated look at where things are heading.

But at the Advisory Panel meeting, we learned that some members of the Summer Flounder, Scup,  and Black Sea Bass Monitoring Committee, which is composed of biologists employed by the ASMFC, National Marine Fisheries Service, and various states, have looked at the uncertainty surrounding the Recreational Demand Model’s estimates, particularly its estimates of relative abundance-at-age, and have concluded that the 80% confidence interval—which has been used for all Percent Change Approach-related calculations since that approach was adopted a few years ago, because it

“balances consideration of certainty in estimates with responsiveness to changing conditions”

—created too great a spread of possible values, a spread that was not only “much larger” than spreads for black sea bass estimates in the past, but also wider than the current spreads for summer flounder and scup.  That led some Monitoring Committee members to become concerned that

“Too wide of a [confidence interval] mean measures remain unchanged for too long,”

and could result in forgoing yield that might otherwise be landed.

Such Monitoring Committee members recommended using a 75% confidence interval instead, suggesting that a 75% confidence interval was still close to 80%, but led to a narrower estimate of possible 2026 black sea bass landings, which might range between 4.29 and 8.06 million pounds.

While there is only about a 5% difference between the upper bound of the 80% confidence interval for 2025 landings—8.50 million pounds—and the upper bound of the 75% confidence interval, because of how the Percent Change Approach works, that 5% difference would, if a 75% CI was adopted, result in a 39% increase in the 2026-2027 black sea bass recreational landings target, because the 2026 recreational harvest limit of 8.14 million pounds would be just above the upper bound of the 75% confidence interval, and so permit such drastic liberalization.

Not all of the members of the Monitoring Committee supported such result.  Some argued that there was no “thorough analysis” to support dropping the confidence interval to 75%.  Some believed that

“any CI [other than 80%] would appear arbitrary without strong justification,”

while others maintained that it was

“preferable to discuss appropriate [confidence intervals] when it can be independent of the outcome.”

But most members of the Advisory Panel pounced on the 75% confidence interval, and the 39% increase in the recreational landings target, like a barn cat pouncing on pigeon with a bad wing.

The Advisory Panel, or at least its recreational component, is dominated by the for-hire industry.  I’m one of the very few private-boat anglers on the panel, and I’m not sure that any of the members spend their time fishing from shore.  Thus, the Advisory Panel’s comments largely focused on the prospect of higher landings and relaxed regulations attracting more customers to the party and charter boat fleet. 

With the exception of one very experienced New Jersey party boat operator, who emphasized the need for a large and abundant black sea bass population, none of the industry comments expressed any concern for the future of the black sea bass stock.

In fact, another New Jersey party boat operator argued for the 39% increase because, if landings needed to be reduced at some point in the future, any reduction would be made from a recreational landings target 39% higher than the one in place today, so that even after such prospective cut, recreational landings would still remain relatively high.

Again, the impact on the black sea bass population was not a major concern.

That is a foolish way to proceed.

Should recreational fishing mortality increase as a result of the possible 39% increase, the oldest black sea bass age-classes would quickly be reduced in size, which would have a decided negative impact on the black sea bass fishery in New York and New England, which is largely dependent on those older, bigger fish.  Should the 2027 management track assessment find that recreational landings must be reduced—which would not be a surprising outcome, given the upcoming revisions to recreational catch and effort data—the northeastern black sea bass fishery could be destroyed.

That’s a big price to pay for just two years of profligacy.

And given that black sea bass thrive, and produce the largest year classes, when the young of the year encounter warm, saline water while spending their first winter, and given that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is warning that the Gulf Stream has temporarily shifted south, and that cold, less saline northern water is flowing over the edge of the shelf off New England and the upper mid-Atlantic, a condition that might persist for the next decade or so, the likelihood of lower recruitment, and the need for landings cuts, might be pretty high.

But just about everyone—or, at least, just about everyone who spoke at the Advisory Panel meeting—was firmly focused on the here and now.

That’s not unusual in fisheries meetings, especially when the recreational industry is involved.

In December, the Mid-Atlantic Council and the ASMFC’s Summer Flounder, Scup, and Black Sea Bass Management Board will meet in a joint session to decide on recreational black sea bass regulations for the 2026 and 2027 fishing years.  One of the key aspects of that decision is to determine whether an 80% or a 75% confidence interval should be used to estimate 2026 black sea bass landings (assuming status quo regulations).

It would be nice to believe that they will maintain the 80% confidence level, along with the current level of recreational landings.

Unfortunately, the recreational seats on the Mid-Atlantic Council are effectively owned by the for-hire fleet, and the for-hire fleet will almost certainly support the 75% confidence interval, so that they can offer more dead fish to their customers. 

At least for the next couple of years.

Their planning rarely goes out any farther than that.

Providing for the future of the black sea bass fishery—or any other fishery, as far as that goes—has never been their strong point.  But improvidence always has a cost, and one day—maybe not too long from now—their bill will come due.

 

 

 

FEDERAL COURT DISMISSES LAWSUIT ATTACKING STRIPED BASS ADDENDUM II

 

When a judge’s decision in a fisheries lawsuit begins,

“Had our founding fathers chosen a fish rather than a bird as our national emblem, it would have to had been the striped bass, [a quote from George Reiger’s book, The Striped Bass Chronicles:  The Saga of America’s Great Game Fish]”

you can be pretty certain that the court’s ruling will favor the fish.

And that’s just what happened when, on November 14^th, 2025, Judge Trevor N. McFadden, of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, dismissed the complaint in Cape Cod Charter Boat Association v. Burgum, an action originally brought to invalidate the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Addendum II to Amendment 7 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass.

I first reported on the lawsuit last May, when the action was originally filed.  I noted that the matter seemed to be little more than a rehash of the claims in Delmarva Fisheries Association v. Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, an action brought in the United States District Court for the District of Maryland, and was dismissed with prejudice by the United States Court of Appeals for the 4^th Circuit last February.

While Cape Cod Charter Boat Association v. Burgum added a few more plaintiffs and a lot more defendants to those named in the Delmarva matter, the Delmarva Fisheries Association and Maryland Charter Boat Association still appeared to be the primary drivers behind the litigation.  The complaints in both lawsuits embodied similar claims that the ASMFC’s striped bass management authority was somehow unconstitutional, and both complaints exhibited the same lack of understanding of the laws governing state and federal fisheries management, as well as how state and federal management interacts.

That lack of understanding was fully apparent about a month ago, when the Court heard oral arguments on a motion to dismiss filed by the defendants in the more recent action.  Judge McFadden acknowledged that in his recent decision, when he noted the

“Plaintiffs’ confusion about the nature of their claims and the relief they seek.  Plaintiffs’ Complaint proceeds on the theory that the Commission has become ‘a full-fledged’ federal regulator that commandeers States into regulating striped bass within state waters.  But in briefing and at argument, Plaintiffs inexplicably focus on laws governing fishing in federal waters.  More, they cannot decide whether the result of enjoining Addendum II would be to return power to the States or to return power to the federal government.  Compare, e.g., [Plaintiff’s Motion] at 11 (this lawsuit seeks to vindicate ‘sovereign powers reserved exclusively to the states under the Tenth Amendment’) with [Plaintiff’s Reply Brief] at 26 (this lawsuit seeks ‘the return of the unconstitutionally delegated authority to the federal government’).  This bait-and-switch reinforces the redressability problem.  It suggests that Plaintiffs know that they do not like the status quo, but they cannot explain why enjoining Addendum II is the solution. [some citations omitted]”

Those words provide real insight into the haphazard nature of the Plaintiffs’ arguments, and begin to explain why the Court dismissed the Complaint.

In federal practice, a Motion to Dismiss is filed soon after a complaint is served, and is intended to challenge some aspect of that complaint’s validity.  In Cape Cod Charter Boat Association v. Burgum, the Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss argued that the Court lacked subject matter jurisdiction to hear the Plaintiffs’ claims, and was based on two distinct arguments.  One was that the Plaintiffs lacked standing to sue; on that point, the Court described its duty as

“ensuring that the proper plaintiff sued the proper defendant over an injury a court can remedy.”

The Defendants also argued that the defendant states (the Plaintiffs sued, among others, all of the states belonging to the ASMFC, as well as state officers responsible for managing each state’s marine fisheries) were granted sovereign immunity from the suit by the Eleventh Amendment to the United States Constitution, which

“generally withdraws federal jurisdiction over claims against a State.”

Plaintiffs had the burden of proving both that they had standing to sue the Defendants, and that the Court had jurisdiction over their claims against the various states.

They failed to prove either one.

Surprisingly, despite there being five for-hire/commercial plaintiffs--the Connecticut Party & Charter Boat Association, the Montauk Boatmen and Captains Association, the Delmarva Fisheries Association, and the Maryland Charter Boat Association, in addition to the named Cape Cod Charter Boat Association--the Plaintiffs seemed to have a very difficult time alleging that Addendum II caused them any real harm.  As the Court observed,

“…Plaintiffs lack standing for all of their claims.  That may seem remarkable.  Fishing industry members should be able to allege facts establishing standing to challenge fishing regulations.  But Plaintiffs supply no detailed allegations about how their members’ injuries would change if the Court granted the relief Plaintiffs seek.  Plaintiffs rather ask the Court to exercise a roving law review power.  That will not do…

“Each Plaintiff alleges that ‘[m]any of its members conduct fishing operations’ and ‘are adversely affected by the conduct of [the Commission] and other Defendants in this case.’  That conclusory recitation does not cut it, even at the motion to dismiss stage…At the pleading stage, the Complaint must ‘contain sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to state a claim of standing that is plausible on its face.

“Plaintiffs’ allegations that meet this standard establish injury only to Maryland fishermen in the Chesapeake Bay.  This is because the Complaint’s details about economic harm exclusively address Maryland fishermen.  More, Plaintiffs submitted eight letters discussing the importance of recreational fishing in the Chesapeake region and how the one-fish limit harms that industry…

“Because only Maryland Charter has plausibly argued injury to its members, all of Plaintiffs’ claims must be tethered to that injury.  That only one Plaintiff has sufficiently alleged an injury-in-fact would not matter if Plaintiffs’ claims overlapped entirely.  One injured plaintiff satisfies Article III [of the United States Constitution] for all claims arising from that injury.  But aside from Delmarva, the other Plaintiffs’ members fish in different waters, controlled by different States.  And because Maryland Charter’s members fish only in Maryland’s waters, the only relevant regulations are ones that apply in Maryland waters.  All this means that injury alone bars the non-Maryland Plaintiffs from establishing standing.  [citations omitted]”

While that conclusion might not be too surprising, given that the primary motivation behind both the Cape Cod Charter Boat Association matter and the earlier Delmarva Fisheries Association case was Maryland's adoption of more restrictive striped bass regulations for for-hire and commercial fishermen, if I was an officer, or even a member, of the other four Plaintiff Associations, and particularly of the Cape Cod Charter Boat Association, the Connecticut Party & Charter Boat Association, or the Montauk Boatmen and Captains Association, and if my association chipped in some cash to cover the legal fees in the just-dismissed lawsuit, I’d be asking some very hard questions about exactly what I was paying for.

And if my association was unable to allege and prove any injuries arising directly out of Amendment II, and that led to the recent dismissal, I’d also be asking just why we were involved in the suit in the first place.

Yet, even though the Maryland Charter Boat Association was the one Plaintiff that managed to get over the first hurdle of the standing test—alleging injury arising out of Addendum II—it still had to prove that the relief that it sought, enjoining and setting aside Addendum II, would provide at least partial redress for the injuries that they suffered.

That proved to be a hurdle that the Maryland Charter Boat Association could not surmount, largely because the ASMFC is not, itself, a regulatory body, but rather only adopts fisheries management plans that the individual states must effectuate through their regulatory or legislative processes. 

As the Court noted in its decision,

“Charitably read, the Complaint at most alleges that Addendum II harms Maryland fishermen.  It does not allege what would happen without Addendum II, much less that enjoining Addendum II would redress the only injuries that Plaintiffs plausibly allege—those resulting from Maryland’s one-fish limit.

“…Plaintiffs are regulated by Maryland, not the Commission.  Recall that neither Addendum II nor any other Commission-produced plan directly regulates fishermen.  Instead, the Commission identifies minimum conservation measures that signatory States then operationalize by implementing and enforcing their own regulations.  Maryland’s regulations are the relevant ones here because the only Plaintiffs with standing fish in that State’s waters.  The gist of Plaintiffs’ argument is that Maryland would not have enacted those regulations without Addendum II.  Even assuming Plaintiffs are right about that, they have not shown redressability.

“Because Maryland enacts the restrictions through its own regulatory process, the laws would persist without Addendum II.  More, everyone agrees that Maryland has not only implemented Addendum II’s requirements, it has gone beyond the regulatory floor Addendum II sets.  But Plaintiffs have challenged these regulations.  And a court cannot redress an injury when an unchallenged law would continue to inflict the same harm on Plaintiffs without the challenged one.  So Plaintiffs must plausibly allege that enjoining Addendum II will change how Maryland regulates them…

“…While it may be ‘theoretically possible’ that Maryland would change its regulations if Addendum II was unenforceable, Plaintiffs have not plausibly alleged that is a likely outcome.  Plaintiffs name Maryland Defendants this time, but they do not allege that Maryland would change its regulations.  In fact, when asked about whether Maryland would likely change its regulations, Plaintiffs refused to even speculate about how States would respond…

“Meanwhile, from what the Court can tell, nothing would likely change for Plaintiffs’ members without Addendum II.  Maryland—along with eleven other States and the District [of Columbia]—says that it would not likely rescind its regulations.  Recall that Maryland demonstrated commitment to the regulations by making stricter restrictions than Addendum II requires.  All of this suggests that even if Addendum II originally caused Plaintiffs’ harm, the undoing of [that action] will not undo the harm, because the new status quo is held in place by other forces—Maryland’s belief that the restrictions are beneficial.  Once again, Plaintiffs have failed to establish redressability because they do not plausibly allege that Maryland would opt to rescind its duly enacted regulations if Addendum II were enjoined.  [citations omitted]”

With that, and after some additional analysis of the issues raised by the parties, the Complaint was dismissed with respect to the Maryland Charter Boat Association as well.

Unfortunately, the dismissal probably doesn’t represent a final resolution of the various for-hire groups’ attack on Addendum II.  Dismissals based on a lack of subject matter jurisdiction may only be made “without prejudice,” meaning that despite the suit’s many seeming defects—and the Court noted that

“standing is not the only problem…the Court lacks jurisdiction over the claims barred by sovereign immunity.  Defendants raise a host of other flaws with the Complaint…”

--the Plaintiffs may still try to revive the controversy, either by drafting a new Complaint that addresses the issues which led to the recent dismissal or by bringing an action in one or more state courts to directly challenge state regulations.

Or, the Plaintiffs could choose to take an appeal, in the hope that the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit will view the standing issue more favorably than either the D.C. District Court or the 4^th Circuit did.

Given that the Delmarva Fisheries Association case ended up in the United States Supreme Court, which decided against taking up the matter, it seems unlikely that Judge McFadden’s decision dismissing Cape Cod Charter Boat Association v. Burgum will be the last word in that matter.  Defeating Addendum II and the ASMFC seems to have become an obsession with the original Delmarva plaintiffs and/or their counsel, who appear determined to keep up the fight for as long as they can.

Should the case be given new life, and should it ever get to the stage where it is argued on the merits, rather than on procedural grounds, it still has the potential, however remote, to do real harm to the fishery management process, particularly given the ideological biases demonstrated by some courts, and by some judges, in recent years.

We can only hope that the entire dispute dies a well-deserved death instead.

 

 

RECREATIONAL SECTOR CONTINUES EFFORTS TO UNDERMINE FEDERAL FISHERIES MANAGERS IN THE SOUTHEAST

 

Early in 2014, a group of recreational fishing and boating industry organizations, organized under the aegis of the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, issued a policy document titled “A Vision for Managing America’s Saltwater Recreational Fisheries” (Vision Statement), which noted that “Spending by saltwater anglers generated more than $70 billion in economic output, supporting more than 450,000 jobs,” but went on to complain that “in the midst of our success in rebuilding marine fisheries and the growth in saltwater recreational fishing, the federal fisheries management system has not adapted to meet the needs of this conservation and economic powerhouse.”

With those words, the organizations that collaborated on the Vision Statement launched an attack on the federal fisheries management system that has continued, unabated, to this day.

The Vision Statement focused on altering the federal fishery management process, seeking to create “a management system that addresses the needs of anglers and industry and produces the full range of economic, social and conservation benefits provided by recreational fishing,” rather than focusing on the health of fish stocks. It opined that “The laws that govern federal marine fisheries are primarily designed for and focused on commercial fishing,” and that “The federal agency tasked with managing marine fisheries has commercial fishing as its primary focus.”

It made the dubious claim that the primary federal fisheries law, the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (Magnuson-Stevens), “relies on limited entry and catch share programs, along with fixed quotas that can be managed in real time” to manage fisheries, and that those tools, while appropriate for commercial fisheries, should not be used to manage the recreational sector.

As an example of how recreational fisheries should be managed, the Vision Statement noted that “Many state natural resource agencies, especially those in the South, recognize the benefits of a vibrant recreational fishing community and have managed to promote it while conserving their saltwater resources. Striped bass, red drum, black drum, summer flounder, sheepshead, snook, spotted seatrout and tarpon are examples of successfully managed state fisheries that sufficiently meet the needs of recreational anglers while providing extensive economic benefits to their state and national economies.”

It’s probably important to note that, as one of its examples of a “successfully managed” state fishery, the Vision Statement cited the Atlantic striped bass, a fish that is currently overfished, and has been for more than a decade, and which experienced overfishing from about 2003 through 2019 before the states took any meaningful action to address the situation. Yet, during all that time when overfishing occurred, striped bass nonetheless generated more angler trips, and presumably more economic activity, than any other East Coast species. Thus, striped bass provides an interesting insight into what criteria the Vision Statement, and so the recreational industry, uses to determine the “success” of state fishery managers.

The Vision Statement’s emphasis on economic concerns rather than stock health emerged again when it called for “manag[ing] recreational fisheries based on long-term harvest rates, not strictly on poundage-based quotas,” and for eliminating Magnuson-Stevens’ requirement that, whenever possible, overfished stocks must be rebuilt in no more than 10 years, so that “Instead of having a fixed deadline for stocks to be rebuilt…fisheries managers set lower harvest rates that would allow fish stocks to recover gradually while diminishing socioeconomic impacts.”

The recreational industry initially tried to attain their goals through legislation called the Modernizing Recreational Fishery Management Act (Modern Fish Act) which, as originally written, would have weakened the rigorous, science-based management approach required by Magnuson-Stevens. However, by the time the final version of the Modern Fish Act was passed, most of the industry’s proposed changes had been either removed or substantially amended.

At that point, the recreational industry largely abandoned their efforts to amend Magnuson-Stevens, and took up a new approach, arguing that state fisheries managers were more qualified to manage recreational fisheries than their federal counterparts.

Gulf of Mexico red snapper provided the primary impetus for their new effort.

Throughout the 2000s and early 2010s, anglers had chronically overfished the red snapper stock, causing the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) to adopt shorter and shorter seasons in an effort to rein in the continuing overages. Anglers weren’t happy with those efforts to end their overfishing, and in 2013 convinced fishery managers in three states, Florida, Louisiana, and Texas, to stop coordinating state fishing seasons with those adopted by NMFS, and instead adopt longer seasons in those states’ waters.

That only ended up hurting the anglers, as NMFS managed all red snapper in the Gulf of Mexico as a single stock, so when recreational landings in state waters increased, the federal red snapper season was shortened to compensate, falling to a mere three days in 2017 (although NMFS later extended the season, knowing that it would lead to overfishing, a move that led to a lawsuit and an out-of-court settlement in which NMFS agreed not to knowingly allow red snapper to be overfished again).

In an effort to end the controversy, the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council (Gulf Council) adopted Amendment 50 to the Fishery Management Plan for the Reef Fish Resources of the Gulf of Mexico, pursuant to which NMFS would establish annual catch limits and annual catch targets for the recreational fishery as a whole, but would then allocate quotas for each state’s private boat anglers; each state would then be allowed to craft seasons, bag limits and minimum size limits (that must be between 14 and 18 inches) designed to constrain catch to that state quota. For-hire vessels would have a separate quota and be managed solely by NMFS.

Despite the fact that NMFS set the annual catch limit and assigned each state’s quota, and despite the fact that states that didn’t stay within their assigned quotas faced pound-for-pound paybacks of any overage in the following year, spokespeople for various recreational angling organizations declared victory, saying things like, “Today’s passage of Amendment 50 (state management) by the Gulf Council is HUGE news for coastal anglers as it will allow Louisiana and the other Gulf states to manage their own private red snapper anglers.”

And the red snapper furor calmed down for a while, although over the past two years, for-hire vessel operators in the eastern Gulf of Mexico have expressed real concerns that overly-long state seasons have sharply reduced both the size and the number of red snapper, particularly on the more accessible inshore fishing grounds.

But new issues, and new calls for state management of species currently managed by NMFS, are arising in the southeast.

In 2024, recreational fishermen badly overfished greater amberjack in the Gulf of Mexico, at a time when the stock was already considered to be overfished. NMFS determined that anglers landed 218% of their 2024 annual catch limit, and since the management plan calls for overages to be paid back, on a pound-for-pound basis, in the next fishing year, that meant that the 2025 season should never have opened at all.

The Gulf Council acknowledged the consequences of the big 2024 overage, but as the season’s opening day, September 1, 2025, approached, the council noted that it had not received notice of a season closure from NMFS, even though it had sent a letter, unanimously approved by all Gulf Council members, to the agency, requesting clarity on the issue. So, the season opened on the scheduled date, even though, with an adjusted annual catch limit of zero because of the previous year’s overage, overfishing began the second the first greater amberjack was tossed into someone’s cooler.

Pressure from the Gulf Council, and from others concerned with the future of the greater amberjack stock and the greater amberjack fishery, apparently persuaded NMFS to finally close down the fishery on September 27, 2025. However, as was the case with red snapper a few years before, NMFS had no authority to shut down whatever greater amberjack fisheries might exist within state waters, and while most of the states adopted closures that mirrored NMFS’ action, Louisiana did not, but instead kept its season open until October 31, 2025.

In the notice announcing that it would not adopt an early greater amberjack closure, the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries opined that, “Prior to state management of Red Snapper, anglers were faced with shortened seasons and reduced access. This untimely closing of federal waters for Greater Amberjack is another prime example of the need for state management using state data programs.”

The same notice stated, “Governor Jeff Landry and Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries (LDWF) Secretary Tyler Bosworth sent a letter to NOAA Fisheries earlier this month, requesting that management of Greater Amberjack be transferred to the state level…State management of Greater Amberjack would provide more flexibility in setting seasons and regulations, allowing greater ability to tailor state-specific management.”

Just how much “flexibility” was needed to tailor regulations that limit recreational landings to zero was never explained.

Louisiana’s actions were praised by that state’s chapter of the Coastal Conservation Association (CCA Louisiana), an organization that was at the forefront of efforts to turn Gulf red snapper management over to the states. On its Facebook page, CCA Louisiana stated that it

applauds the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries and Governor Jeff Landry for their actions and stance on Greater Amberjack.

Our Department of Wildlife and Fisheries is truly one of the best in the country, and they have proven their expertise through their successful management of the Red Snapper fishery.

Unfortunately, NOAA has now closed the commercial harvest of Greater Amberjack and is considering closing the recreational season. This closure threatens our anglers’ access to the fishery for no reason.

It is not difficult to read that message as the first step in an effort to foment a crisis similar to that which occurred when states failed to coordinate their state waters red snapper seasons with those in force in federal waters, in what will become another effort to discredit federal fisheries managers and, this time, limit their ability to effectively manage the greater amberjack stock.

Something similar is happening in the South Atlantic, and it again involves red snapper.

In 2008, South Atlantic red snapper were found to be severely overfished. Spawning stock biomass had fallen to just three percent of its potential, while in 2006, the terminal year of the 2008 stock assessment, fishing mortality was more than twelve times the level associated with a sustainable fishery.

In 2009, NMFS proposed emergency regulations that would shut down both the recreational and commercial fisheries for 180 days, a closure that might be extended for an additional 186 days; NMFS also considered shutting down a large area of the ocean to all bottom fishing in order to prevent large numbers of out-of-season red snapper from being killed as bycatch, most particularly in the recreational fishery, although such closure was never put in place.

Since then, NMFS has partially rebuilt the South Atlantic red snapper stock. It is no longer overfished, although it is not yet completely restored. Overfishing continues despite extremely restrictive recreational fishing seasons which, since 2017, have only lasted between one and nine days, and a very small commercial quota. The main problem is that recreational fishermen are catching and killing large numbers of red snapper while fishing for other species when the red snapper season is closed.

As a result of such continued overfishing, NMFS has been sued on multiple occasions by commercial fishermen seeking to get recreational discards under control, as NMFS is obligated to do pursuant to Magnuson-Stevens. Recognizing that it was at fault, on August 22, 2024, NMFS entered into a settlement agreement with the plaintiffs in one of those actions, Tilman Gray v. Raimondo, in which it agreed, among other things, to “complete and submit to the Office of the Federal Register for publication by June 6, 2025, a final rule implementing a Secretarial Amendment to stop overfishing on the South Atlantic red snapper stock under 16 U.S.C. [section] 1854 (c) & (e).”

NMFS did publish a new rule, Amendment 59 to the Fishery Management Plan for the Snapper-Grouper Fishery (Amendment 59), on the agreed-upon deadline, which revised the specifications of the overfishing limit, acceptable biological catch, and annual catch limit for red snapper, along with the proxy for determining overfishing. But it did not include any measures to reduce red snapper bycatch in the recreational fishery, and thus is unlikely to end overfishing. Thus, it is also unlikely to fulfill the agency’s obligations under the settlement agreement in Tilman Gray.

As a result, NMFS was sued once again, with the plaintiffs in the new action, Slash Creek Waterworks v. Lutnick, challenging Amendment 59 on grounds which included the allegation that it did nothing to end the problem of dead recreational discards leading to overfishing.

Faced with extremely short seasons and unwilling to take responsibility for their own sector’s overfishing, recreational organizations in the South Atlantic are now falling back on a tactic that they used successfully in the Gulf of Mexico, and calling for the states to take over management of the red snapper fishery. As in the Gulf, they are successfully convincing state leaders to support such a change.

Congressmen John H. Rutherford (R-FL), Buddy Carter (R-GA), Russell Fry (R-SC), and David Rouzer (R-NC) have formed something they call the “House South Atlantic Red Snapper Task Force (Task Force).” In announcing the Task Force’s formation, Rep. Fry said, “This task force will focus on enhancing data collection, expanding state authority, and ensuring more predictable and longer seasons that benefit anglers and local businesses alike. It’s time we bring local expertise and common sense back to the forefront of fisheries.”

Fisheries managers in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida subsequently provided the Task Force with a so-called “Action Plan” that would radically alter South Atlantic red snapper management.

Following the blueprint used in the Gulf red snapper fishery, the Action Plan calls for NMFS to issue exempted fishing permits to each state, to allow the states to conduct data-gathering programs that will pave the way for the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council to set the annual catch limit and, presumably, individual state quotas, while allowing the states to determine the recreational bag limits and seasons, and gauge landings through their own data collection programs.

On November 10, 2025, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis declared that his state had submitted its application for an exempted fishing permit, saying, “I was proud to announce that Florida anglers will soon be able to enjoy more Atlantic Red Snapper fishing…The Trump Administration has taken action to rein in the bureaucracy and return the power to the states, where it belongs…Just as it has on the Gulf coast, Florida’s management of Atlantic Red Snapper fishing will boost local economies along our Atlantic coast, supporting our tackle and bait shops, hotels, restaurants, and the entire recreational fishing community.”

Not surprisingly, the various recreational fishing industry organizations enthusiastically supported both the Task Force and the Action Plan. Jeff Angers, president of the Center for Sportfishing Policy, gushed, “State management of South Atlantic red snapper is the right idea at the right time. We’ve seen in the Gulf of America that when states lead with sound science and local common sense, everyone wins—anglers get more days on the water, conservation outcomes improve, and coastal economies thrive. The leadership shown by Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina offers real hope that the broken federal system will finally give way to a management model that reflects the reality on the water.”

However, federal red snapper management may soon run into a very large roadblock that does not exist in the Gulf.

In the Gulf of Mexico, most red snapper fishing mortality is caused by commercial and recreational landings, while in the South Atlantic, it is caused by recreational discard mortality, and that discard mortality won’t go away just because the states and their anglers would like it to. NMFS is still responsible for managing red snapper in federal waters, and Magnuson-Stevens still governs NMFS’ actions. It is NMFS that will set the overall recreational catch limit in the South Atlantic, as it does in the Gulf, even if the Action Plan is ultimately enacted.

And in setting the recreational catch limit, dead discards will still have to be considered in order to prevent overall fishing mortality from exceeding the overfishing limit. The states may try to adopt data collection programs that underestimate discard mortality, but absent a significant closed season that lets managers get recreational discard mortality under control, NMFS’ management of South Atlantic red snapper is likely to face continued legal challenges, and those challenges will have a very good chance to succeed.

As the process drags on, we can expect the recreational fishing industry’s assault on federal fisheries managers to continue, as the industry and “angler’s rights” groups work together to sell more fishing tackle and put more fish in anglers’ coolers, regardless of the harm that might cause to the nation’s fish stocks.

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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/

SALTWATER FISHERIES MANAGEMENT: STILL BEHIND THE CURVE

 

I’ve said more than once that it often seems that saltwater fisheries managers are between 50 to 100 years behind their freshwater counterparts.

Perhaps because rivers, lakes, and streams are smaller water bodies than the ocean, and the effects of overfishing are easier to see, freshwater fisheries managers were much quicker to adopt management tools such as size limits, bag limits, and seasons—not to mention user funding of the management process, in the form of fishing licenses—than those who managed ocean fisheries.

They were also much quicker to realize that different fisheries require different approaches to management.

The first freshwater recreational fishing licenses were adopted by Oregon and Indiana in 1901.  Although other states adopted freshwater fishing licenses not too long after that, and most coastal states have adopted saltwater licenses too, few if any of the saltwater licenses were put in place before the 1980s; today, New York, as well as New Jersey, still resist the adoption of fee-based licenses for saltwater anglers.

Recreational bag and size limits, as well as seasons, were also adopted in the early 20^th Century, but for a very long time, few saltwater fish were given similar protections.  When I was growing up in Connecticut during the 1960s, the only saltwater regulation we had was a 16-inch (fork length) minimum size on striped bass, with no restrictions on how many we could kill and no closed season.  It wasn’t until the early 1980s that Connecticut adopted an 8-inch size limit for winter flounder—to the great consternation of some of the anglers that hung out at the local town dock, who lamented the new ban on harvesting “potato chips” and the “sweet little ones”—although, as fish stocks declined, the bag and/or size limits for most species were put in place.

But perhaps the biggest difference between freshwater and saltwater fisheries management is that, in freshwater, the notion of fishing primarily for recreation, and not for food, is widely embraced, while coastal fisheries managers are still tied tightly to the concept of maximum sustainable yield, and so of maximizing the number of dead fish put on the dock, whether by recreational or commercial fishermen.

You don’t see freshwater fishery managers suggesting that, if anglers’ landings of, say, yellow perch or walleye—both fish that are commercially sold in some states—were lower than a particular water body could sustain, the state ought to allow gillnetters to come in to harvest and sell whatever fish the recreational fishermen left behind, in order to achieve the optimum yield.  For in fresh water, abundance isn’t seen as a bad thing, so long as the forage base can sustain it. 

Anglers enjoy fishing more if there are more fish in the water.

Contrast that sort of thinking to the language in Amendment 2 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Bluefish, which permits the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Bluefish Management Board, acting in conjunction with the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council, to transfer unused recreational quota to the commercial sector, rather than merely allowing that unused recreational quota to increase bluefish abundance and make more fish available to recreational fishermen in the following year (the provision also allows unused commercial quota to be transferred to the recreational sector although, in part because bluefish are still subject to a rebuilding plan, that has never yet happened, while transfers of recreational quotas to the commercial fishery have occurred multiple times under the old Amendment 1 to the management plan).

It almost seems that fisheries managers, both at the ASMFC and at the Mid-Atlantic Council, can’t understand the benefits of maintaining an abundance of fish in the water to the angling community, nor can they seem to get their arms around the concept of voluntary catch-and-release. 

I still recall listening to a joint meeting of those two management bodies while Amendment 2 was being debated, when someone—I think it was New York’s former Legislative Proxy to the ASMFC—raised the issue of managing bluefish for abundance rather than merely for yield, and another, long-time member of the Management Board conceded that he didn’t even know how they might go about doing such a thing.

The concept was just that alien to most of the people in the room.

Because, in saltwater management, the focus is still all about managing dead fish, not live ones, even though the bluefish fishery is overwhelmingly recreational.  The ASMFC notes that

“Bluefish are predominantly a recreational fishery, with recreational landings accounting for approximately 85% of total landings by weight in recent years.”

Yet even though anglers dominate bluefish landings, they still release the great majority of the bluefish they catch.  The ASMFC reports that

“Bluefish recreational releases have averaged approximately two-thirds of the total catch in numbers of fish since 1999.”

A fishery dominated by anglers, particularly anglers who voluntarily release the majority of their catch, seems to be one that should be managed for abundance, not yield.  Yet fishery managers have expressly rejected that approach, preferring one in which the fish released by recreational fishermen may be used, not to increase bluefish abundance and improve the angling experience, but to increase commercial landings instead.

Marine fishery managers seemingly can’t wrap their minds around the concept of managing a catch-and-release fishery.

We saw evidence of that again during the recent debate over Addendum III to Amendment 7 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass, when some members of the Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board were steadfastly focused on imposing so-called “no target” closures, which would prohibit intentionally catching and releasing striped bass during any closed season.

Instead of just seeking to reduce recreational fishing mortality, which included both landings and the  fish that died after release, they insisted on separating the harvest fishery from the catch-and-release fishery and imposing restrictions on both, out of some sense of “fairness” and “equity.”   Even though anglers release about 90% of all striped bass that they catch, and have since about 1990, it never occurred to such people that it might make more sense, from both a biological and from a socioeconomic perspective, to maintain a fishery that treads more lightly on the resource, imposing a mere 9% mortality rate while still generating significant economic and social returns, while placing greater constraints on a fishery that generates a 100% mortality rate on the fish retained along with a 9% mortality rate on those released.

To them, it’s still all about maintaining yield.

You don’t see that emphasis on yield in freshwater fisheries.  Here in New York, we see many recreational regulations that emphasize creating a quality recreational fishery rather than maintaining a large recreational harvest.  Such regulations range from no-kill sections of trout streams to extra-large size limits for muskellunge to no-harvest waters for largemouth bass, because managers have learned that, in many cases, maintaining yield is not anglers’ primary concern.

And that brings us to what might be one of the most important differences between freshwater and saltwater fisheries management:  The recognition that some fish, although edible, are pursued mainly for sport, while others are pursued primarily for their food value—and  that “gamefish” and “panfish” ought to be managed differently to get the best outcomes for both.

I should probably note that when I use the word “gamefish,” I’m not using it in the same sense that some angling groups do, to denote a species that may not be commercially harvested, although in most freshwater fisheries, that is the case.  Instead, I’m using it to denote a species that is pursued primarily for sport, and which, although edible, is often released.

And when I use the word “panfish,” I’m not referring to fish that can usually fit within the confines of a skillet, but instead to fish that, while perhaps fun to catch, are typically pursued in a harvest, rather than in a catch-and-release, fishery.

Thus, freshwater bass, muskellunge, striped bass, and bluefish might all be considered “gamefish,” while bluegills, bullheads, black sea bass, and red snapper all fall within the description of “panfish.”

If we look at New York’s freshwater fishing regulations, we see how that works out in the real world.  

Largemouth and smallmouth bass are gamefish.  There is a 5 ½-month-long season when they can be harvested, with a modest bag limit of 5 fish and a 12-inch minimum size, and for the rest of the year (with exceptions on certain waters), the season is closed, but bass may nonetheless be intentionally caught and released, provided the angler only employs artificial lures, and not live bait.  Except for the live-bait prohibition, such regulation is similar to the sort of no-harvest closed season that the “no-targeting” advocates opposed during the recent striped bass debate, because it was supposedly “inequitable” to the people who wanted to kill their fish. 

On the other hand, yellow perch, crappie, and the various sunfish are panfish, and are managed as such, with no closed seasons, a bag limit of 50 for perch and 25 for crappie and sunfish, and a 10-inch minimum size for crappie, with no minimum for sunfish or perch.  Catfish are another classic panfish, and for those—whether they are channel cats, white cats, or bullheads—there are no recreational regulations at all.

Muskellunge are arguably the ultimate freshwater gamefish, and for them, New York maintains a general 1-fish bag limit, 40-inch minimum size, and a season that protects spawning fish.  But for places like Lake Erie, which are known to produce trophy fish, the size limit is increased to 54 inches to improve the angling experience.

Because having a good fishing trip, particularly for gamefish, often isn’t about filling a cooler.

Saltwater managers still haven’t figured that out.

We’ve already seen how, in the case of bluefish, if anglers aren’t expected to kill their entire quota, Amendment 2 allows fishery managers to hand up to 10% of the recreational quota over to the commercial sector, to make sure that those fish are killed by someone.

And we’ve seen how, in the striped bass debate, the idea of allowing a catch-and-release fishery to continue while the season is closed to harvest is anathema to some, who call it “unfair” to catch-and-kill anglers.

While those two species are probably the paramount gamefish of the New England and mid-Atlantic coasts, in fisheries dominated by catch-and-release anglers, managers continue to treat them as panfish, with harvest given priority over pure recreation.

It’s not completely clear why that’s so, although the existence of commercial fisheries, that compete for quota with the recreational sector, and are usually more than willing to harvest whatever fish anglers don’t choose to kill, probably clouds managers’ thinking somewhat.  Judging them by their actions, many managers still fail to understand that managing a fishery primarily for sport, with most of the fishing mortality coming from fish that die after being released, is just as valid a “use” of the resource as managing them primarily for human consumption, and may even yield the greatest economic returns.

It is well past time for saltwater fisheries managers to remove their blinders, and be willing to take a lesson from their inland counterparts.  When managing panfish—perhaps tautog, or summer flounder, spot, or croaker—maximizing yield is a worthwhile goal.

But when managing gamefish, abundance, and a quality fishing experience, ought to be the primary concern.