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.

IT'S STRIPED BASS POACHING SEASON--AGAIN--IN THE EEZ

 

The federal regulation found at 50 C.F.R. 697.7(b) is perfectly clear.

“Atlantic striped bass fishery.  In addition to the prohibitions set forth in [section] 600.725 of this chapter, it is unlawful for any person to do any of the following: 

“(1) Fish for Atlantic striped bass in the EEZ.

“(2) Harvest any Atlantic striped bass in the EEZ.

“(3) Possess any striped bass in or from the EEZ, except for [a so-called “transit zone” in Block Island Sound, where striped bass fishing is prohibited, but striped bass may be possessed by vessels “in continuous transit” between Block Island and the mainland].

“(4) Retain any Atlantic striped bass taken in or from the EEZ.”

In the parlance used in the recently concluded debate over Addendum III to Amendment 7 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass, in the Exclusive Economic Zone—that is, generally speaking, those waters between three and 200 nautical miles off the United States coast—there is a permanent “no-target closure” of the striped bass fishery, where even catch and release fishing is not allowed.

50 C.F.R. 697.7(b) may be the most universally ignored fishery management regulation ever issued by NOAA Fisheries.

It was almost amusing, during the Addendum III debate, when members of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board tried to argue in favor of no-target closures as an effective means to reduce recreational landings and release mortality.

Members of the ASMFC’s Law Enforcement Committee repeatedly told the Management Board that large no-target closures, in areas where fish other than striped bass could be readily caught, were unenforceable.  A Law Enforcement Committee spokesman assured the Management Board at last August’s meeting that, after polling all of the Committee members, from all of the states with a seat on that Board, none could ever recall when a fisherman was successfully prosecuted for violating a no-target closure without that fisherman also having a bass in their possession.  The same was true of the no-target closure in the EEZ.

Yet there were nonetheless Management Board members who argued that the lack of enforceability shouldn’t be seen as a problem.

Emerson Hasbrouck, the Governor’s Appointee from New York, talked about something he called the “80-10-10 Rule, saying,

“For something that’s difficult to enforce, 80% of anglers will do the right thing for the resource and abide by the regulations.  10% won’t really know what’s going on or understand the regulation, and 10% will willingly violate it.

“I’ve got faith that anglers conducting the 70 to 90% of striped bass trips will do the right thing, to do their part to help rebuild the resource…”

From those comments, it’s very clear that Mr. Hasbrouck is completely unfamiliar with the fall fishery in the New York Bight, where violating the no-target regulations in the EEZ is a regular occurrence.

And Mr. Hasbrouck isn’t alone in his idealized view of striped bass anglers.  At the same August meeting, Joseph Cimino, the New Jersey fisheries manager, supported the concept of no-target closures, saying

“if any of you believe that the no targeting in the EEZ hasn’t reduced the amount of effort in the EEZ, I would be shocked, and I would love to hear it.  Because I think there is absolutely at the very least a shame factor of fishing in the EEZ.”

I suppose Mr. Cimino isn’t completely wrong, because ever since the EEZ was closed, I don’t bass fish out there, so effort was reduced by at least one boat and one angler.  I hope and expect that I’m not the only one.

But I’m probably part of a distinct minority.

The unfortunate fact is that the fall striped bass run along the New York and New Jersey coasts marks the start of poaching season in the EEZ, when hundreds of boats—perhaps thousands on a nice weekend, if everyone fishing along the entire expanse of the New York/New Jersey coast is taken into accout—have no qualms about targeting striped bass in technically closed federal waters if that’s where they need to go to catch fish.

As far as the “shame factor” Mr. Cimino referred to, it just doesn’t exist.  Shame is such a minor factor in the fishery that a New Jersey party boat recently appeared to openly advertise the good striped bass fishing in the EEZ, publishing both on its Facebook page and in what looked like an Internet chat board,

“Another incredible day on the water, over 60 jumbo stripers caught and released before we moved within 3 miles of shore and landed a dozen keepers!  [emphasis added]”r

Far from being ashamed, whoever maintained that boat’s Facebook page seemed downright proud of the vessel violating federal regulations that make it unlawful to “Fish for striped bass in the EEZ,” even if whatever bass caught are released.

Reading that post, it would seem that the boat was unabashedly encouraging anglers to book a trip to engage in precisely that unlawful activity.

And that one party boat is certainly not the only vessel violating the no-targeting regulation.

While there are generally no problems so long as the bait, and so the striped bass, remain close to shore, I frequently see EEZ violations when I take my boat out of New York’s Fire Island Inlet in late October or early November if the bait—typically sand eels, but often menhaden, too—is concentrated more than three miles offshore.  Somewhere, I even have photos I took a few years ago, of a number of party boats from Captree State Park, surrounded by hordes of private boats, all diamond jigging bass in the EEZ. 

I made sure to include my electronics in the pictures, so it was clear from my GPS that I was more than three miles from shore when I took the photo, and still on a southerly heading, and clear from my radar screen that the boats were somewhere in front of me, and so still farther into the EEZ than I was.  At the time that I took the photos, I had planned to send them to the Department of Environmental Conservation’s enforcement folks, but never did, figuring that they couldn’t get a conviction on the photos alone, but would have to see the no-target violations for themselves, in real time, before taking appropriate action.

And convictions, followed by severe and well-publicized penalties, are the only way that the striped bass poaching will ever abate.

What usually happens is that both private and for-hire boats begin by searching for bass within three miles of the beach.  Fishing is slow.  Then maybe someone looks out to sea and notices birds diving over breaking fish at the edge of the EEZ, or maybe they just venture farther offshore looking for bait balls and feeding bass.  They find a concentration of fish and begin to hook up.

Someone then spots the boat that’s hooked up, and goes out to investigate.  Then someone spots a few boats congregating in the same spot, and…

Yes, people know it’s illegal. 

But if you’re a for-hire boat, and your competitors are catching fish while you’re not, you stand a real chance of losing business if you don’t head out to the EEZ and put your customers on some bass.  If you’re a private boat, you see the for-hire vessels concentrated offshore, assume they’re on fish, and head out to join them.  The growing concentration of boats draws even more vessels, and there finally comes a point where even many of the fishermen who were originally hesitant to violate the no-target regulation, aware that less-conscientious anglers are enjoying good fishing and noting what seems to be a complete lack of law enforcement, decide to cross the line and become poachers themselves.

In the end, it’s all about active enforcement and holding poachers responsible for their actions. 

We learned that in Virginia over a decade ago, when poaching striped bass in the EEZ was running rampant, with anglers targeting the large concentration of fish that overwinter off that state’s coast.  There, the issue was not only recreational fishermen illegally targeting the bass, but illegally harvesting them as well.  Things became bad enough that NOAA’s Office of Law Enforcement teamed up with the Virginia Marine Police to conduct an enforcement action targeting the violators.

Five Virginia charter boat captains were cited, and when charges were filed, they weren’t merely for violating federal striped bass violations.  The captains were also charged with violating the Lacey Act, which is a big deal for, as a press release issued by the United States Department of Justice explained,

“The Lacey act makes it unlawful for any person to import, export, transport, sell, receive, acquire or purchase and fish or wildlife taken, possessed, transported or sold in violation of any law or regulation of the United States, or to attempt to do so.  Such conduct constitutes a felony crime if the market value of the fish or wildlife is in excess of $350.  Under the Lacey Act, it is a ‘sale’ of fish or wildlife for any person, for money or other consideration, to offer or provide guiding, outfitting, or other services.

“Each of the captains, all of whom operated charters out of Rudee Inlet in Virginia Beach, was charged separately on Nov. 8, 2012, with violating the Lacey Act by selling charter fishing trips to harvest striped bass illegally in the EEZ, among other charges.”

The Lacey Act convictions made it possible for the courts to impose meaningful penalties, and not just the kind of small fines that could be written off as a cost of running a successful business.  Although the captains all decided to plead guilty to avoid the most severe consequences, even the negotiated settlements were severe.  In one case,

“Scott, captain of the Stoney’s Kingfisher, was sentenced to a $5,600 fine and $1,900 in restitution to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).  Scott was also sentenced to three years’ probation with special conditions prohibiting Scott from engaging in either the charter or commercial fishing industries, anywhere in the world, in any capacity, during the term of his probation.  Scott is prohibited from not only captaining a vessel, but also rendering any assistance, support, or other services, with or without compensation, for other charter or commercial fishermen.  [emphasis added]”

In another case,

“Lowery, captain of the Anna Lynn, was sentenced to 30 days in jail, followed by 12 months of supervised release with the special conditions that Lowery surrender his captain’s license to the U.S. Coast Guard and that he not be eligible for reinstatement of that license.  Lowery is also prohibited from engaging in the charter fishing industry in any capacity during the term of his supervised release.  [emphasis added]”

Penalties like that get people’s attention, and help to convince them that poaching striped bass is not a good idea.  From what I understand, vessels poaching bass in the EEZ isn’t a big problem off Virginia anymore.

Which is why we need the same sort of focused enforcement action, and the same sort of aggressive prosecution, in New York and New Jersey.  It will only take one or two such convictions, and one or two such penalties, to convince potential violators that even if law enforcement isn’t on the water every day, it’s not worth taking the risk that they might be out there on just that one day when a vessel operator, hungry for fish, might risk crossing the line into federal waters to pursue striped bass.

Without that sort of enforcement and resultant penalties, the poaching is going to continue unabated.

Because far too many striped bass anglers aren’t as altruistic as Mr. Hasbrouck appears to believe, and far too many of them feel no shame at all when they poach in the EEZ.

 

ATLANTIC MENHADEN: WHAT'S NEXT AT THE ASMFC?

 

Anyone following Atlantic menhaden management in recent weeks is aware that the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Atlantic Menhaden Management Board, when it met on October 28, did nothing to reduce menhaden landings in upcoming years, even though the most recent stock assessment update indicated that, to have a 50% probability of avoiding overfishing, such landings should be cut more than 50%, with the total allowable catch for the years 2026-2028 reduced to 108,450 metric tons from the current 233,550 mt.

That’s not to say that the Management Board took no action at all.  As noted in an October 31 press release put out by the ASMFC,

“the Board set the 2026 total allowable catch (TAC) at 186,400 mt, a 20% decrease from the 2023-2025 TAC of 233,550 mt…

“The Board also initiated an addendum to Amendment 3 to consider options to reduce the Chesapeake Bay Reduction Fishery Cap by up to 50% and distribute the cap more evenly throughout the fishing season…”

The problem is that commercial menhaden landings were only 166,844 mt in 2023, and only 186,155 mt in 2024.  It’s too early to know what final 2025 landings will be, but looking at the 2023 and 2024 data, it appears that while the Management Board’s actions may have cut the TAC, and so theoretical 2026 landings (the Board originally intended to set the TAC for 2026-2028 in a single action, but decided to revisit the 2027 and 2028 TAC at a future time), by 20%, but out here in the real world, where fish are actually removed from the water, they don’t seem to have reduced 2026 landings at all.

The ASMFC press release states that the Management Board didn’t drop the 2026 TAC to 108,450 mt because

“The Board expressed concerns about the socioeconomic impact of implementing such a significant cut in a single year and chose to take a more moderate cut for 2026 only,”

which was an entirely predictable and not completely unreasonable position for the Management Board to take, but it would have been nice, if the ASMFC was going to talk about taking “a more moderate cut,” that an actual cut—that is, to real-world landings, and not just to the TAC—had been taken.  What the Management Board actually did was much more akin to maintaining the status quo, so that, if any real cuts to landings in 2027 and/or 2028 take place, they’re going to have to be from 2023 and 2024 (and probably 2025) levels, rather than from a cut that had actually been made in 2026.

It would also have been nice had the ASMFC noted in its press release that a motion had been made at the October 28 meeting to phase in a real landings cut over three years, but that the Management Board had voted it down in favor of the quasi-status quo motion that was ultimately adopted.  To let people know that there was “a more moderate option” that didn’t call for the entire cut to be taken “in a single year,” but that it was rejected by the Management Board.

But all that is now in the past, and what really matters is what the Management Board intends to do going forward—and what those people and entities advocating for some form of menhaden conservation are going to do to point the Management Board in the right direction.

At this point, I feel compelled to point out that the menhaden advocacy community didn’t do themselves proud—and didn’t do the menhaden any favors—in the way that they addressed the issues to be decided on October 28.

In a piece that I wrote shortly before the meeting, I noted that

“we’ll undoubtedly see the folks who worship at the menhaden’s altar, and have regularly made irrational and scientifically unsustainable calls for the elimination of the menhaden reduction fishery, increase the volume of their yowling, and use the 2025 assessment update as an excuse to redouble their efforts, never seeming to realize that a menhaden that dies in a pound net is just as dead, and has the same impact on the stock as one that dies in a purse seine.

“By focusing on eliminating a gear type instead of reducing the TAC, such persons will make it easier for the industry to prevail, as they open the door to equally emotional arguments that the reduction fishery is unjustly targeted, that ending the reduction industry would kill an economically important business in an generally depressed area of the coast, and that closing that fishery would deny employment for people—including many people off color—in a region that offers few viable alternatives.

“And it will be easy for the industry to argue that, even with the population size revised downward, the menhaden stock is not in anywhere near as bad condition as the industry’s opponents maintain.”

And that’s pretty much what happened.

While some organizations reasonably requested that the Atlantic menhaden TAC be reduced to no more than 108,450 mt—as noted above, already a difficult thing to accomplish in a single year—others went further.  The Bonefish & Tarpon Trust, along with the International Gamefish Association—two organizations with staff experienced enough and sophisticated enough to know better—joined with other groups to call for the Management Board to, among other things,

“Establish a 2026-2028 TAC of 75,616 mt, a level that has a significantly less than 50% probability of exceeding the ERP F target, accounts for additional model and ecosystem risk, and protects the coastwide bait fishery; and, Reallocate all quota to the bait fishery, allowing the lobster and crab industries to maintain current levels of bait availability or better, and prohibit menhaden fishing for reduction purposes.  [emphasis added, numbering and formatting omitted]”

That was never going to happen.

It should have been perfectly obvious to anyone who understands how the ASMFC works that it was going to be extremely difficult to convince the Management Board to cut landings by over 50% just to set the TAC at 108,450 mt; believing that it might be possible to set the TAC even lower was an idea that could only arise from a pipe dream—or, in these times, perhaps from indulging in a few too many of those high-THC gummies.

If the Board had agreed to a three-year phase in that came somewhere close to the 108,000 mt level, it would have been a major win.

But then the various organizations compounded their error by calling for a complete elimination of the menhaden reduction fishery, a move that would remove six multi-million dollar fishing vessels, their crews (roughly 17 per boat), a land-based fish processing plant and its employees, as well as support staff and businesses, from the fishery—and from Virginia’s coastal economy—in a single swipe.  The organizations justified such action only by alleging that

“Removing menhaden from the ecosystem and rendering it into animal feed and other industrial products, most of which is exported to other countries, is a poor use of this vital resource.  Menhaden are many times more valuable to local and the national economies when used as bait for commercial lobster and crab fisheries or when left in the water to support the local fishing industry.”

They provided no economic analysis to support that claim.  But what they did do was force the Management Board into a position of picking winners and losers, and force the majority of that Board to decide whether they wanted to confront the representatives from the Commonwealth of Virginia—the only state with a menhaden reduction industry—and shut down an industry important to at least a small part of that state, without Virginia’s consent, while promoting the bait fishery.

Management Board members typically don’t like to be forced into such positions, a fact that, all other considerations aside, doomed the proposal to failure from the start.

The call to end the reduction fishery allowed the reduction industry to do just what I predicted it would—make an equally emotion-based appeal to the Management Board, which took the form of a video featuring reduction industry workers.  A press release, issued a day before the Management Board meeting announced

“The United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 400 Union has released a new video highlighting the voices of its members who work as commercial fishermen in the Atlantic menhaden fishery.  The video showcases the pride, tradition, and hard work of union members whose livelihoods depend on a fishery that has operated from Virginia’s Northern Neck for well over a century.

“In the video, crew members describe the menhaden fleet as a family, one bound by generations of work on the water.  Many fishermen are second-, third-, or even fourth-generation employees, carrying on a legacy of providing for their families and their community…

“The video highlights how the menhaden fleet, operated by Ocean Harvesters, an American-owned company, provides hundreds of family-supporting union jobs in Virginia’s Northern Neck.  Ocean Harvesters’ crews are overwhelmingly local and members of UFCW Local 400 Union.  The company’s operations are deeply tied to the region’s economy, employing one of the largest minority workforces in Northumberland County…”

Folks I spoke with, who attended the Management Board meeting, said that something like 240 people attended, with many of those people clearly identifying themselves as members of the reduction industry.

If anyone thinks that the Management Board was going to look those people in the eye and effectively tell them, “We’re going to vote to eliminate all of your jobs, and put you on the unemployment line,” without a clear and compelling need to do so, they were chewing far too many of those THC gummies.

So, faced with some voices calling for the Management Board to outlaw the reduction fishery and give the entire 75,000 mt TAC to the bait fishery, others calling for a one-year reduction to 108,450 mt, a few supporting a 3-year phase-in, and others opposing any reduction at all (in a post-meeting press release, the Menhaden Fisheries Coalition called the reduced TAC “unnecessary”), the Management Board took the easiest path, slicing the proverbial baby not just in half, but into a few smaller pieces, reducing the TAC while maintaining the current level of landings, limiting its decision to a single year, and also initiating an addendum that will consider, but not necessarily do something about, the volume of menhaden landings in the Chesapeake Bay.

With that done, the next question is, can the menhaden advocates get their act together sufficiently to improve the outcome the next time around.

Personally, I doubt it, largely because of their chronic focus on the reduction fishery itself, rather than on the actual problem, cutting the TAC back to a sustainable level.

I mean, I understand where they’re coming from.

There remains a sort of romantic aura surrounding the small-scale fishermen, the image of men in small boats fighting to wrest a living from a cold, relentless, and dangerous sea.  That makes it easy to cast the reduction fleet, with its 165-foot vessels and all-encompassing seines as the villain of the story, and makes it really easy to drum up public support for a campaign against the big “foreign-owned fishing boats” [which is untrue, although you see it said all the time anyway] sucking up millions of pounds of menhaden, reducing it to fish meal, and shipping it overseas, instead of leaving it in the water to benefit U.S. fish and small-scale U.S. fishermen.

But the truth is that, even if a 75,616 mt TAC was politically feasible, from a biological perspective, it would make no difference to the menhaden stock whether that TAC was caught by the reduction fishery, the bait fishery, or some combination of the two.  So if the menhaden advocacy folks are going to make any progress, they probably ought to focus on biology, and the needs of the menhaden, and find a way to put their emotional and ideological aversions to the reduction fishery on the shelf for the duration of the campaign (and, perhaps, those advocates ought to spend some time thinking about the regulatory and resultant conservation advantages of having to oversee a small fleet of vessels, and monitor the landings that they make at a single Virginia facility, compared to the far more difficult task of trying to monitor the catch of hundreds—and more likely thousands—of small-scale operators who land menhaden in a vast number of ports all along the East Coast, and who might see the advantages of quietly selling at least some of their catch for cash, without reporting either the catch or the cash to state authorities or to the IRS, and skewing the data as a result).

And no meaningful TAC reduction is going to happen unless some sort of quota allocation occurs that assures that the bait fishery can harvest a reasonable amount of product.  It’s going to be very difficult to get the northern New England states—that is, Maine and New Hampshire, and probably Massachusetts—to agree to meaningful cuts if that means that their lobster fishermen have to go without bait.  Even though lobstermen in the Gulf of Maine and on Georges Bank are now overfishing the American lobster resource, reductions in effort, at least in the short term, are unlikely to occur, and the need for bait thus won’t decline anytime soon.

So the menhaden advocates ought to be thinking about a meaningful and realistic reallocation, which means not trying to outlaw the reduction fishery—which is a dead end—but rather to allocate enough fish away from Virginia to meet the bait fishery’s needs (and it’s not all about lobster; I freely disclose that as an active participant in the shark fishery, both for recreation and for research, I go through a lot of menhaden chum over the course of a year), but not so much that it can be cast as an intentional effort to shut down the reduction boats.

In other words, they are going to have to shift their campaign from an emotional appeal to the general public to something that makes biological and—yes, I have to say it—economic sense to the Management Board.

Can they do that?

I hope so, because the most recent scientific findings suggest that we need a big change in the TAC, and change often needs to be championed for it to happen. 

But finding the right champions, willing to fight the menhaden’s fight instead of their own, might prove a difficult thing to do.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

OF HYPOCRISY, MENHADEN, AND ATLANTIC STRIPED BASS

 

Anyone paying attention to the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Annual Meeting last week knows that it was not a good week for conservation.

The annual catch limit for Atlantic menhaden was reduced by a bit, but by nowhere near as much as a recent stock assessment update suggested was needed.  A day later, multiple members of the Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board admitted that the striped bass stock was headed for serious trouble in the next decade, but took no meaningful action that might help, in any way, to avert that pending crisis.  And although I’m not too familiar with the red drum fishery in the South Atlantic, friends who are have been critical of measures adopted to manage that fishery, too.

I don’t agree with the actions taken with respect to the menhaden limit, nor do I agree with the inaction with respect to striped bass.  At the same time, I understand the arguments underlying the management boards’ decisions in those fisheries, and believe that at least the majority of the Atlantic Menhaden and Atlantic Striped Bass management board were acting in good faith when they cast their votes.

I cannot say the same for some of the organizations that commented on the menhaden and striped bass proposals, comments that saw such organizations speaking out of both sides of their mouths, perhaps trying to convince the public of their good intentions, but making it clear, to anyone that cared to read the comments that they submitted, that they were engaging in hypocrisy of the first order.

A letter addressed to the Chair of the ASMFC’s Atlantic Menhaden Management Board, publicly released by the dubiously-named Coastal Conservation Association just ahead of the Atlantic Menhaden Management Board meeting, argued, in part, that

“Fishing Atlantic menhaden below their [ecosystem reference point fishing mortality] target is necessary to support striped bass rebuilding.  The [ecosystem reference point] framework explicitly links menhaden harvest levels to striped bass population outcomes…By reducing fishing mortality below the [ecosystem reference point fishing mortality] target, additional forage is left in the system, lowering the probability of prey limitation on striped bass growth, survival, and recruitment.  This precautionary strategy also accounts for uncertainty in stock assessments, predator-prey interactions, and environmental variables, thereby increasing the likelihood that striped bass can rebuild to their biomass target, within the mandated time frame under the ASMFC’s rebuilding requirements.”

The letter was signed by the CCA, along with eleven other organizations, including BoatUS, the Marine Retailers Association of the Americas, and the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, and anyone reading it could easily believe that all of the signatories were honestly concerned about striped bass conservation, at least until they reached this paragraph, which contains some questionable, and probably intentionally deceiving, claims and might raise some readers’ doubts:

“The ASMFC has two primary levers to support striped bass rebuilding: controlling striped bass fishing mortality and menhaden fishing mortality.   The Atlantic Striped Bass Board has already demonstrated leadership by implementing multiple years of regulatory changes that reduced fishing pressure to a 30 year low, with striped bass fishing mortality now well below the target and threshold.  This means that striped bass fishing mortality is no longer the limiting factor for rebuilding…If the ASMFC also wants to rebuild the striped bass stock, then it needs to manage equally among both species…”

After the Atlantic Menhaden Management Board failed to the 2026 annual catch limit to the level proposed in the letter—a level that reflected a 50% probability of not overfishing, according to the latest stock assessment update—the Coastal Conservation Association put out a press release blasting the management board’s actions, announcing that

“Fisheries Managers Fail to Protect Menhaden, Striped Bass,”

and that

“This week, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission voted to allow an Atlantic menhaden catch that will not leave enough menhaden in the water for striped bass.  Catch was set at 186,000 [metric tons], when scientists said that a quota of 108,000 [metric tons] was necessary to have a 50% chance of success of rebuilding the striped bass fishery…”

Again, the language is more than a little misleading, and that was probably intentional.  Shortly after that release was sent out, the Coastal Conservation Association’s Maryland chapter issued its own release, using different language to send the same inaccurate message, beginning:

“Revised models indicate the need to cut commercial [menhaden] quota by more than half to rebuild striped bass populations.”

Another organization, the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, echoed CCA Maryland’s words in its own release, which also said that

“’Rebuilding the Atlantic striped bass population has always involved more than just regulating striped bass harvest.  It’s also about ensuring that enough of their key food sources, Atlantic menhaden, remains available in the water,’ said Chris Macaluso, director of the Center for Fisheries for the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership.  ‘The Menhaden Management Board’s decision to adopt only a 20 percent reduction in menhaden harvest, despite the science and input from ASMFC’s own scientists who highlighted the risks, makes it more challenging to achieve striped bass rebuilding by 2029…”

As noted earlier, all of those comments overstate the connection between striped bass rebuilding and cutting menhaden landings.  Striped bass are a generalist predator that, over the course of their lives, feed on everything from alewives to zooplankton.  The most recent benchmark stock assessment informs us that

“Adult striped bass consume a variety of fish (e.g., Brevoortia tyrannus [Atlantic menhaden], Anchoa mitchili [bay anchovy], Mendia spp. [silversides]) and invertebrates (e.g., Callinectes sapidus [blue crab], Cancer irroratus [Atlantic rock crab], Homarus americanus [American lobster]), but the species consumed depends on predator size, time of year, and foraging habitat…[One study] found that that small striped bass (a mean [fork length] of 276 mm [<11 inches]) consumed more invertebrates while large striped bass (a mean [fork length] of 882 mm [<35 inches]) relied more on pelagic fish prey (such as bay anchovies and age-0 clupeids [members of the herring family] in current years than they did in the 1950s…

“…In recent years, particular interest was paid to the role of striped bass as a predator of Atlantic menhaden.  To assess the role of striped bass, ASMFC developed a version of the multispecies [virtual population analysis] with striped bass, bluefish, and weakfish as menhaden predators.  The MSVPA-X predicted that Atlantic Menhaden comprised a moderate proportion of striped bass diet biomass (15-30%) and those consumed consisted largely of age-0 and age-1 Atlantic menhaden.  However, diet studies of large striped bass by [other researchers] suggested a greater role of Atlantic menhaden of all ages in striped bass diets.  Atlantic Menhaden were often dominant prey in studies of striped bass diets in the Chesapeake Bay and the mid-Atlantic region, and were important prey in New England waters.  [references omitted]”

Thus, it’s clear that while menhaden are certainly an important prey for striped bass, saying things like “Fishing Atlantic menhaden below their [ecosystem reference point fishing mortality] target is necessary to support striped bass rebuilding,” ““Revised models indicate the need to cut commercial [menhaden] quota by more than half to rebuild striped bass populations,” and “scientists said that a quota of 108,000 [metric tons] was necessary to have a 50% chance of success of rebuilding the striped bass fishery…” overstate that importance—striped bass have plenty of other forage fish available to make up for a menhaden shortfall—and distort not only reality, but the credibility of those making such claims.

Similarly, such comments demonstrate a deep misunderstanding of the Atlantic menhaden stock assessment that is based on ecosystem reference points (another, single-species stock assessment is also conducted).  In that assessment

“The [ecosystem reference point] target was defined as the maximum [fishing mortality rate] on Atlantic menhaden that would sustain striped bass at their biomass target when striped bass were fished at their [target fishing mortality rate].  The ERP threshold was defined as the maximum [fishing mortality rate] that would keep striped bass at their biomass threshold when striped bass are fished at their [threshold fishing mortality rate].”

However, although the menhaden management plans talk about “ecosystem” reference points, the only species considered in the 2019 Atlantic Menhaden Ecological Reference Point Stock Assessment Report are Atlantic menhaden, striped bass, bluefish, spiny dogfish, and weakfish, with Atlantic herring

“included as a key alternative prey to Atlantic menhaden for the predators identified.”

Other important forage species for striped bass, such as bay anchovy, silversides, and sand eels, were not considered in the assessment, even though they would all be “key alternative prey” for the striped bass.  And that’s perfectly reasonable, because the purpose of that stock assessment was to determine a sustainable population level for menhaden, not to determine the trajectory of the striped bass population based on menhaden availability alone.  To try to use it for the latter purpose, as the various organizations commenting on future menhaden harvest levels did, was a gross misuse of the menhaden assessment.

Still, based just on their comments to the Atlantic Menhaden Management Board, one might excusably come to the conclusion that such organizations truly cared about striped bass rebuilding.  One must read their comments to the Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board, in stark opposition to any reduction in recreational striped bass harvest, to understand that such purported concern was little more than a cloak camouflaging their cupidity and abject hypocrisy.

After all, it’s always easier to manage someone else’s fish.

But if you want to have real credibility as a conservation advocate, you need to be willing to sustainably manage your own fishery, and make whatever necessary sacrifices that may require.

Thus, lowering the menhaden harvest is an easy target for the various fishing tackle, boating, and anglers’ rights organizations.  After all, the organizations’ members don’t fish for menhaden to take home and eat, they don’t intentionally catch and release them, and they don’t manufacture and sell boats and equipment to a menhaden fishery that is almost entirely commercial.  The organizations have nothing to lose if menhaden landings go down.

Thus, they can advocate for menhaden conservation with complete impunity, and use the health of the striped bass stock as an excuse for doing so.

But the easiest way to increase the striped bass population isn’t lowering menhaden landings, but rather lowering landings of the striped bass themselves.  That’s what the draft Addendum III to Amendment 7 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass proposed to do, by reducing fishing mortality by 12% through a closed season in the ocean fishery and complimentary measures in the Chesapeake Bay.

That proved to be a completely unacceptable option for the same organizations. 

After all, the striped bass fishery is the most important recreational fishery on the East Coast.  Many recreational fishermen catch striped bass to take home and eat, and even for those who choose to return their fish to the water, a closed season, particularly one that did not permit catch-and-release during the closure, would be a hardship.  And when anglers can’t or won’t fish, the tackle industry sells less merchandise, and the boating industry’s sales might be impacted, too.

So, while those industry and anglers’ rights organizations might like to give lip service to the merits of conservation, particularly when they won’t be affected by the relevant conservation measures, when conservation strikes home and might cost them something, it starts looking a lot more like a problem than a worthwhile goal.

Thus, the same Coastal Conservation Association, BoatUS, and National Marine Retailers Association of the Americas that talked about the need to conserve menhaden to rebuild the striped bass, spoke of the need for precautionary management, and warned of the uncertainty in stock assessments when writing to the Atlantic Menhaden Management Board, later joined he Center for Sportfishing Policy, the American Sportfishing Association, and National Marine Manufacturers Association in another letter to the Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board, in which they opposed any reduction in striped bass landings.

Suddenly, taking a precautionary approach to management suddenly seemed like a bad idea, and uncertainty in the data became an excuse for inaction.

It seems that, while causing some level of economic distress to the commercial menhaden fishery is merely an unfortunate but necessary side effect on needed conservation measures, causing any level of economic distress to the fishing tackle and boating industries, in order to conserve striped bass, is unnecessary, completely unacceptable, and must not take place.

The organizations concluded their letter by writing,

“The current striped bass management plan is effective, with fishing mortality well below target levels and protective measures successfully guiding rebuilding efforts toward the 2029 goal.  Draft Addendum III’s proposed 12% reduction, driven by imprecise data and an ineffective approach to managing recreational fisheries, lacks a clear conservation basis and risks unnecessary economic harm…We urge ASMFC to maintain existing seasons to ensure continued progress without imposing undue burdens on anglers.”

It’s a funny thing, but they don’t mention menhaden at all.

In fact, they claim that “the current striped bass management plan is effective,” and “successfully guiding rebuilding efforts toward the 2029 goal,” apparently even though menhaden management isn’t up to their proposed standards.

That’s a lot different from, say, the Coastal Conservation Association’s claim that “a quota of 108,000 [metric tons] was necessary to have a 50% chance of success of rebuilding the striped bass fishery.”

So, what we end up with is a group of organizations willing to use the health of the striped bass stock as an excuse to cut menhaden landings, who then argue that cutting striped bass landings to improve the health of the striped bass stock is a bad idea.

Some might call that being “transactional.”

But hypocrisy is a much better word.