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.

 

 

 

 

 

 

HAS THE ASMFC GIVEN UP ON STRIPED BASS?

 

In Ann Kubler-Ross’ landmark book, On Death and Dying, she outlines what she called The Five Stages of Grief:  Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and then, finally, Acceptance that one’s condition is, in fact, terminal.

Yesterday, as I listened to the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board debate whether or not to adopt a 12% reduction in striped bass removals, in the hope of rebuilding the stock, I began thinking that it had finally reached the fifth stage of griefwith regard to the striped bass’ future.

Early on in the debate, Martin Gary, New York’s saltwater fisheries manager, asked a representative of the ASMFC’s Striped Bass Technical Committee to confirm that any chance the stock has to rebuild, as well as the future of the spawning stock biomass, largely hinges upon the three above-average year classes produced in 2014, 2015, and 2018. 

Apparently the big 2011 year class has been so reduced in size that it is no longer considered, while the next-oldest big year class, produced in 2003, is now more than 20 years old and largely removed from the population.  Given the poor Maryland juvenile abundance indices in the years since, it’s pretty clear that nothing much is coming up to replace the 2014s, 2015s, and 2018s as they yield to attrition from both natural and fishing mortality.

That bodes ill for the fishery, as the 2014s and 2015s have already grown out of the 28- to 31-inch coastal slot limit, while the average size of the 2018s suggest that at least half of them will be above 31 inches next year.

And while there are currently plenty of bass in the fishery to keep anglers’ rods bent for the next few years, and to keep commercial fishermen busy, what is currently a seven-year hole in the population structure, driven by the poorest seven years of striped bass recruitment ever recorded, guarantees that there will be few legal slot fish in the Chesapeake Bay next season, and few legal slot fish on the coast, beginning in 2027 and stretching out until at least 2032—and potentially stretching out indefinitely if recruitment doesn’t improve.

The Management Board was aware of those things when it sat down at the table yesterday morning. 

Mr. Gary observed that the biggest problem facing the Management Board wasn’t whether the stock will rebuild by 2029, but the lack of any strong—or even near-average—year class since 2018.  As he noted,

“The real problem is what lies ahead in the ‘30s.”

Doug Grout, the Governor’s Appointee from New Hampshire and a long-time advocate for striped bass conservation, advised that

“We need to make the public aware that things are going to get worse before they get better…If you think things are bad now, wait until the 2030s.”

And Michael Luisi, a Maryland fisheries manager who has often proved a formidable impediment to conservative striped bass management, spoke to the need of

“Managing the expectations of our fishermen during [this] time…The striped bass fishery may never be what it once was.”

Chris Batsavage, a North Carolina fisheries manager, was a little more vehement, recognizing that

“We’ve seen warning signs with this stock since 2011 or so…Doing nothing now just puts the slow motion train wreck on fast forward,”

a theme continued by Sarah Peake, the Legislative Proxy from Massachusetts, who warned,

“Hope is not a message…The light we’re seeing at the end of the tunnel is a locomotive…If we do nothing and take no action, the economic losses…will be unimaginable.”

So, there is no question that the state fisheries managers, and probably most of the other members of the Management Board, were fully aware of what was at stake when they began to consider what action to take on what would become Addendum III to Amendment 7 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass.

They had the choice of doing nothing, and letting striped bass-dependent businesses make what money they can  before a lack of striped bass brings everything to a crashing halt.  Or, they could impose a 12% reduction on the recreational and commercial fisheries, in the hope of rebuilding the stock and maybe averting bigger problems a decade from now, while knowing full well that, if recruitment stayed low, their best efforts would probably all be futile.

So, as befits someone in the final stage of grief, they seemed to accept the bass’ fate as inevitable, and chose to do nothing at all.

There were certainly arguments made that supported the status quo.

Comments, both from the public and from the Atlantic Striped Bass Advisory Panel, leaned toward the status quo, although the makeup of the Advisory Panel hardly reflected the demographics of the striped bass fishery as a whole, and did not really reflect public opinion.  And if the Marine Recreational Information Program data from March through June 2025, which showed substantially lower than expected catch and landings, was indicative of effort and landings for the rest of the year, and if effort and landings stayed at that level through 2029, it was far more likely than not that spawning stock biomass would actually be rebuilt to the target level by 2029 even without a mandated harvest reduction.

Plenty of Management Board members, many undoubtedly looking for a way to avoid a contentious debate over how and when to impose closed seasons on the recreational fishery, grasped at those facts to argue that a reduction in landings would cause unnecessary economic harm in both the commercial and recreational fisheries. 

John Clark, the Delaware fisheries manager, implicitly questioned the need to adhere to the management plan’s requirement that the stock be rebuilt within ten years, arguing for the status quo by saying,

“Ten years is not a lot of time biologically for the striped bass, they work on their own timeframe,”

then fell back on an old-time fisheries management mantra that, I had hoped, might have become obsolete and forgotten in this supposedly more informed and evolved age,

“Every striped bass that dies of old age is an economic loss to the fishery.”

Apparently, he believed, managers should try to assure that, at some point, fishermen catch them all.

Others were more modest in their comments, but still stressed economic considerations.

Mr. Gary noted that conservation, economics, and social impacts were all a part of fisheries management decisions, which was right as far as it went, but ignored the fact that, without any fish, the economic and social benefits equate to precisely zero.

David Sikorski, the Legislative Proxy for Maryland, made a similar pitch, supporting the position of his employer, the Coastal Conservation Association and saying that

“I don’t think that the biological risk is as great as the economic risk,”

before asking,

“What do we lose economically, what do we lose in our community?”

if the 12% reduction was imposed.

He then went on to note that

“This [striped bass] is the Atlantic Coast’s most important fish,”

apparently without thinking about how long that might remain true, given where the stock is probably heading.

But it was notable how, as the Management Board debated the motion of New Jersey’s Legislative Proxy, Adam Nowalsky, which read simply

“Move to adopt in Section 3.4 Option A Status Quo,”

most of the usual fire seemed drained from its members, who appeared resigned to just playing out their assigned roles until the inevitable end.

Mr. Gary tried to improve the situation somewhat, moving to amend Nowalsky’s motion with one which read,

“Move to amend to add ‘and establish a Work Group to develop a white paper that could inform a future management document.  The Work Group should include representation from all sectors in addition to scientists and managers.  The goal of this Work Group is to consider how to update the [fishery management plan’s] goals, objectives, and management of striped bass beyond 1929, in consideration of severely reduced reproductive success in the Chesapeake Bay.  The Work Group should utilize public comment, including that received during the Addendum III process to inform its research and management recommendations and work with the Benchmark [Stock Assessment Subcommittee] to incorporate ideas and deliver necessary data products.  Work Group discussions should include the following topics:

·        Review [biological reference points] and consider recruitment-sensitive, model-based approaches.

·        Formally review hatchery stocking as both a research tool and a management tool for striped bass w/cost analysis.

·        Evaluate the potential for other river systems to contribute to the coastal stock.

·        Explore drivers of recruitment success/failure in Chesapeake Bay, Delaware, and the Hudson in the light of changing climactic and environmental conditions, including potential impacts from invasive species.

·        Explore the reproductive contribution of large and small female fish and the implications of various size-based management tools.

·        Methods to address the discard mortality in the catch and release fishery.”

His intent seemed to be to make some sort of relevant information available to inform any management action that might be taken after the 2027 benchmark stock assessment is released, and maybe that will matter, but given that the terminal year of that assessment in 2025, and neither the impacts of the most recent year classes on the health of the spawning stock, nor any additional recruitment information, will be included in the assessment, it’s not clear that a majority of the Management Board will be much more inclined to adopt new conservation measures then than they were yesterday, although they might well be willing to liberalize the regulations already in place if they can find an excuse to do so.

Still, a few Management Board members were willing to at least try to take some kind of action at yesterday’s meeting; like a surgeon making every effort to keep her patient alive, Nicola Meserve, a Massachusetts fishery manager, made an impassioned effort to convince the Management Board to at least try to do something that might help the bass.

Saying that the striped bass was the “backbone” of the recreational fishery in the Northeast, admitting that she was “personally pessimistic” about the species’ future, and reminding the Management Board that they had made a commitment to the public in the management plan to recover the striped bass spawning stock biomass within ten years, she pointed to the declining trend in striped bass abundance, which had already fallen to the levels of the 1990s, and the “spotty availability” of bass along the coast. 

Ms. Meserve noted that while others felt more optimistic about the bass’ future, she didn’t share their optimism, and felt that managers would be better prepared for the future if they took action now.  Thus, she made a motion to amend Nowalsky’s main motion, replacing “Option A Status Quo” with language that favored Option B, a 12% reduction in both commercial and recreational removals.

Her motion was seconded by Dr. Jason McNamee, the Rhode Island fishery manager, who had stated earlier that

“Protecting these remaining spawners is becoming really, really important,”

and later, in response to Ms. Meserve’s comments about others’ optimism, observed that

“It is really risky to bank on that optimism and not take action now.”

Others, including Ms. Peake and Mr. Batsavage, also supported Ms. Meserve’s motion, but in the end, it only won the votes of five states—Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and North Carolina—while every other member of the Management Board voted against, assuring that no action will be taken to conserve the striped bass in 2026 and, in all likelihood, in 2027 as well.

The Management Board effectively accepted that the striped bass’ current problems are beyond its control, and that only the whims of nature can influence the fish’s fate.

Mr. Batsavage gave the bass’ eulogy at meeting’s end, declaring that

“We missed an opportunity, again, to slow down what we know is going to happen to this stock in the 2030s.”

And then, on a vote of 13 to one, with only North Carolina voting against, and the Rhode Island delegation unable to agree and so casting a “null” vote, Addendum III, sans any meaningful conservation measures, was officially adopted by the Management Board.

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When I first read On Death and Dying about forty years ago, to help me better understand and cope with the last months of a close family member, I never even impagined that I would use the same work to describe a fisheries management body’s approach to a living marine resource, yet in the case of striped bass, the parallels were too close to ignore.

First came Denial, in November 2011 when, despite a stock assessment update projecting that, regardless of recruitment, the striped bass stock would become overfished by 2017 if no management action was taken, the Management Board decided to stand pat and do nothing, with some saying that striped bass were still “a green light fishery,” and arguing that no action was needed because the management triggers in Amendment 6 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass had not yet been triggered.

Next came Anger, at least among some, after the management triggers in Amendment 6 were finally tripped, but the Management Board failed to do what its own management plan said it “must,” and adopt a ten-year rebuilding plan.  Anger increased when the recreational fishery in the Chesapeake Bay, and particularly in Maryland, not only failed to achieve the 20.5% harvest reduction called for in Addendum IV to Amendment 6 to the Atlantic Striped Bass Interstate Fishery Management Plan called for, but increased its landings by more than 50% and, in response, Maryland’s Luisi nevertheless called the Addendum IV a success, because

“When we see numbers, an increase in harvest of 58.4 percent in the Chesapeake Bay, it kind of leads, I think, board members to believe that Maryland and Virginia, Potomac River [Fisheries Commission] may not have contributed to the successful management.  I stress the word success…”

Some folks in coastal states didn’t like the fact that they were reducing their landings more than was necessary while the Chesapeake jurisdictions were allowed to increase harvest and ride on the coastal states’ coattails.  But none of the coastal states ever got angry enough to propose a measure to fix the problem.

So, after that, came the Bargaining, when several states—but mostly New Jersey and Maryland—used the concept of “conservation equivalency” to get around the most burdensome management measures in both Addendum IV and in Addendum VI to Amendment 6 to the Atlantic Striped Bass Interstate Fishery Management Plan, and thus condition their compliance with the Management Board’s decisions on their ability to adopt measures which allowed their fishermen advantages not enjoyed by fishermen in other states.

Then came Depression, not so much on the part of the Management Board as on the part of anglers who saw the striped bass stock begin to dwindle, while the Management Board lacked the will to take decisive action to turn the decline around.  Some Management Board members expressed the same frustration, but never managed to convince the majority to do what was needed to rebuild the stock.

Through all those four stages, the striped bass stock declined and then became overfished, with only ineffective half-measures proposed to solve its problems.

And now, Acceptance, on the part of the Management Board, and also of myself, at least to the point that I accept that I, who actively fished for striped bass before and then through the last stock collapse, may very well see the stock collapse for a second time; even if collapse is averted, I know and accept that, at my current age, I will never have the opportunity to know and enjoy a healthy striped bass stock again in my lifetime.

Although I accept that, I have to admit that it makes me a bit sad, and more than a bit angry, that the people charged with maintaining stock health have failed the bass, and me, and the rest of the bass fishermen in every state and in every sector, just as they failed us all with their inaction 45 years ago.

It is difficult to watch something that you’ve loved for a very long time as it dies.

ADDENDUM III: THE STRIPED BASS COULD LOSE THIS ROUND

 

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board will meet all day next Wednesday—October 29—to debate Addendum III to Amendment 7 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass, and there’s probably at least a 50-50 chance that its decision won’t bode well for the resource.

I say that for a number of reasons.

The issue of closed seasons—something never imposed on the coastwide striped bass fishery before—has clouded the conservation debate, with many anglers seemingly more concerned with when and if they will be able to fish than whether they will have anything to fish for when they do.  The possibility of a “no-target” season, when even catch-and-release would be illegal, has proven to be a particular distraction.  Many of the comments sent in respect off Addendum III emphasize opposition to no-target closures over support for a reduction in striped bass landings.

And, at least in the second and third “waves” (March through June), both angler effort and catch has been far lower than expected.  In preparing the draft Addendum III, both the Striped Bass Technical Committee and the Plan Development Team assumed that recreational removals—the combination of landings and fish that died after release—would increase by 17% this year, due to the above-average 2018 year class growing into the coastwide 28- to 31-inch slot limit.  Instead, preliminary Marine Recreational Information Program data indicates that angler effort was down about 25% compared to 2024, while recreational catch fell even more, by about 48%.  It’s not hard to predict that some Management Board members are going to use those figures to argue that additional management measures will not be needed to get fishing mortality down enough to rebuild the stock by 2029, as the management plan requires.

Finally, the majority of the public comments received by the ASMFC support maintaining current regulations, and oppose the proposed 12% reduction.  That was somewhat surprising, given that in the case of other, recent management actions, most notably Amendment 7 to the Interstate Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass, which was adopted in May 2022, and Addendum II to Amendment 7 to the Interstate Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass, which was adopted in January 2024, more than 90% of all comments supported more restrictive management measures.

In total, 2,722 comments urged the Management Board to maintain the current management measures, while 1,775 asked that it impose a 12% reduction in both commercial quota and recreational removals.  Another 28 people felt that the commercial quota should not be reduced, but seemingly had no issues with imposing a reduction on the recreational fishery.

But those overall numbers are somewhat misleading.

When it came to individual comments, 330 people appeared at public hearings to oppose the 12% reduction; except in New Jersey, where angler opposition to the proposed conservation measures was high, most of those arguing for status quo were either commercial fishermen or members of the party and charter boat industry.  Only 81 hearing attendees supported the 12% cut.  However, individual letters were skewed in the other direction, with 1,175 individual letters opposing the 12% reduction, and 1,423 supporting it.

Adding all of the individual comments together, the public’s sentiments were almost perfectly split, with 1,505 individuals supporting the status quo, and 1,504 supporting the conservation measures.

However, members of the various sectors of the fishery responded in very different ways.  The summary prepared by Emilie Franke, the ASMFC’s Fishery Management Plan Coordinator for striped bass, notes that

“When possible, staff tracked individual comments on the reduction by sector/mode as self-identified by the commenter:  private recreational angler, for-hire, commercial.  Some commenters (19%) were part of other stakeholder groups or did not indicate their sector/mode.  Of those other/unidentified comments, 54% were in favor of status quo 46% in favor of a reduction.

“Of the identified private recreational anglers, 39% were in favor of status quo and 61% were in favor of a reduction.

“Of the identified for-hire, 73% were in favor of status quo and 27% were in favor of a reduction.

“Of the identified commercial, 97% were in favor of status quo and 3% were in favor of a reduction.”

However, when it came to form letters, petitions, and similar documents, 1,187 persons appear to be in opposition to any reduction in commercial quota or recreational removals, while just 249 were in support, and it were these form letters and multi-signature documents that skewed public comment so heavily toward the status quo side.

And it was just two such documents, a form letter prepared by the American Sportfishing Association and a somewhat mysterious—it’s hard to know what to call it—petition or set of sign-on sheets only identified by the ASMFC as “South Shore of Long Island Form Letter,” and by its originator(s) as “Striped Bass Status Quo Management Support Sheet (Addendum III), but identifying no preparator or originating organization, together accounting for 1,145 of the 1,187 form letter comments in favor of status quo.

The significant divergence of opinion, particularly within the recreational sector, along with the nature off the form letters, raises an interesting issue, of whether every comment should be given equal weight, or whether some consideration should be given to not only the level of thought and effort underlying the comments, but also to the contribution, in terms of effort expended and the social and economic benefits derived from the striped bass fishery.

As an example of the latter, for-hire vessels—party and charter boats combined—were responsible for about 1.42% of all directed striped bass trips in 2024.  Yet, at most of the public hearings, and certainly the hearing in New York, the for-hire industry accounted for most of the people in the room, even though, in New York, they represent an even smaller proportion of the fishery, making only 0.94% of all directed striped bass trips in 2024.  Despite their very small role in the recreational striped bass fishery (although it should be noted that for-hire landings, at more than 9% of all recreational harvest, are vastly disproportionate to for-hire effort), the various for-hire organizations did a very good job turning out their members at public hearings and inspiring their members to submit written comments; although no for-hire organization seems to have circulated a form letter for its members to use, the similarity of wording of many letters sent by for-hire operators (particularly in Massachusetts) makes it clear that the for-hire opposition to the proposed 12% reduction was well-coordinated.

The opposite is true of private recreational fishermen.  Although they were responsible for over 98% of all directed striped bass trips in 2024, and thus undoubtedly generated the lion’s share of the social and economic benefits accruing from the recreational striped bass fishery, private anglers were underrepresented at both the public hearings and in the written comments.

Thus, members of the Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board should give real thought to the question of whether the comments of for-hire operators should be given the same weight as those of private anglers, or whether some consideration should also be given to the importance of each mode within the recreational sector, and the weight given each comment balanced accordingly.

We face the same question with regard to form letters. 

At the December 16, 2024 Management Board meeting, Michael Waine, who speaks for the American Sportfishing Association with respect to East Coast matters, made depreciating comments with respect to the private anglers who had repeatedly supported needed conservation measures, saying

“…And I look at the public comments, and I know that there’s millions of striped bass anglers out there.  Millions.  And I’m only seeing twenty five hundred comments from a lot of the same people that we know have been commenting.”

He promised,

“And so, as an organization, we’re going to work with our members to try to get more people integrated into this process.  We know that the recreational fishery is very diverse, and I don’t feel the public comments really are a good reflection of that diversity…Don’t talk to the same folks that you’ve been talking to all the time.  Find the people who care about this resource and value it in a way that their voices should be heard, too.  And that’s what we’ll do as an organization ourselves.”

Waine was true to his word, using contacts in the tackle industry and the angling press to find recreational fishermen opposed to striped bass conservation measures, feed them a load of misleading, one-sided information, and direct them to a website that would allow them to send a form letter opposing the 12% reduction in removals to the ASMFC, which received 660 such form letters (with another 269 ASA form letters being tabulated as individual comments, because the senders didn’t settle for the original form, but enhance it with their own comments).

There was no organization with the reach and resources of the American Sportfishing Association that worked to gather comments of anglers who supported striped bass conservation measures.  Backcountry Hunters and Anglers, an organization of conservation-minded sportsmen with most of its membership in inland states, did its best, gathering 239 form letter comments. 

However, the only organization with both the capacity and the resources to mount a coastwide effort—and the one that, at one time, probably would have done so—the Coastal Conservation Association—long ago abandoned its former role as an advocate of striped bass conservation, and instead sided with the members of the tackle and boating industries that buy ads in its magazine and donate product to its fundraising auctions, joining in a letter with the American Sportfishing Association, Boat U.S., the Center for Sportfishing Policy, the National Marine Manufacturers Association, and the Marine Retailers Association of the Americas to oppose the 12% reduction and support the status quo (it’s probably notable that the only state CCA chapter to comment on the issue, CCA New Hampshire, split with the national organization and called for the 12% reduction in removals to be adopted; given the position of the national CCA office on striped bass, the most important recreational species in New England and the mid-Atlantic states, it’s difficult to understand why anyone living between Maine and Virginia would continue to keep paying membership dues).

So, again, a question arises for the Management Board.  How much weight ought it give the American Sportfishing Association form letter, when it knows that such letter was the product of a directed campaign, and that there was no similar campaign to support needed conservation measures.

The other big form letter—really, more like a petition or sign-on letter—raises questions of a very different sort.

The biggest ones are:  Who put the form together and distributed it?  Who are the people who signed it?  And, what are the signatories’ connections to the striped bass fishery.

There is no indication on the form as to who put it together.  As noted above, it is called a “Striped Bass Status Quo Management Support Sheet.”  It contains a list of four assertions which sound a lot like those made by the American Sportfishing Association, such as

“Status quo management is the most equitable option.  It will minimize further economic harm to businesses…”

“Anglers that prefer to harvest fish should not bear the overwhelming conservation burden when catch-and-release practices contribute to a significant portion of total mortality.”

And

“No-Target and No-Harvest options unnecessarily put anglers against each other creating a lose-lose scenario.”

So maybe the petition, sign-on letter, or whatever one wants to call it was an extension of the American Sportfishing Association campaign, promoted by one or more Long Island businesses.  But looking at the way the sheets were signed, and the number of individuals who identified themselves as coming not from the South Shore of Long Island, or anywhere else in New York, but instead from the neighboring states of Connecticut and New Jersey and, in a few cases, from states as far away as Georgia and Florida, my guess is that the signatures were gathered by one or more party boats that solicited their customers at some point during a trip.

And that’s fine, although the Management Board really ought to understand who those signatories are before taking the sign-on sheets at face value.  A lot of the signatures are completely illegible, and there is no indication that the folks who signed have any connection to the striped bass fishery.  After all, the deadline for submitting comments was October 3, and on one of the signature sheets, the first people to sign thought the column that read “STATE” said “DATE” instead, and wrote in dates of 9/19/25 and 9/20/25.  At that time, South Shore party boats were fishing for fluke (summer flounder) and black sea bass, not striped bass, which raises the question of whether the signatories were participants in the striped bass fishery at all, or whether they just signed the sheets because they were asked to, and had no well-considered opinions about the striped bass fishery, and Addendum III, at all.

Again, those are things that the Management Board ought to consider when looking at the public comment on Addendum III.

But just how many Management Board members will consider such things is impossible to predict.

The Management Board members who understand the plight of the stock, who are trying to minimize the chances that the stock will collapse once again, are going to vote their consciences, and vote for conservative management that will give the stock the best chance to rebuild, and even if rebuilding doesn’t occur, to maximize striped bass abundance until such time as more favorable spawning conditions occur.

And the Management Board members who serve as the voice of the commercial and for-hire fisheries, and perhaps or the tackle and boating industries as well, are going to oppose any additional management measures, in an effort to maximize the short-term profits of the commercial and recreational striped bass fisheries, even if the data and the scientific advice recommend a far different course.  Such individuals will sympathize with the charter boat captain who commented,

“I was concerned, as I listened to some members of the [Advisory] panel make their arguments, that they were under the impression that the board’s directive is to save the Striped Bass.  We are dealing with a species that has its own path regardless of human interaction.  Species will increase and decline, and also become extinct if they can’t adapt to changes in the environment.  Unfortunately, human interaction, both direct and indirect, has had an effect on the Striped Bass population.  It is the job of the ASMFC and the Mid Atlantic Council to be management boards.  It is their job to MANAGE the striped bass stock in order to give the greatest access, while balancing the health of the SSB with the socio economic impact of reducing mortality.  We are managing, not saving!”

 

Thus, the outcome of Addendum III is going to depend on the Management Board members who sit somewhere in the middle, those inconsistent advocates who sometimes support conservation measures and sometimes oppose them out of concern for their impacts on the recreational and/or commercial fishing industries.

How they consider the debate over the timing of seasons and the question of no-target versus no-harvest closures, how much they are concerned about the future of the striped bass in the face of continuing low recruitment, how willing they are to believe that lower recreational catch and effort will lessen the need for management action, and how they value the public comment will ultimately decide whether the centerpiece of the draft Addendum III, the 12% reduction in removals, is adopted by the Management Board.

Right now, as I consider past debates and look at the positions that have been previously taken by members of the Management Board, I believe that the question of whether fishing mortality will be reduced, or whether current management measures will remain in place, will be decided by a very narrow vote.

And as I consider the outcome of that vote, I find that I can’t predict whether the Management Board will rise to the occasion, and take action to conserve the striped bass resource, or whether it will take shelter in the current uncertainty, and maintain the status quo.

The striped bass may very well lose, and find themselves on an increasingly perilous road, where stock collapse becomes an ever more likely destination.

And at this point, there is little that anyone can do to change the outcome.  We can only wait until next Wednesday, and see whether wisdom or mindless profligacy prevails.