EMERGENCY STRIPED BASS MEASURES: THE PUBLIC'S REACTION

 

When the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’sAtlantic Striped Bass Management Board voted to adopt emergency measures atlast week’s meeting, which will require all states (with minor exceptions inthe Chesapeake Bay) to cap the recreational size limit at 31 inches, a lot of folks were caught by surprise.

I’m not sure why that was, as anyone who was tuned in to the striped bass management process pretty well knew, at least a couple of weeks before the meeting, that talks were going on, and that some sort of emergency action would be proposed. 

Stakeholders were reaching out to Management Board members, asking them to support some sort of recreational landings reductions, Management Board members were reaching out to stakeholders seeking their views on possible actions, and Management Board members were talking to each other about what sort of measures might win the support of two-thirds of the Board, and thus be adopted in accordance with the ASMFC’s Interstate Fishery Management Program Charter.

Even so, a lot of folks expressed some surprise that the motion for emergency action was made.  Adam Nowalsky, the legislative proxy from New Jersey, even made a motion to postpone action on the emergency motion, arguing that there was no notice that it would be made, no public comment on the question, and no scientific analysis of its impacts.  

A fellow legislative proxy, Craig Pugh of Delaware, seconded the motion, and while doing so commented that the emergency action

“regulates to a superabundant supply of these fish.”

Whatever that was intended to mean.

In any event, the effort to stall didn’t get very far for, as Massachusetts’ Legislative Appointee, State Representative Sarah Peake, observed,

“They call it ‘emergency’ for a reason…”

She then advised the Management Board,

“Let’s not kick the can down the road,”

and the Board cleary agreed, decisively voting down the motion to postpone with 14 jurisdictions against, and only New Jersey and Delaware in favor.

Even so, now that the emergency action has been adopted, and states must put the 31” maximum size was into place on or before July 2^nd, we’re still hearing some people, most but not all from New Jersey, complain that was done without adequate notice.

But as Rep. Peake noted, that’s why it’s deemed an “emergency” action; emergencies, by their very nature, don’t come with much warning.  It’s also why the ASMFC requires a two-thirds vote for passage; it was an extraordinary action, taken without public comment, and thus a supermajority of the Management Board is needed before it can be adopted. 

The Board must be truly convinced that an emergency exists.

In that regard, the vote of 15 to 1 speaks for itself.

Martin Gary, the current chair of the Management Board as well as the executive secretary of the Potomac River Fisheries Commission, explained the lopsided vote, saying

“We really felt we should try to get ahead of this as soon as we could,”

to prevent excessive fishing mortality from making it even more difficult to rebuild the striped bass stock.  Michael Luisi, the assistant fisheries director for Maryland, echoed those sentiments

“Another year of fishing on them like we did last year could have been really bad.”

So now that emergency regulations must be put in place, what are people's thoughts?

As always, opinion is split, but for the most part angling and conservation organizations, and serious striped bass anglers, agree with the Management Board.

The MV Times, a publication based on Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, an island with a long striped bass fishing tradition that reaps substantial economic benefits from visiting striped bass anglers, interviewed Patrick Paquette, the government affairs officer of the Massachusetts Striped Bass Association, who called the emergency action

“the best option in a bad situation.”

He noted that the recruitment of young striped bass into the population has been low in recent years, and that the bass spawned in 2015 now constitute a substantial portion of the population; he also noted that such fish are now all within the 28- to 35-inch slot limit that has governed the recreational fishery in most coastal states.  That made the 2015s very vulnerable to harvest in 2022 and, as Mr. Paquette said,

“as a result, massively increased numbers of fish died than in prior years.”

He also observed that another big factor caused 2022 recreational landings to spike; in the striped bass fishery, abundance leads to increased recreational effort.

“When fish are available, more people go fishing; that’s just common sense.”

Thus, both he and his organization support the emergency action.

Near the other end of the striped bass’ migratory range, Steven Atkinson, president of the Virginia Saltwater Sportfishing Association, expressed similar views, saying that the current state of the striped bass, along with the high 2022 landings, created an

“either pay me now, or pay me more later”

situation, and that

“I always prefer the now option.  This fishery has been in decline for years, and it is time that they took bold action to save it.”

Stripers Forever, an organization focused on the health of the striped bass stock, deemed both the emergency measure and the Management Board’s decision to initiate the longer-term Addendum II to the management plan

“An enormous win for striped bass conservation,”

and went on to say,

“While we believe that there were many instances where board action could have been taken to avoid the need for such strong measures, we do commend the steps that were taken to get the stock back on track to recover by 2029.  There was enormous outreach by anglers, guides, captains, companies, and conservation organizations to take immediate action.  The board heard that call and acted upon it, we thank them for that.  Numerous board members openly stated that they had received comments from the public and in turn felt that they needed to act on them…”

Another group, the American Saltwater Guides Association (which, despite its name, also represents members of the fishing tackle industry and conservation-minded anglers) took a similar tack, praising the Management Board’s actions with respect to both the emergency measures and Addendum II, saying

“the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Striped Bass Board took two historic actions to conserve the prolific 2015-year class and to improve the probability of rebuilding the striped bass stock by 2029…Had the Board not acted today, the odds of rebuilding would have remained unacceptably low at around 11-15% due to the dramatic increase in recreational harvest in 2022.  While the road to striped bass recovery is still a long one, the Board’s strong conservation-minded action today can give the entire striped bass community hope that this stock will rebuild and that the Board can make the hard but necessary decisions to manage striped bass.”

While comments made by other organizations closely tied to the fishing industry were more measured, if still positive, it was difficult to find any angling-related organizations that clearly condemned the emergency action.

Instead, most of the complaints I have heard have come from individuals who are either afraid that the new rules might cause harm to their businesses, or complain that they represent a “loss of freedom” or impinge upon their non-existent “right” to kill and keep a striped bass.

Some deluded souls believe that the emergency action will face a court challenge, ignoring the fact that when every state but New Jersey approved the measure, they’re not likely to find an attorney general willing to take up their cause.  Finding a willing AG is important, since most—probably—of those discontented folks, while more than willing to loudly whine and complain, aren’t the kind who would willingly part with the many thousands of dollars needed to finance a challenge themselves.  Even if that weren’t the case, they’d still need to convince a court to ignore the precedent set in the 2010 case of New York v. Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, a 2^nd Circuit decision that seems to place ASMFC’s management actions beyond the reach of judicial review.

The general tenor of the opposition can best be summed up in an article that appeared in The SandPaper, a publication originating in Long Beach Island/southern Ocean County, New Jersey, which ranted,

“POTENTIAL BAD-ASS BASS NEWS:  Yet another squeeze on our keeping of striped bass is taking place, this one coming as an ‘emergency rule’ taken by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission on behalf of its Striped Bass Board.

“Beginning very soon—positively by July 2—we can only keep bass falling within the miniscule slot range of 28 to (under) 31 inches, with a one-fish bag limit.

“The board members had voted (NJ being the only dissenting member) to implement the change.  Per a buddy close to the proceedings, “There was no advance warning, no public comment, no way to change or alter the plan.  It’s an emergency rule.’

“Technically, an emergency measure can run for only 180 days, but don’t bank on it being reversed by, say, the fall bassing season—though our noisy opposition to the rule could rattle some cages.  I’ll keep you posted on such strategic outcries.

“While this latest cutback of keeperage would not quite render the striped bass a catch-and-release-only species, it’s getting all too close, playing into the mindlessness of those anglers wanting a total unhook-and-release policy for that now neurotically beloved bass.

“I deeply question the science behind these draconian striped bass management actions, especially the numbers gleaned from the Chesapeake sites used to definitively establish young-of-year successes and failures.

“History will prove that the over-conservation of stripers marked doom for a slew of other gamefish species, the young of which bass (and fluke) down with relish.”

General contempt for the science, attacks on catch-and-release anglers, an insistence on killing fish and, worst of all, a complete failure to acknowledge the threats currently confronting the striped bass stock seems to be the hallmark of just about all of the comments critical of the emergency measures.

Fortunately, the Management Board respects both the science and the striped bass stakeholders, and understands that the bass are in trouble. 

The public, by and large, does as well.

Thus, the reaction to the emergency measures has, on the whole, been positive.  Hopefully, that will encourage the Management Board to continue to strive for timely rebuilding, and a healthy and abundant striped bass stock.

 

 

 

TAKEAWAYS FROM TUESDAY'S STRIPED BASS MEETING

 

By now, most serious striped bass fishermen know that last Tuesday, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board, in a unanimous vote, acted to initiate a new Addendum II to the current striped bass management plan, which is intended to get the now-overfished stock back on track to rebuild by 2029.  To keep the health of the stock from deteriorating before Addendum II is adopted, the Management Board also adopted emergency measures that will require all states to prohibit anglers from retaining striped bass larger than 31 inches (other than anglers participating in Chesapeake Bay “trophy fisheries”), effectively creating a 28- to 31-inch coastal slot limit that states must adopt on or before July 2^nd.  Such emergency measures also received overwhelming support, with only New Jersey in opposition.

I’m going to describe those events, as well as the events that led up to them, in more detail later this month.  In the meantime, it’s probably worthwhile to take a deeper look at what Tuesday’s actions revealed.

We’re not in 1978 anymore

I was falling victim to déjà vu.  Although I kept reassuring striped bass anglers that we weren’t on the verge of a stock collapse, with female spawning stock biomass more than three times as large as it was in the early 1980s, I was beginning to doubt the truth of my words.

I had lived, and fished, through the last striped bass stock collapse.  I remembered how both fishermen and fisheries managers initially denied reality back in the late 1970s, when the ills besetting the stock began to manifest themselves.  There were plenty of large fish around, so few people paid much attention to the fact that the young-of-the-year numbers in the Maryland portion of the Chesapeake Bay—the single most important spawning ground on the coast—had tanked, and that there was little recruitment of new fish into the population.  The general opinion seemed to be that the recruitment slump was a transitory event that would correct itself if given time.

History proved such beliefs to be wrong.  By 1980, the striped bass stock collapsed, and it took a long string of lean years, along with very strict regulations, to nurse it back to health.

Over the past few years, I began hearing the same sort of comments from anglers that I heard 45 years ago—and some of them were experienced folks who ought to have known a lot better.  They pointed to isolated areas which saw good fishing—places like Raritan Bay in the spring and the New York Bight in the fall--noted the abundant fish from the 2015 year class that were popping up all along the coast, and argued that the bass weren’t in as bad a place as some people claimed.  

Some argued that most of the fish had moved offshore, and were now in federal waters, where striped bass fishing is not allowed, and thus went undetected.  In making such claims, they ignored the fact that the striped bass stock assessment stopped using the offshore samples from the federal trawl survey in its population models, because such samples caught few if any striped bass.  They also ignored the fact that the bass would still have to come inshore to spawn, and so would be detected by states’ spring spawning grounds surveys.

When reminded that the last four years of recruitment in the Maryland rivers were, on average, worse than any four-year period ever recorded, including those years leading up to and during the stock collapse, they would ignore the genetic evidence of separate spawning stocks and argue that climate change was pushing bass north, and would eventually make the Hudson River the new Chesapeake Bay.  Some even cited increasing striped bass populations in Canada as evidence that the Chesapeake fish were expanding their range, again ignoring all of the genetic evidence to the contrary.

The flashbacks to ’78 started coming on much more frequently.

But one thing was very different.  In 1978, the ASMFC had no authority to manage striped bass, and few regulations had been put in place.  There was a 16-inch minimum size that prevailed on the coast (it was something like 10 or 12 inches in the Chesapeake Bay), a few states had outlawed commercial harvest, and a few others had outlawed certain types of commercial fishing gear.  Today, the ASMFC has a comprehensive striped bass management plan in place, and Congress has provided it with the authority to impose such plan on the states.

That proved to be a critical difference between then and now.

We’re not in 2014 anymore, either

Of course, there’s a big difference between having the authority to take action, and actually exercising such authority.  Based on some of the Management Board’s past actions—or, more accurately, it’s past inaction—a significant portion of the striped bass angling community doubted that it had either the will or the courage to address the striped bass’ current problems.

The debate over Addendum IV to Amendment 6 to the Atlantic Striped Bass Interstate Fishery Management Plan, which occurred in 2014, provided plenty of justification for such doubts. 

Amendment 6 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass contained five so-called “management triggers,” which required Management Board action when they were tripped.  The findings of a benchmark stock assessment, released late in 2013, tripped management triggers that read,

“If the Management Board determines that the fishing mortality target is exceeded in two consecutive years and the female spawning stock biomass falls below the target within either of those years, the Management Board must adjust the striped bass management program to reduce the fishing mortality rate to a level that is at or below the target within one year,”

and

“If the Management Board determines that the female spawning stock biomass falls below the target for two consecutive years and the fishing mortality rate exceeds the target in either of those years, the Management Board must adjust the striped bass management program to rebuild the biomass to a level that is at or above the target within [ten years].”

Despite the mandatory nature of the management triggers—both state that if they are tripped, the Management Board “must” take action—many Management Board members seemed to feel that compliance was optional. 

The Management Board ultimately failed to impose management measures calculated to reduce fishing mortality to the target level within one year, although the measures adopted came fairly close to that goal.  Reducing fishing mortality to target theoretically required reducing fishing mortality by 25%, but despite the clear language of Amendment 6’s management triggers, a number of state delegations to the Management Board contested the need to do so.  Instead, they supported a motion that would have merely required

“either a 17 percent reduction or a tiered reduction of 7 percent for three years.”

That motion failed on a vote of one in favor (Delaware) and 15 opposed, but was immediately followed by another motion to drag out the rebuilding period over two years, which was withdrawn and replaced by a third motion, which imposed a 25% reduction on the coast, but only a 20.5% reduction in the Chesapeake Bay, which ultimately passed; in theory, the 20.5% Chesapeake reduction would have lengthened the rebuilding period beyond one year, although not to a great degree.

The Management Board completely ignored its obligation to initiate a rebuilding plan in response to the stock assessment’s findings.  Instead, it went along with the advice of the ASMFC’s then-fishery management plan coordinator, Michael Waine, who suggested that if fishing mortality was reduced to the target level, the stock would eventually rebuild to the target level, although it might take more than ten years.

But contrary to Waine’s prediction, the stock continued to decline.

The Management Board, and ASMFC staff, behaved very differently this time around.  Both Emilie Franke, the current fishery management plan coordinator, and her predecessor, Max Appelman, repeatedly reminded the Management Board of their obligations under the plan.  Many members of the Management Board didn’t need to be reminded; they understood the risk faced by the resource, they understood their obligation to the public, and they acted accordingly.

Thus, both the motion to initiate Addendum II and the emergency measures passed by overwhelming votes.  The motion to initiate Addendum II was even amended by a motion that granted the Management Board the power to adopt more restrictive regulations without going through the formal addendum process, should a future stock assessment indicate that the stock was unlikely to be rebuilt by 2029 under the existing management regime.

In proposing such amendment, Dr. Michael Armstrong, a Massachusetts fishery manager, noted that

“The complaint is always that we don’t act quickly enough,”

and observed,

“We are approaching some dire straits with this stock.”

When the amendment passed without opposition, it was clear that the Management Board had abandoned its past reluctance to act, and intended to prove itself a good steward of the striped bass resource.

We’re all in this together

Elements of the for-hire fishing fleet have historically resisted more restrictive management measures, no matter how badly they might be needed to conserve the striped bass resource.  The emergency measure, requiring a much narrower slot limit, is intended to sharply reduce recreational landings—hopefully, to cut them in half—and that will include fish landed by patrons of the for-hire fleet.

For-hire operators were understandably concerned that more restrictive management measures might hurt their business, and some sent in letters asking that the for-hire fleet be exempt from any new rules. 

After debate on the motion to adopt emergency measures began, Dr. Justin Davis, Connecticut’s fishery manager, moved to amend the motion, in order to exempt for-hire vessels from the new, narrower slot during the original 180 days of the emergency action (but, he made clear, not during any extension of the emergency measures).  He argued that such vessels have already booked trips based on the existing slot limit, that the operators had no opportunity to comment on the emergency measures and—a personal and admirably honorable point—that he had already told Connecticut’s for-hire fleet that bass regulations would remain unchanged in 2023, and didn’t want to go back on his word.

However, other Management Board members disagreed.

Tom Fote, the governor’s appointee from New Jersey, made one of his usual rambling arguments which, although it touched on many seemingly irrelevant points, some of which related to events forty years in the past, seemed to say that it was wrong to give anglers who chose—and could afford—to fish from for-hire vessels privileges not shared by shore-bound or private boat anglers, and equally wrong to protect for-hire operations from the impact of the emergency measures, while giving similar consideration to tackle shops and other affected businesses.

Michael Waine, who now represents the American Sportfishing Association, responded to requests for public comment by opposing the exemption, saying

“If we’re going to rebuild striped bass, we’re not going to be able to hand out conservation passes”

that allow some businesses and/or individuals to escape their share of the burden of rebuilding.  He noted that many people’s first contact with the sport of angling occurs on for-hire boats, and that their first contact with conservation should take place there as well.  Like Fote, he disagreed with giving a “conservation pass” to the for-hire fleet when tackle shops would have to bear whatever negative impacts the emergency rules might bring.

In the end, only four states—Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey—supported the for-hire exception, with ten opposed.

It appears that the burdens of striped bass rebuilding will be shared by everyone in the fishery.

Which is as it should be.

Most Management Board members are truly concerned

Most efforts to adopt more restrictive management measures meet with significant opposition.  Typically, such opposition comes from New Jersey, Delaware, and one or more of the Chesapeake Bay jurisdictions, which have historically tried to keep striped bass landings at the highest possible levels.  Sometimes, as was the case in 2011, they successfully delayed management action, even when warned that the stock would become overfished if things did not change.

We didn’t see much of that last Tuesday. 

Michael Luisi, a Maryland fishery manager who, just a few years ago, sought to relax some management measures, actively supported the emergency action, warning

“If we wait another year, we may be looking down the barrel of something much worse.”

Dr. Armstrong voiced similar sentiments, observing

“The further we go behind the 8-ball, the more draconian the rules are going to become.”

After Adam Nowalsky, New Jersey’s legislative proxy, made a last-minute motion to postpone consideration of the emergency action until the Management Board’s August meeting, claiming that there was no prior notice that the motion would be made, and that the emergency action was being taken without public comment, his motion found little support. 

Massachusetts state representative Sarah Peake, that state’s legislative appointee, said,

“They call it ‘emergency for a reason…Let’s not kick the can down the road.”

In response to Nowalsky’s argument that action would be taken without public comment, she noted that, while stakeholders never specifically called for emergency action, she had received plenty of comments asking that the Management Board move quickly to protect the resource; she predicted that fishermen would applaud the emergency measures.

The motion to postpone went down in flames, with only New Jersey and Delaware voting in favor.

The only real opposition to emergency action came from New Jersey’s Fote, who complained that

“Through the [19]90s, we didn’t do knee-jerk reactions…People talk about emergency action; that’s a knee-jerk reaction.”

Such comments merely demonstrated how isolated he, like his state, was from the rest of the Management Board.

In summary

I have long been a critic of the ASMFC process, which often seemed to subordinate the long-term health of fish stocks to various short-term economic considerations.  The Management Board had been no exception to that trend.

But now, it’s time to rethink that criticism. 

Beginning with the recent adoption of Amendment 7 to the management plan, the Management Board has, on balance, demonstrated a greater concern for the long-term health of the resource than it had before.  It has also demonstrated a greater concern for stakeholder sentiments and broad public support for striped bass conservation.

Its actions last Tuesday demonstrated a real commitment to conserving and rebuilding the striped bass stock.

Whatever its past flaws, over the past few years, the Management Board, along with its Chair, Martin Gary and fishery management plan coordinator Emilie Franke, have demonstrated a real commitment to effective striped bass management.  They have done their jobs well, and deserve our thanks.

TALKING ABOUT FISH: THREE DAYS IN D.C.

 

I spent the first three days of last week in Washington, D.C., rejoining old friends and meeting new faces who share a common interest in supporting, and hopefully improving, the federal fishery management system.

Federal fishery managers have come in for more than their fair share of criticism in recent years, much of it coming from various recreational fishing organizations that seem to feel that their “right” to take home more fish than either good science or good sense will allow is somehow being infringed.  My wife and I never had any kids, but we know enough couples who did that, when I hear the recreational groups’ attacks on the federal management system, I'm always reminded of the cries of “You don't love me any more” that indulged but ungrateful children aim at their parents any time they don’t get what they ask for.

In fact, the recreational sector has a lot to be grateful for, particularly with respect to federal fisheries.  Fish stocks are generally healthy, with the biomass of some well over their target levels; as to those that are not in good shape, most have rebuilding plans that are headed in the right direction.

Last week, the National Marine Fisheries Service released its annual report on the status of fish stocks; the agency reported that five stocks were removed from the list of fish experiencing overfishing, while three new stocks were added—a positive gain of two—and that three stocks removed from the “overfished” list, with no new stocks added.

Of course, there were a couple of nuances to those removals. 

Georges Bank yellowtail flounder shifted from “experiencing overfishing” to “status unknown” due to uncertainties in the stock assessment, so it's possible that overfishing is still going on, while SouthernNew England/Mid-Atlantic winter flounder shifted from “overfished” to “rebuilt”not because the biomass increased, but rather because the fish is in such deeptrouble that recovery is no longer deemed likely, and biologists decided thatthe current stock size is about as good as it’s going to get.

But even taking those two stocks out of the equation, today there are fewer overfished stocks, and fewer stocks experiencing overfishing, than there were a year ago, and that can only be a good thing.

Yet it seems that Congress usually only hears from fishermen when they have complaints, and doesn’t hear enough about how well the system is working and how it has benefitted both the recreational and the commercial sectors, or how it needs to be tweaked in order to meet a changing future.  So the American Saltwater Guides Association put together a team that included recreational fishermen and folks from the recreational fishing industry, representing just about all of the mid-Atlantic states, to give elected officials (or, more often, such officials’ staff) a bit of insight into what is right with the federal fisheries management system, and where it might need a little more help.

I’ve always felt it was an important thing to do.  Prior to the outbreak of COVID-19, I’d been on the Hill quite a few times, even testifying before a House subcommittee on one occasion.  Going back after a three-year hiatus felt almost like coming home; I’ve always been fascinated by politics, and always found Washington a very special place, where concerned individuals can, if they work hard enough, still make a difference.

Last week, we all had our stories.  Mine was a story of change.  

As the oldest member of the group, I can look back over six decades spent on and around the water, beginning at a time when wooden boats—often wooden rowboats—dominated the angling scene, monofilament lines were still wiry and unruly nylon strands, and hollow fiberglass was still the ultimate material for building fishing rods.  

I remember a time before regulation, when the only rule anglers needed to worry about was a 16-inch minimum size on striped bass.  I remember the decline of most of our important coastal fisheries—not just the New England groundfish that have proven so very hard to restore, but also the decline of fish such as summer flounder, scup, and black sea bass. 

I can easily recall 1989, when the summer flounderpopulation dipped to its nadir, and even federal surveyors had trouble finding a fluke more than two years old.  I can recall black sea bass being overfished as recently as 2007, how fishing improved throughout their recovery, and how, as sea bass abundance drew more and more angling effort, the average size of the fish again began to decline.

I can describe how passage of the Sustainable Fisheries Act of 1996, which gave teeth to the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act and, in so doing, compelled the regional fishery management councils and federal fisheries managers to end overfishing and rebuild overfished stocks within a time certain, led to vastly increased fish abundance and a vastly improved angling experience in every coast of the United States—and yes, I have fished them all.

And I can talk to members and staff about the changes in the ecosystem that have occurred in the time that I’ve been on the water.  It was striking how a couple of the staff members—and remember that staff members tend to skew young—are fishermen, who fish in Long Island Sound and Great South Bay, yet never caught a winter flounder.

When a staffer, who is also an angler, learns that New York anglers took home well over 18 million winter flounder in 1984, before the population began to slide downhill so badly that current landings are too small to be reliably counted, but probably amount to—at best, one or two hundred fish, and might be far less, and that the population collapsed during his or her lifetime, the need for effective fishery management, as well as the cost of bad management, becomes very clear.

But lost fisheries and collapsed fish stocks are only a part of the story; recreational fishermen have also benefitted from a warming ocean.

Warm water has moved the center of black sea bass abundance farther north; although we’ve always caught a few out of New York and New England, the population has exploded northward over the past decade, causing northeastern landings to spike.  Yet quotas still reflect, at least in part, past patterns of abundance, instead of the current reality. 

And then there are dolphin (a/k/a “mahi-mahi”).

For my first thirty years on Long Island, when it was midsummer, and I wanted a few fish for dinner, I’d fish the inlet and the nearshore lumps, hoping to put a few fluke in the box.  Today, it’s generally easier to run a few more miles offshore and look for dolphin, which we can reliably target any time between mid-July and mid-September. 

When it’s easier to catch what we used to think of as a tropical/subtropical species, rather than the formerly reliable summer flounder, change is surely in the air, but currently, there is nothing in Magnuson-Stevens that addresses such change.  Neither shifting stocks nor climate change is addressed in the current statute.  That needs to change, and helping Hill staffers understand what’s going on in the water is the first step in making that happen, just as it’s the first step in explaining why NMFS needs more money to develop the science that will let fishery managers adjust to the new reality.

Those of us who have spent a bit of time talking to legislators know that a single meeting won’t change the world.  But such meetings do begin conversations, which can lead to more talks which, in time, can result in positive action or prevent bad ideas from becoming law. 

Despite all the current skepticism leveled at the political process, it remains the key to maintaining and improving federal fishery management.  Despite such skepticism, every time I’m in Washington, I meet people on Capitol Hill who are honestly trying to make a difference, and care about well-managed fisheries.

And so my efforts, and the efforts of a lot of other folks whom I know, continue.  I look forward to being in Washington again, in the hopefully not-too-distant future.  Because history has already shown that dedicated, motivated people can move the system in the right direction.

And we intend to do it again.

ASMFC'S ATLANTIC STRIPED BASS MANAGEMENT BOARD FACES A CRUCIAL TEST

 

On the morning of March 30, 2023, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s (ASMFC) Atlantic Striped Bass Technical Committee (Technical Committee) held a meeting, where it agreed that the currently overfished striped bass population will probably not be rebuilt by the 2029 rebuilding deadline.

 

The news was not a surprise. Marine Recreational Information Program data had already let fishery managers know that striped bass landings in 2022 were roughly twice what they were in 2021, but it was still disheartening to anglers who had long advocated for better striped bass conservation. Just last November, a stock assessment update found that, so long as fishing mortality remained at the 2021 level (F=0.14), there was a 78.6 percent probability that the striped bass stock would fully rebuild by 2029.

 

The 2029 rebuilding deadline was set pursuant to Amendment 6 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass, and carried forward after the new Amendment 7 to the management plan was adopted in May 2022. The plan requires that “If female [spawning stock biomass] falls below the threshold, the striped bass management program must be adjusted to rebuild the biomass to a level that is at or above the target within an established timeframe [not to exceed 10 years]. [emphasis added]”

 

That requirement was tripped in 2019, after the ASMFC’s Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board (Management Board) accepted a benchmark stock assessment that found striped bass to be both overfished and subject to overfishing. However, the Management Board didn’t initiate rebuilding immediately. Instead, it first took the time to draft and debate Amendment 7; when that was finally done, the time for rebuilding had already shrunk from ten to just seven years.

 

Thus, the assessment update’s conclusion that the stock would probably rebuild, even if no additional management measures were taken, came as welcome news. Unfortunately, last year’s big spike in recreational landings has completely changed that outlook.

Removals of striped bass from the coastwide population increased by 33.5% in 2022, compared to removals in 2021. The 2022 fishing mortality rate was 0.1873, just about halfway between the fishing mortality target of 0.1679 and the fishing mortality threshold, which defines overfishing, of 0.2013.

Although fishing mortality has risen above the target, overfishing is not yet occurring.

Still, fishing mortality has risen high enough to frustrate the rebuilding process. If the fishing mortality rate does not change, the female spawning stock biomass will probably rise above the threshold, and will no longer be deemed overfished, at some point during 2023, but that recovery is expected to stall somewhere short of the spawning stock biomass target. Instead, striped bass abundance will probably level out at a point about midway between target and threshold.

By 2029 female spawning stock biomass, far from being rebuilt, will probably be shrinking slightly, due to the unusually low number of young bass that have recruited into the population since 2018.

 

How unlikely is it that the striped bass stock will rebuild?

If the Management Board chose to reject Addendum I to the Atlantic Striped Bass Interstate Fishery Management Plan (Addendum I) at its May 2023 meeting, and so continues its ban on the interstate transfer of unused commercial striped bass quota, and if the fishing mortality rate was no higher than 0.1837 (the average of the fishing mortality rates during the years 2019, 2021, and 2022), there would be a mere 14.6% probability that the stock will rebuild by 2029. There would also be a 93.9% chance that the stock would not be overfished in that year.

 

That’s the best-case projection.

The worst case, which assumes that the fishing mortality rate would remain at its 2022 level, that the Management Board will approve Addendum I and that the entire coastal commercial quota will be caught, gives the stock only a 3.4% chance of rebuilding by 2029. Under such circumstances, the probability of the stock not being overfished in 2029 drops to just 75.8%.

The Technical Committee considered a number of different scenarios, involving different levels of fishing mortality and commercial quota utilization, at its March 30 meeting, and decided to present the Management Board with three different projections for consideration at its May meeting. All will assume that recreational fishing mortality will equal the three-year (2019, 2021, 2022) average.

One projection will present the best-case scenario. Another, which assumes that Addendum I will be approved and the entire commercial quota caught, yields a fishing mortality rate of 0.1992. The third scenario assumes that all state commercial quota, with the exception of New Jersey’s, which was reallocated to the recreational fishery, will be caught, and results in a slightly lower fishing mortality rate of 0.1987.

The fishing mortality rates of the latter two scenarios come perilously close to the fishing mortality threshold of 0.2013. Since any such projection includes some degree of uncertainty, it is possible that, when such uncertainty is considered, either one might lead to overfishing.

 

Now, anglers must wait until the Management Board meets on May 2nd, to find out what the Management Board chooses to do with the Technical Committee’s projections. It has the authority to take remedial action, but it is not required to do anything at all. That’s because the projections provided by the Technical Committee do not constitute advice provided by a formal stock assessment or assessment update.

Yet, even if the projections were derived from an assessment, they wouldn’t have tripped any of the triggers that require management action, the most pertinent of which reads, “If [the fishing mortality rate] exceeds the target for two consecutive years and the female [spawning stock biomass] falls below the target in either of those years, the striped bass management program must be adjusted to reduce [fishing mortality] to a level that is at or below the target within one year. [emphasis added]”

 

Since the fishing mortality rate has so far only risen above target in a single year, 2022, action is not yet required. If the Management Board chooses to act, it will only be because it decides to act prudently, to head off a problem, rather than waiting until a crisis has already occurred.

Will it choose to do so?

If history is any guide, the answer is, unfortunately, no. When faced with such a choice in the past, the Management Board has always eschewed precautionary action. Perhaps the best example occurred at its November 2011 meeting when, after being advised by a recent stock assessment update that “Abundance and exploitable biomass of ages 8+ [striped bass] are expected to decline regardless of the recruitment scenario,” and that “Female [spawning stock biomass] will fall slightly below threshold by 2017,” meaning that the stock would become overfished by that time, the Management Board chose to do nothing.

 

Its mood was well expressed in the comments of Pat Augustine, then the Governor’s Appointee from New York, who observed, “[there are] the 688 pages of documentation that say that the stock is pretty doggone healthy—that we’re looking at a sustainable yield and at the same time looking at sustainable spawning stock biomass to carry it through a minimum of 2016, minimum, unless there is a catastrophe and then that will be something else to worry about…We haven’t had a real spawning disaster to even trigger one of the triggers within the [fishery management plan], and we’re sitting here gnashing our teeth as to which way to go.”

The Management Board’s comments and actions during the Amendment 7 process provided reason to hope that it has become more responsive to the needs of the striped bass stock than it was a decade ago, but there is still no assurance that it will act in the face of 2022’s increased landings, even though the management plan requires it to rebuild the stock by 2029, and the latest projections make it clear that such rebuilding is very unlikely to happen unless fishing mortality is reduced.

That leaves the Management Board with three options.

It can begin a new management action at its May 2nd meeting, to reduce fishing mortality and put the stock back on track to rebuild by 2029. Given that the current fishing mortality rate isn’t too far above its target level, narrowing the slot limit, and so making it harder to catch a legal-sized fish, might be enough to set things right.

It can sit on its hands and do nothing until after the 2024 stock assessment update is completed. At that point, given the Technical Committee’s projections, it will probably take very substantial restrictions, almost certainly including substantial closed seasons, to accomplish rebuilding in the two or three years remaining to get the job done.

Or, it can renege on the commitment it made to the public, and not rebuild the stock at all. It can demonstrate that the language of the management plan, which requires the Management Board to rebuild the stock within ten years, is no more than words inked on paper, void of any binding legal or moral effect. As it makes its excuses for why the stock was not rebuilt by 2029, it can make up other excuses as to how the poor recruitment in 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2022 will prevent rebuilding from occurring at any time in the foreseeable future as well.

Hopefully, that latter scenario will not occur.

Hopefully, the Management Board will act responsibly, with precaution, and with eyes sharply focused on the future health of the stock.

Hopefully.

On May 2nd, we will know.

-----

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/

 

WHEN FISH STOCKS DECLINE

 

I never knew that it could be so hard to buy a container of clams.

My boat went into the water ten days ago, and with a good offshore forecast for Friday, I thought that I would run outside and see if there might be some fish on our local.  So on Thursday, I ran the boat to a nearby fuel dock, topped off the tanks, and tried to buy a gallon of clams, along with some ice to put in the cooler.

It turned out that neither was available.  The dock hadn’t turned on its ice-maker yet, and wasn’t planning on stocking clams—or any other frozen bait—for another week or so.

That created a bit of a nuisance, but I figured that I could always stop at a 7-11 to buy ice the next morning, and pick up some clams at another shop.

It turns out that the ice was no problem, but I was very wrong about the bait.  I stopped at two more shops, including one that was big enough to have a national clientele, but there was nary a clam to be found.

At that point, I was getting frustrated.  It was April 19^th, which from a historical perspective, was well past the start of the local fishing season.  The South Shore of Long Island, New York is a traditional hotbed of fishing activity, both inshore and offshore.  It's a place where, if an angler wasn’t too choosy about what they caught, fish had always been available 24/7/365.

Most of the fishing during the coldest quadrant of the year—say, from mid-December through mid-March—was usually done on for-hire boats, most particularly the big party boat fleet moored at Captree State Park, which targeted winter cod, ling (red hake), and pollock on offshore wrecks, with blackfish (tautog) a lesser but still important part of the mix.  But beginning around the middle of March, private boats would start being launched, as anglers looked forward to St. Patrick’s Day, the unofficial start of the winter flounder season.

But note the language that I used:  “Historical perspective.”  “Traditional hotbed.”  “Fish had always been.”

Lots of past tense, and with good reason.

As I said, it was April 19^th.

When I moved to Long Island forty years ago, the winter flounder season would have been well underway, with the Captree party boats sailing daily, fishermen lined shoulder-to-shoulder along their rails.  Private boats would have been clogging the flats and channels where flounders fed, while shorebound anglers cast their baits from public piers, parks, and bulkheads.  

Atlantic mackerel would not have been be too far away, as offshore anglers waited for them to show, hoping to fill their freezers with fish that would later serve as bait for shark and tuna.  The first striped bass would be in the back bays, with a few scattered fish on the open beaches, while somewhere nearby, the very first bluefish of the season would be caught.

But as I eased down the State Boat Channel last Thursday morning, all of that was clearly in the past.  Outside of a single commercial boat outside Babylon Cove—I’m guessing he was setting crab pots—the upper part of the bay was empty, as was the state channel.  There were two empty trailers at the Captree boat launch, so some folks were on the water, but no cars to speak of at the party boat dock; from what I could tell, not a single one of those boats had sailed.

There was a little more life in the lower bay.  Three private boats fished in the shadow of the Robert Moses Bridge, probably hunting striped bass, although they might have been hoping that an early blackfish or two had already moved into the inlet.  A fourth boat, definitely targeting stripers, drifted along the south side of the inlet.

That was all.

It was thus pretty clear why I hadn’t been able to find any clams:  There weren’t yet any fishermen to buy them, because the fish that they used to target in the spring were just about gone.

The April fishery on the South Shore has, for all practical purposes, died.

Winter flounder collapsed close to two decades ago, although the writing was on the wall by the late 1980s.  

When New York’s Department of Environmental Conservation tried to put in regulations to stem the flounder’s decline around 1987 or 1988, they got a lot of pushback from the recreational fishing industry, particularly the party boat industry, which argued that customers needed the “perception” that they could have a “big day,” which meant keeping a pailful of fish, or they wouldn’t come out.  Such comments led the DEC to adopt regulations less restrictive than needed to protect the population, and began a series of management measure that were always too little, too late to stem the stock’s decline.

New York was not alone in such practices, nor can recreational fishing be blamed as the sole cause of the flounder’s decline. 

The New England Fishery Management Council was responsible for regulating the commercial and recreational flounder fisheries in federal waters; it allowed the stock to be continually overfished for decades, refusing to impose annual commercial catch limits for any groundfish species until compelled to do so by Congress.  

Patricia Kurkul, once the regional director of NMFS’ Greater Atlantic Regional Fisheries Office, did eventually impose a moratorium on harvesting southern stock winter flounder near the end of her tenure, but her successor, John Bullard, soon reopened the fishery once he took over, perhaps hoping to provide the northeastern trawler fleet with something to fish for after annual catch limits for cod were slashed.

Inshore, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission adopted a management plan that required managers to constrain fishing mortality to a rate that would maintain the stock’s spawning potential at a level no less than 40% of that of an unfished stock,  However, in January 1999, after learning that the spawning stock biomass had fallen below that level, the ASMFC’s Winter Flounder Management Board suspended states’ need to comply with such requirement, arguing that that federal measures remained unchanged, and that the ASMFC’s management plan should be consistent with NMFS’ regulations. 

That logic somehow didn’t apply when NMFS imposed a moratorium on landing southern stock flounder; while the ASMFC tightened recreational and commercial management measures, it still allowed harvest to continue.  However, after NMFS again allowed flounder harvest, and liberalized the landings limit as well, the Management Board again saw the virtues of following federal managers’ lead, and increased the length of the recreational season from sixty days to ten full months, despite the fact that the stock had already collapsed.

The recreational fishing industry opposed a flounder moratorium, arguing that they represented the first fish caught every year, and brought customers into shops that had been cash-starved for months.  It never urged managers to conserve the flounder resource.

Now boats don’t sail, and tackle shops don't need to stock much bait in April, because without fish, customers are nearly as scarce as the flounder.

Flounder represent an extreme example, but no matter the species, the recreational fishing industry seems disinterested in the long-term health of fish stocks.  Here in New York, we saw representatives of the for-hire fleet oppose the harvest reductions proposed in Addendum VI to Amendment 6 of the ASMFC’s striped bass management plan.  We saw a mob howling its discontent when the ASMFC tried to adopt science-based tautog regulations.  We saw resistance to measures intended to restore the overfished bluefish population.

A former DEC employee once told me that one of the more aggressive tackle shop owners even said something like (I’m probably not getting this down verbatim, although I am accurately reflecting the sentiment)

“I can’t worry about the long term; I need to get through this season first.”

And thus, even this late in April, few people are fishing, and the shops don't need to sell clams..  The season has grown shorter, and significantly less profitable, for April revenues, once lost, are gone forever.

The industry's short-term focus is, unfortunately, not limited to Long Island, New York, or the northeast. At the national level, the recreational fishing and boating industries are working to undercut federal fisheries management by expanding recreational landings, regardless of the long-term impacts of such efforts. 

We saw that in the fight to pass the so-called “Modern Fish Act” in 2018.  We see it in the continuing efforts to sabotage federal red snapper management in the Gulf of Mexico.  We saw it in the recent adoption of the so-called “Harvest Control Rule” by the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council, despite scientists, and council staff’s, reservations.

So far, the industry has been doing pretty well, as it manages  to convince enough anglers that, if they only buy enough high-tech gear, and fish from boats big enough and fast enough, and laden with enough cutting-edge electronics, to reach the remaining concentrations of fish, they can still be successful.

It has invested considerable talent and resources in lobbying federal and state decisionmakers, urging them to adopt regulations that allow anglers to land more fish now.

But they don’t seem to realize that, at some point, the party is going to end.  You can overexploit a resource for only so long.

Perhaps they lack the long-term perspective to understand that, despite all of today’s technological advances, from a catch-per-unit-effort standpoint, we're catching fewer fish today than we did back in the early 1960s, when we fished from slow wooden rowboats, and rarely ventured more than 15 or 20 minutes from the dock.

But if popular fish stocks continue to decline, following the path of striped bass and bluefish, of winter flounder and amberjack, of Gulf cobia and New England cod, the industry will eventually learn that the number of anglers will also decline, for, as I regularly note, fishing in an empty bay, ocean, or sound soon loses its appeal.

On the plus side, such waters won't be very crowded during much of the year.

And the tackle shops won't have to stock any clams at all.