GULF OF MAINE LOBSTER: A LESSON NOT LEARNED

 

A little over eight years ago, I wrote a piece for the Marine Fish Conservation Network’s blog titled “A Lesson from Lobsters.”  The essay described the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s American Lobster Management Board’s failure to address the approaching collapse of the Southern New England lobster stock, despite advice from its own scientific staff that a five-year harvest moratorium was in order, advice that was effectively confirmed by a peer-review panel of international experts put together to consider the staff’s recommendation.

The piece went on to describe how, instead of heeding the scientists’ advice, the Management Board dithered, seeking ways to avoid closing down the Southern New England lobster fishery.  While such advice made it clear that nothing less than a 50% reduction in landings, if not a full moratorium, held any chance of reversing the stock’s decline, the Management Board was more concerned with maintaining the short-term economic health of the lobster fishermen and, in the end, only imposed a 10% reduction. 

“A Lesson from Lobsters” then explained that such trivial reduction did the lobsters no good, and that a new stock assessment urged the adoption of measures that might provide real protection for Southern New England stock until oceanographic conditions, which were hostile to lobster recruitment, might allow an increase in lobster abundance.

The piece ultimately earned an award at the New York State Outdoor Writers’ Association’s Excellence in Craft competition, taking first place in the “Online Publication” category, but it didn’t do the lobsters any good.  The latest benchmark stock assessment found that

“The Southern New England (SNE) stock was significantly depleted as the three-year average abundance from 2016-2018 was considerably below the abundance threshold.  The stock was at record low abundance, and stock projections conducted as part of the assessment show a low probability of the condition changing among the most credible scenarios.  [emphasis added]”

Given that the decline in lobster abundance is driven by environmental factors, in particular by warming ocean waters, it is possible that nothing the Management Board would have been able to do could have prevented the decline.  At the same time, following the scientific advice might have been the Board’s only viable way to avoid a stock collapse, but it was the one course of action that the Board adamantly refused to take.

The one saving grace for the American lobster fishery, if one wanted to find a bright spot among all the gloom, was that the same stock assessment found that the Gulf of Maine-Georges Bank stock of lobster was enjoying “record high” abundance.

However, all was not necessarily well with the Gulf of Maine-Georges Bank stock.  Addendum XXVII to Amendment 3 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for American Lobster, which the Management Board adopted last May, noted that

“Since the early 2000s, landings in the GOM/GBK stock have exponentially increased.  In Maine alone, landings have increased three-fold from 57 million pounds in 2000 to a record high of 132.6 million pounds in 2016.  Maine landings have declined slightly but were still near time-series highs at 97.9 million and 108.9 million in 2020 and 2021, respectively.  However, since 2012, lobster juvenile settlement surveys throughout the GOM have generally been below the time series averages in all areas.  These surveys, which measure trends in the abundance of newly-settled lobster, can be used to track populations and potentially forecast future landings.  Consequently, persistent lower densities of settlement could foreshadow decline in recruitment and landings.  In the most recent years of the time series, declines in other recruit indices have already been observed.  [emphasis added]”

The Gulf of Maine-Georges Bank stock remains very abundant, and is not currently facing a crisis.  At the same time, it was a decline in juvenile settlement that precipitated the collapse of the Southern New England stock.  Addendum XXVII observed that the Southern New England young-of-the-year index

“began to decline in 1995, two years before landings peaked in 1997, and roughly five years before landings precipitously declined in the early 2000s.”

Thus, it was wise for the Management Board to adopt a precautionary stance in its response to the juvenile settlement trends in the Gulf of Maine.  What the Board ultimately decided to do, and implemented in Addendum XXVII, was to establish

“a trigger mechanism whereby pre-determined management changes will be triggered upon reaching a defined trigger level based on observed changes in recruit (71-80 mm [2.8-3.15 inch] carapace length) abundance indices.  The trigger index is based on recruit conditions observed in three surveys used to inform the assessment model estimates of reference abundance and stock status of the GOM/GBK stock.  These recruit indices include: 1) combined Maine/New Hampshire and Massachusetts spring trawl survey index, 2) combined Maine/New Hampshire and Massachusetts fall trawl survey index, and 3) model-based VTS index.

“The management trigger is defined by a certain level of decline in the indices from an established reference period.  The reference value for each index is calculated as the average of the index values from 2016-2018…”

Addendum XXVII provided that management action would be triggered if the trigger index fell more than 35% below the reference value for the years 2016-2018.  At the time the Addendum was adopted, the trigger index was already 23% below such reference value.  Should the trigger index fall more than 35% below the reference value, Addendum XXVII required that the minimum gauge size (carapace length) in the Gulf of Maine (designated Lobster Conservation Management Area 1) would increase from 3 ¼ inches to 3 5/16 inches in the following year, and to 3 3/8 two years after that.  Four years after the trigger was tripped, the minimum vent sizes in lobster traps used in LCMA1 would increase.  In federal offshore waters (designated Lobster Conservation Management Area 3) and in waters of Outer Cape Cod, nothing would happen until five years after the trigger was tripped, at which point the maximum gauge size would decrease from 6 ¾ to 6 ½ inches.

Addendum XXVII was adopted as a precautionary measure, which the Management Board did not expect to be quickly invoked.  However, when the ASMFC’s American Lobster Technical Committee released its “2023 American Lobster Data Update and Addendum XXVII Trigger Index Update” on October 2, the Management Board learned that, in 2022, the trigger index had declined by 39.1% from the reference period, triggering Addendum XXVII’s supposedly required changes to the management measures for American lobster.

Needless to say, lobster fishermen did not take that information well. 

The Maine Lobstermen’s Association issued written comments in which it

“urge[d] the Lobster Board to delay the gauge increase schedule for one year to address unresolved issues with Canada and to allow the industry adequate time to prepare for this change.”

The Maine Lobstermen’s objections were based solely on economic concerns.  They argued that

“Addendum 27 was adopted less than 6 months ago which has not been enough time to address issues that will arise if Canada has a smaller minimum size than the Northeast U.S. lobster fishery…the primary concern raised by MLA is that changes in the LMA 1 minimum gauge could negatively impact the boat price for U.S. caught lobster.

“Downeast Maine lobstermen will also have the additional problem of throwing back short lobsters that likely would be legally harvested by Canadian lobstermen.  This will undermine both the conservation impact of the measure increase and the boat price, as the lobsters thrown back and caught by Canadian lobstermen could be sold to U.S. dealers and drive down the boat price.

“Although ASMFC did not adopt MLA’s recommendation to conduct a market impact study of a U.S.-only gauge increase, MLA strongly supports the efforts of ASMFC’s subcommittee to engage with Canada on this issue.  While MLA is pleased that discussions between the U.S. and Canada are underway, substantive issues presented by the gauge increase have not yet been addressed.”

I’m not a lobsterman, so I can’t gauge the validity of the Maine Lobstermen’s comments about ex vessel price.  However, as someone who does eat lobster, I’m puzzled by the claim that Canada’s ability to land smaller lobster will negatively impact the price paid for larger lobster landed by U.S. boats; the last time that I ponied up cash for crustaceans at a local market, the bigger lobsters cost more, both per individual and per pound.

Similarly, I have a problem with the claim that lobsters returned to the water by fishermen operating off downeast Maine—the northernmost section of the Maine coast—will “likely” be harvested by Canadian lobstermen.  

While there is undoubtedly significant movement of lobsters across the Maine/Canada border, it seems a stretch to claim that most of the lobsters that wander across the line from Maine will be harvested; that implies a fishing mortality rate in excess of 50%, which would be unsustainable in the long term; the most recent benchmark stock assessment suggests that overfishing would occur at a fishing mortality rate of 0.475, which would equate to removing only about 38% of the population each year.

And, of course, any market study conducted to determine the impact of a U.S.-only increase in gauge size is completely irrelevant to the biological impacts of such an increase, and biology—in terms of minimizing the size of any population decline—and not markets should be the primary driver of fisheries decisions.

Unfortunately, pleas such as the Maine Lobstermen’s have a lot of impact at the ASMFC, and it didn’t help the lobster that the Maine Lobstermen weren’t alone.  A relatively new group, which calls itself the New England Fishermen’s Stewardship Association, made claims similar to those of the Maine Lobstermen, although one of its comments might be worthy of particular notice.  The Stewardship Association wrote that

“in May of 2023 [when Addendum XXVII was adopted], no one expected that the trigger would be met in just five short months.  Due to the previous rate of decline, it was anticipated that it would take at least two years to exceed a reduction of 35%.”

It’s hard to see why such an argument would support a delay in adopting more restrictive management measures.  When managers see a stock beginning to decline faster than expected, it’s an indication that such stock might be in more trouble than previously believed, and that restrictions need to be put in place sooner than originally planned, not later.

But that’s not the way the Management Board viewed the situation.

On October 4, the ASMFC issued a press release stating that the Addendum XXVII management measures, originally scheduled to go into effect in June 2024, will be delayed until January 1, 2025.  To the extent that any justification for the delay was given, it largely followed the arguments made by the Maine Lobstermen.

But once again, we need to ask whether concerns about the lobster trade should override concerns about the health of the lobster stock.

At the May 2023 Management Board meeting that saw Addendum XXVII adopted, David Borden, a former fishery manager for the State of Rhode Island, who now serves as Rhode Island’s Governor’s Appointee to the ASMFC, cautioned that

“having gone through the southern New England collapse, I was basically the State Director at the time.

“Having gone through that, that was a totally awful experience, not only for the industry, but for the regulators.  It was just astounding what the negative consequences were for a whole group of really hard working, dedicated individuals who had generations in their families who had grown up working he water.

“Anything we can do to avoid that type of situation, I think we should do.  It’s the main reason that I am very concerned about the triggers…If we set a trigger, we’re essentially acknowledging the fact that we’re going to allow the stock condition to deteriorate until we hit that trigger…”

He argued for a 15%, and not a 35%, trigger, to prevent things from going too far downhill before action was taken, for he had seen the impact of an unchecked decline on the southern New England stock.  But after the October Management Board meeting, we find that Mr. Borden’s warning that “we’re going to allow the stock condition to deteriorate until we hit that trigger” was not pessimistic enough.  The Management Board has decided to wait for another half-year after hitting the trigger before taking action.

It seems that while Mr. Borden learned all too well the hard lesson taught by the southern New England stock’s collapse, the majority of the Management Board failed to do so.  While a six-month delay is not an equivalent to the years of inaction that preceded such collapse,it’s certain that any delay will do the Gulf of Maine-Georges Bank stock no good.  

When the decline of a stock accelerates beyond managers’ expectations, such managers’ response should accelerate, too.

Delay is contraindicated.

Yet it appears that in the case of Gulf of Maine—Georges Bank lobster, delay is what we’re going to get, despite the lessons provided by not only the southern New England stock of lobster, but by the southern New England/mid-Atlantic stock of winter flounder, by the striped bass, by the tautog, and by other species that fell further into decline, and posed greater challenges to managers, because their respective management boards failed to take prompt action when action was called for, and instead dithered and delayed.

In the end, the lessons are out there.  But they do no good when managers are unwilling to learn.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

IT'S TIME FOR COMMENTS ON STRIPED BASS ADDENDUM II

 

Yesterday, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission released its Draft Addendum II to Amendment 7 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass.  It will be accepting public comment on the Draft Addendum through December 22.

In many ways, the Draft Addendum is a disappointing document.  It was initiated at the May meeting of the ASMFC’s Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board, which unanimously approved a motion that read,

“Move to initiate an Addendum to implement commercial and recreational measures for the ocean and Chesapeake Bay fisheries in 2024 that in aggregate are projected to achieve F-target from the 2022 stock assessment update (F-0.17)…  [emphasis added]”

and the first, and maybe biggest, thing that’s disappointing about the Draft Addendum is that it fails to comply with two of the core mandates of that implementing motion:  It won’t necessarily impact all of the relevant striped bass fisheries in 2024, and to the extent that it does, most of its proposed management measures, even when considered together, aren’t projected to reduce fishing mortality to the fishing mortality target.

Despite that, this badly flawed management document deserves stakeholders’ attention and comment, and it would be a mistake for anyone concerned about the health of the striped bass resource to just throw up their hands in disgust and fail to make their opinions known, no matter how badly they might want to do so, as it contains both one bad idea that ought to be killed before it takes root and one provision that could make a material contribution to the long-term health of the striped bass stock.

The management measures in the Draft Addendum fall into four general categories:  Ocean Recreational Fishery Options, Chesapeake Bay Recreational Fishery Options, Commercial Quota Reduction Options, and Response to Stock Assessment Updates; two recreational proposals are relevant to both the ocean and Bay fisheries, and will be addressed in this essay after the waters-specific proposals are discussed.

As far as the Ocean Recreational Fishery Options go, the choices are very limited.  Commenters will be asked to choose between the old 28- to 35-inch slot limit (designated as “Option A” and status quo), the current 28- to 31-inch slot (“Option B”), or a newly-proposed 30- to 33-inch slot (“Option D”).  Compared to 2022 recreational fishing mortality, Option A would provide no reduction at all, Option B would provide a 14.1% reduction, and Option D would provide a 12.8% reduction.

There are also two other options, which would give anglers fishing from for-hire vessels special privileges not enjoyed by the rest of the angling community.  One, designated “Option C,” would retain the current 28- to 31-inch slot limit for anglers fishing from shore or from private boats, but expand it to 28 to 33 inches for anglers fishing from for-hire vessels.  Option C would supposedly reduce recreational fishing mortality by 14.0%, compared to 2022.  The other, designated “Option E,” would establish a 30- to 33-inch slot limit for shore and private boat anglers, while allowing anglers fishing from for-hire boats to enjoy Option C’s broader, 28- to 33-inch slot.  Option E would supposedly reduce recreational fishing mortality by 12.8%.

Before considering the merits of the five options, stakeholders should note two very important points.  

One is that none of the options would achieve a 14.5% reduction in ocean recreational fishing mortality, so would rely on greater reduction in other fisheries to achieve the reduction needed for a 50% probability of successfully achieving the target fishing mortality rate.  

The other is that there is so much uncertainty in the calculation of the reduction percentages that they offer few guarantees; the only thing that anyone can be sure of is that a proposal with a 14.1% reduction rate will probably reduce fishing mortality to a greater degree than one with an estimated 12.8% reduction.  But whether the actual reduction from either proposal would be 10%, 20%, or somewhere in-between can’t be known until more formal calculations are made as part of the 2024 stock assessment update process.

Knowing all of those things, it seems unwise to support any option other than Option B, which offers the best chance of contributing to an overall 14.5% fishing mortality reduction, regardless of whether the predicted 14.1% reduction is accurate or not.  

Option D would allow anglers to retain a greater number of bass from the 2015 year class, something that the emergency measures adopted last May, as well as Addendum II itself, were originally intended to avoid.  Dr. Justin Davis, the Connecticut fishery manager who originally proposed Option D, did so largely because he believed that anglers should be allowed to provide input on more than one possible size limit; he did not argue that Option D was inherently preferable to any of the others.

Options C and E, which would grant anglers on for-hire vessels special privileges, create issues that are rooted much more deeply in policy than in conservation; Option C would offer a theoretical reduction in fishing mortality that is only 0.1% less than that offered by Option B, a statistically irrelevant difference, while Option E’s reduction would be no different than that offered by Option D.  However, both give rise to important public policy questions.

Both options are intended to toss a bone to for-hire operators, based on the assumption that they’re losing business because the current 28- to 31-inch slot limit dissuades anglers who want to retain a striped bass from booking a for-hire trip.  While that assumption may not be wrong—some people like to take bass home for food and are less likely to fish if they find it too difficult to catch a bass for the cooler—we must ask why the for-hire anglers are singled out for preferential treatment.  After all, there’s no question that some members of the surfcasting and private boat community like to eat striped bass too, and it is equally likely that such anglers will fish less if they can’t take a bass home, thus impacting the revenues of tackle shops, fuel docks, marinas, etc. 

If such businesses will also suffer as a result of more restrictive striped bass regulations, is it really good public policy to favor the for-hire operators while leaving the other shops to struggle on their own with the management measures’ impacts?

After all, in a situation where everyone else is being forced to cut back their landings, and perhaps their income, in order to better conserve the striped bass, why should anglers on for-hire boats, or such vessels' owners, be the only persons to be given a little more?

And there is another, perhaps more compelling policy issue that must be considered:  What are regulators’ obligations to a sector that refuses to change its business model, despite a changing operating environment?

We are currently well into the third decade of the 21^st Century, yet the for-hire business is still largely build around an early to mid-20^th Century model of taking people out fishing and bringing them back to the dock with a box filled with dead fish. 

The demographic, economic, social, regulatory, biological, and oceanographic conditions have changed substantially since 1930, 1950, or even 1970.  Big, national corporations that were once household names—F.W. Woolworth, A&P Foods, Chrysler Motors, Howard Johnson’s hotels, and quite a few more—went bankrupt, closed up shop, and disappeared from the public consciousness since those times, largely because their business models couldn’t, or at least didn’t, keep up with changing conditions.  Yet the for-hire businesses stubbornly continue to operate in much the same way as they did fifty or more years ago, despite a changing business environment.  Thus, we must ask whether fishery managers ought to subsidize such businesses with a disproportionate share of the striped bass resource, when such businesses' inability—or perhaps unwillingness—to change on their own has limited their ability to survive.

I would argue that the answer to that question is no.  Businesses must evolve, and those that do not change will—and should--die.

Options for the Chesapeake Bay Recreational Fishery are somewhat more complicated.

The good news is that, at October’s Management Board meeting, the Board decided to move forward with only those options that would provide for consistent regulations across all the jurisdictions bordering the Chesapeake Bay, so anglers wouldn’t have to worry about different rules if they traveled between, say, Maryland’s and Virginia’s waters.  It is also good that at least some of the proposals yield estimated reductions well in excess of 14.5%.  Unfortunately, a few of those proposals don’t come close to that mark.

The options can be broken down into three groups, composed of Option A, the status quo, variants of Option B, and variants of Option C.  Option B provides for a 1-fish bag limit and a 19-inch minimum size; it is further broken down into Options B1, with a 23-inch maximum size (22.4% reduction), B2, with a 24-inch maximum size (15.9% reduction), B3, with a 25-inch maximum size (12.1% reduction), and B4, with a 25-inch maximum size (10.3% reduction).

Option C, like two of the options in the ocean recreational fishery, would provide special privileges for anglers fishing from for-hire boats, although in this case, the for-hire anglers' advantage is in bag limit, not size; the Option C group would set a 19-inch minimum size, with a bag limit of 1 bass for shorebound and private boat anglers, and 2 bass for those fishing from charter and party boats.  Option C1 would impose a 23-inch maximum size, and achieve a 17.9% reduction, while Option C2 would impose a 24-inch maximum size, and only achieve an 11.0% cut in landings.

Using the same criteria applied with respect to the ocean recreational fishery—choosing proposals most likely to result in an overall 14.5% fishing mortality reduction, and those that treat all anglers equally—Options B1 and B2 seem to provide the greatest benefit, with the others either failing to achieve sufficient landings reductions and/or failing to treat anglers equitably.

Two additional proposals would apply both to anglers fishing in the ocean and to those in the Bay.

One would only apply if anglers fishing from for-hire vessels were given privileges not enjoyed by other anglers.  Should that be the case, the Management Board will have to decide whether the same regulations would apply to both anglers and the for-hire boats' crews, or whether the captains and crews would be bound by the same rules governing private boat anglers.

There is no logical reason that the crew of for-hire vessels should be extended extraordinary privileges; the justification for providing such privileges to their fares—that it would help attract business—is irrelevant to those employed on the boats.  Arguably, given the state of the striped bass stock, the captain and crew shouldn’t be allowed to retain any fish at all when they're carrying passengers for hire.  Unfortunately, that’s not an option included in the Draft Addendum, so the best choice is Option B, limiting the captain and crew to private boat regulations.

The other proposal relates to states which allow anglers to fillet striped bass while the angler is still on a boat or at a shoreside fishing location.  Because such filleting can make it very difficult, and often impossible, for law enforcement to determine whether the filleted fish was of legal size, and even whether it was definitely a striped bass, there is good reason to support Option B, which would require anglers to retain the racks of the filleted fish, so that size could be determined; to leave the skin on the fillet, so that species could be determined; and to have no more than two fillets in possession for every rack retained, to better assure that the bag limit was not violated.

The Commercial Quota Reduction Options are much simpler than the options proposed to govern the recreational fishery.  The choice is only between the status quo—making no changes to the commercial quotas, and placing the entire burden of striped bass conservation on the shoulders of recreational fishermen—and reducing each state’s commercial quota by “up to” 14.5%.  When considering this option, it’s pretty clear that Option B, which would reduce commercial quotas, is the only viable choice, as everyone who benefits from the striped bass resource has a responsibility to contribute to the conservation and rebuilding effort.

Unfortunately, because not all of the annual commercial quota is caught—the amount of uncaught fish is relatively small on the coast, but amounted to about one-sixth of the entire 2022 quota in the Chesapeake Bay—a 14.5% reduction in quota does not equate to a 14.5% reduction in commercial fishing mortality, making it less likely that the overall reduction will meet the needed 14.5% cut.  Thus, commenters should urge managers to support the largest commercial quota reduction contemplated in the Draft Addendum, 14.5%, to come as close as possible to reducing overall fishing mortality to the target level.

It is also unfortunate that the Management Board’s August decision to delay action on the Draft Addendum will mean that any reductions in commercial quotas will not be in effect on the first day of 2024.  Such delay may well render any commercial quota reduction meaningless for, as acknowledged on the Draft Addendum’s cover page, the measures that it contemplates are intended to be

“Interim Management Measures,”

which probably won’t survive much past the release of the 2024 stock assessment update, and will most likely be superseded by January 1, 2005.  Because the commercial fishery in some states in the lower mid-Atlantic begins on January 1, the commercial quota cut may not be imposed in 2024; the Draft Addendum notes that

“the implementation schedule of selected measures may span 2024-2025.”

Should the commercial quota cuts not become effective in 2024, achieving the 14.5% overall fishing mortality reduction will not be possible.

Arguably, the final set of options, the Response to Stock Assessment Updates, is the most important single provision of the Draft Addendum.  Even in its best-case form, Draft Addendum II is a weak management effort that is unlikely to achieve its goals.  However, it should also be short-lived.  Once the 2024 stock assessment is released, it will probably indicate that additional management measures will be needed to rebuild the striped bass stock by the 2029 deadline.

Adopting such measures in time for them to do any good would be virtually impossible under the ASMFC’s normal procedures, which would see a new Addendum III authorized no earlier than October 2024, released for public comment late in the winter of 2025, and finally approved in May or August of that year, for implementation in 2026.  While Option A maintains that status quo, Option B would allow the Management Board to take immediate action should the assessment update reveal that there was less than a 50% chance of timely rebuilding the stock under Addendum II’s management measures.  Such rapid response may be needed to rebuild the stock by the 2029 deadline, and stakeholders should aggressively support the option that will allow it to happen.

As mentioned at the start of this essay, Draft Addendum II is a disappointing document, that fails to live up to the requirements established in the Management Board’s May 2023 motion. 

The Management Board intended Addendum II “to implement commercial and recreational measures for the ocean and Chesapeake Bay fisheries in 2024,” yet with the implementation of some management measures possibly delayed until 2025, it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen.

The Management Board’s motion also clearly stated that Addendum II should establish management measures that “in aggregate are projected to achieve F-target from the 2022 stock assessment update (F-0.17).”  Yet the reduction estimates associated with most of the proposed measures are below the 14.5% aggregate reduction needed to achieve F_target; it is difficult to understand why individual measures that would not achieve a reduction of at least 14.5% are even included in the Draft Addendum.

As it is, it seems that the Management Board has produced a management document that is almost certainly destined to fail.

Even so, those stakeholders concerned with the future of the striped bass stock, and of effective striped bass management, have good reason to turn out and comment on the Draft Addendum.

They need to support the most effective recreational management measures.  They need to oppose the proposed balkanization of the recreational community, by awarding special privileges to anglers on for-hire boats.  They need to demand that commercial quotas are cut by no less than 14.5%.

And they need to support the option allowing the Management Board to respond quickly to stock assessments and assessment updates, in order to continue rebuilding the striped bass stock.

The debate over Draft Addendum II isn’t going to be one of those consequential battles, like the fight over Amendment 7, that anglers and others can look back on with pride, because they made a real difference in conserving the striped bass stock.  Instead, it’s going to be a lower-key, but not insignificant, debate which, if concluded successfully, might set the scene for future progress.

It is a debate that can’t be ignored, because while even the best provisions of Draft Addendum II probably won’t make things much better, the worst provisions of the Draft Addendum, if adopted by the Management Board, can and probably will make things significantly worse.

 

 

 

 

YES, ANGLERS CAN HARM MARINE FISH STOCKS

I have been involved, to a greater or lesser degree, in marine fish conservation issues since the striped bass stock began to collapse in the late 1970s.  But I didn’t get heavily—some would argue overly—involved in the political side of fishery debates until about three decades ago, after the folks who supposedly represented the local angling community turned their backs on anglers, and instead chose to cater to the recreational fishing industry, in order to assure that the donations that kept their organization going would continue to flow.

It was a story that would repeat itself two decades later, when an association that had once prioritized the health of fisheries resources reinvented itself as a champion of “anglers’ rights,” became an industry shill, and by doing so forced me to leave and carve my own road.

In between, I worked with quite a few people who also cared about marine conservation.  They came from all walks of life, some scientists, some professional advocates, many just anglers who wanted to pass a healthy ocean along to their kids.  In the beginning, I worked very closely with someone who was both a recreational fisherman and the publisher of a widely-read angling newspaper.  While we agreed on just about all of our long-term goals, we differed on one major point.

I thought that proper fisheries management required managers toi regulate all sources of fishing mortality, while he focused on reining in the commercial fleet, and argued that fishing with hook and line, which required the fish to voluntarily strike a bait or lure and caught them one at a time, could never cause real harm to a fish stock, unlike commercial net fisheries that scooped fish out of the water en masse, regardless of whether they were in a feeding mood.

He was even the co-founder of an advocacy group, called the United Gamefish Association or maybe United Gamefish Organization—enough years have passed that I can’t recall precisely—which was focused on conserving striped bass by eliminating the commercial fishery.

Similar beliefs animate Stripers Forever, a contemporary advocacy group, although SF also recognizes that anglers can do their share of harm, and some of public relations efforts of the Coastal Conservation Association, which celebrates its efforts to have species such as speckled trout and red drum declared “gamefish,” eliminating the commercial fisheries, while themselves declaring that

“changes in recreational regulations have rarely, if ever, resulted in a direct fishery recovery.”

 What it really comes down to, in the end, is that everyone thinks conservation is a great idea, until conservation efforts begin to restrict their participation in their favorite fishery, at which point conservation is still a great idea, so long as someone else is bearing the conservation burden.

But every so often, someone relatively new to the management arena honestly asks the question of whether angling—defined as fishing with a hook and line—can really cause significant harm to a fish stock.  To many, it seems counterintuitive; after all, it’s a big ocean, big enough that just finding a fish, and convincing it to take a hook, can often seem like a daunting task.  The idea that enough people can find enough fish willing to bite, that they can impact the health of fish populations can  be a bit hard for some to believe.

On the other hand, we’ve seen the damage that nets can do.

We’ve seen purse seiners in the Atlantic nearly wipe out generations of young bluefin tuna, ultimately putting themselves out of business in the process.  

We’ve seen trawlers scour the banks off New England for cod and other groundfish, removing so many that, after a while, what were once some of the most productive fishing grounds in the world are now comparatively barren.  

And anyone who has ever read Peter Mattheissen’s book, Men’s Lives, will recall his description of a New York haul seine crew targeting striped bass off North Carolina, enclosing so many fish in their net that its meshes began to break, driving the fishermen to run additional nets around the first and eventually dragging so many fish to the beach that they flooded the markets, and had to bury thousands of pounds of unsold bass in the sand.

So yes, commercial netters can do, and have done, a lot of harm, but what we have to remember is that, at least in United States waters, all that damage was done in the days when fisheries were largely unregulated.  

Today, we have some of the most highly regulated commercial fisheries in the world, with fishermen licensed at both the state and federal levels, new entries into many fisheries tightly restricted, and catch monitored on nearly a real-time basis.  While commercial abuses still occur, it is typically by rogue individuals; for the most part, domestic commercial fisheries are managed well and do no harm to fish stocks.  The size of the commercial fleet is relatively small, and its numbers are on the decline.

On the other hand, there are a lot of recreational fishermen out there and, collectively, they catch a lot of fish.  The most recent version of Fisheries of the United States, a report issued by the National Marine Fisheries Service, noted that

“U.S. anglers took nearly 200 million trips in 2020.  These recreational anglers caught an estimated 2 billion fish and released 65 percent of those caught.  The total recreational harvest was estimated at 344 million fish with a combined weight of more than 353 million pounds.  The top U.S. species ranked were striped bass, bluefish, red snapper, spanish mackerel, spotted seatrout, and dolphinfish.”

That “top U.S. species ranked” statement is a little misleading, and probably reflects angler preferences more than anything else.  When ranked by the weight of fish landed, yellowfin tuna led the pack, with over 17 million pounds (about 595,000 fish) landed.  Ranked by numbers of fish caught, the leader was spotted seatrout (54 million), followed by Atlantic croaker (53 million), black sea bass (44 million), gray (“mangrove”) snapper (42 million), and hardhead (“sea”) catfish (39 million).  However, the number of fish caught doesn’t necessarily track the number of fish killed and taken home, a list led by spot (20 million), scup (14 million), Atlantic croaker (14 million), spotted seatrout (13 million), and bluefish (10 million).

Some of those popular recreational species, most notably yellowfin tuna, black sea bass, and red snapper, support very active commercial fisheries.  Others, such as striped bass and bluefish, support far more modest commercial efforts.  Others, including spotted seatrout, see relatively low commercial landings.

So when we ask the question of whether recreational fishing can harm a fish stock, we should examine one of the species which supports relatively little commercial activity, but is very popular with anglers.  Spotted seatrout in the Gulf of Mexico and, more particularly, Louisiana might be a good place to begin.

The National Marine Fisheries Service reports that commercial spotted seatrout landings in the Gulf of Mexico for 2022 were just under 30,000 pounds, with the bulk of that, 28,252 pounds, taken in Mississippi and almost all of the rest from the Gulf Coast of Florida.  Louisiana had no reported commercial landings at all.

Recreational landings for the entire Gulf of Mexico are much harder to discern, since neither Louisiana nor Texas participates in NMFS’ Marine Recreational Information Program.  Thus, all we know for sure is that recreational spotted seatrout landings for 2022, in Alabama and Mississippi, and along the Gulf Coast of Florida, were a little over 8,200,000 pounds—recreational landings for just three of the five Gulf states were well over 250 times that size of commercial landings for the entire Gulf of Mexico—so it’s probably safe to say that, whatever problems might beset the Gulf’s spotted seatrout population, outside of those caused solely by cold snaps and other natural events, they lie at the feet of anglers and not the commercial fishery.

Spotted seatrout aren’t a migratory species, and so tend to stick relatively close to their home waters.  Different states manage them differently.  

Florida maintains relatively conservative rules for anglers fishing its Gulf Coast, who may retain between 3 and 5 spotted seatrout per day, which must measure between 15 and 19 inches in length, although anglers may keep one larger fish each day.  Florida’s spotted seatrout population is in relatively good shape, except where populations have been devastated by the red tide.

In Texas, anglers may keep 5 spotted seatrout between 15 and 25 inches long, again with one of the five fish allowed to be larger.  However, the state admits that its regulations would not allow a sustainable fishery if hatcheries weren’t used to artificially inflate the overall population.

But in Louisiana, anglers may—with some local exceptions—keep 25 spotted seatrout per day, as long as such fish are at least a foot—just 12 inches—long.  And Louisiana’s spotted seatrout are badly overfished and in serious trouble.

Louisiana is trying to improve its spotted seatrout management program, but it is getting strong pushback from elements of its recreational fishing community, particularly the Louisiana Charter Boat Association and the state chapter of the Coastal Conservation Association, which are dead-set against increasing the size limit above 12 inches, even if such increase would make a meaningful improvement in the spotted seatrout’s spawning potential.

In fact, the quote that I provided at the start of this essay, about changed regulations not leading to stock recovery, came directly from CCA Louisiana’s campaign to keep foot-long seatrout vulnerable to recreational harvest.

So, do anglers killing so many little seatrout actually impact the Louisiana population?  Given the lack of a commercial fishery, it seems that there is little other likely cause for that population’s decline.  Louisiana’s state fisheries managers have said that

“[O]verfishing and other factors have caused the [spotted seatrout] stock to become almost completely comprised of smaller, younger fish…Given this imbalance, there is concern that a major collapse could occur in the event of a poor recruitment year (e.g. major freeze)…

“ Very few more speckled trout can be produced from other sources…This means that gains and losses will be the result of management within the recreational fishery.”

And that makes sense, given that the truncation of a population’s age and size structure is almost always tied to excessive fishing mortality, and the only people killing spotted seatrout in Louisiana are anglers.

The problems besetting Louisiana’s speckled trout are a textbook example of how recreational fishing pressure, and recreational pressure alone, can decimate a fish population.

Of course, most fish populations support at least a somewhat more active commercial fishery.  Striped bass are a perfect example; in that fishery, commercial fishing may account for as much as 20% of all fishing-related removals.  

In such situations, where an extremely popular recreational species is also targeted by a commercial fishery, anglers need to recognize that recreational fishing still accounts for a substantial majority of the fishing mortality, placing significant pressure on the species, and that commercial fishing only adds to the stresses already placed on the stock by the recreational sector.

While, in such situations, it wouldn’t be accurate to blame the recreational sector for the entirety of the stock’s problems—anyone who catches fish and/or kills fish, intentionally or incidentally, is part of the problem confronting the stock, and should contribute to the management solution—it is equally wrong to minimize recreational impacts and try to argue that “gamefish status” would put the management effort back on the needed track.

Even anglers who release every fish they catch can contribute to a stock’s decline.  The most recent benchmark stock assessment for striped bass found that, for the period 2015-2017, release mortality accounted for 48% of all recreationally-related fishing mortality.  And that assumes that the estimate of just 9% of all bass dying shortly after release is accurate. 

While some anglers argue that such estimate is high, there is reason to believe that, at least in the case of larger bass, it may be underestimating the number of fish that don’t survive after being returned to the water.

In a recent Facebook post, John McMurray, an experienced and capable charter boat captain from western South Shore Long Island, noted that most anglers were ignoring the regulation requiring anglers to use circle hooks when fishing with bait.  Instead, the nearly universal practice is to cast a barbed, weighted treble hook into a menhaden school, snag a bait, and then allow the bait to sink beneath the school, so that the bass ends up hooked on the big treble, not on a single circle hook.  Such bass can frequently end up fatally gut-hooked—although Capt. McMurray observes that he sees a lot of bass gut-hooked with circle hooks, too.  But his most relevant observation, with regard to this post, is that

“during the last several days I’ve seen A LOT of floaters around, which REALLY has me questioning the efficacy of the slot limit.”

That’s a valid observation.

Anglers often point to, and complain about, the striped bass that they occasionally see floating behind a commercial boat, and argue that the commercial boats do all the damage.  But they are far slower to acknowledge the floaters that appear around the recreational fleet, both in the ocean and in the Chesapeake Bay, or that wash ashore on the beaches frequented by surfcasters, fish that don’t show up in the landings estimates, are undercounted in the release mortality numbers, but nonetheless contribute to the stock’s problems, as untallied victims of snag-and-drop, gut hooking, exhaustion, and cameras. 

And that doesn’t count recreational poaching, which is not insubstantial.

So yes, recreational, hook and line fishing can and has contributed to the depletion of various fish stocks.  Fingers pointed only at the commercial fleet are often pointed in the wrong direction.  Yet there is still good news.

Good regulations, good law enforcement, and good angler behavior can eliminate most of the problems, and lead to sustainable fisheries, for recreational and commercial fishermen alike.  We all have the power to help those things come about, and should make an effort to do so.

 

 

 

 

CONSERVING STRIPED BASS: DON'T BE MISLED BY MENHADEN

 

I’m probably going to upset some folks, but let’s get two things straight from the start: Striped bass are having some serious problems, while Atlantic menhaden are doing just fine.

I know that’s not the narrative that you hear from some quarters, so let’s do what we always should do when discussing fisheries issues—fall back on the science.  

With regard to striped bass, the last stock assessment update shows that the stock is overfished, although overfishing is no longer occurring.  Most of the striped bass on the coast are spawned in the Chesapeake Bay, with about two-thirds of the Chesapeake spawn occurring in Maryland, and the rest in Virginia.  Maryland has experienced spawning failure for the past five years.  Virginia for the past three.  And if the 2023 juvenile abundance index for the Delaware River proves to be as low as it was in 2021 and 2022, we’ll see spawning failure in that waterway as well.

So there’s no question at all that the bass stock is troubled.

When it comes to Atlantic menhaden, we see a very different outlook.  The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, which is responsible for managing the menhaden fishery between Maine and southeastern Florida, informs us that

“The [ecological reference point] assessment evaluates the health of the stock in an ecosystem context, and indicates that the fishing mortality (F) reference points for menhaden should be lower [than those used in a single-species stock assessment] to account for menhaden’s role as a forage fish.  The [ecological reference point] assessment uses…an ecosystem model that focuses on four key predator species (striped bass, bluefish, weakfish, and spiny dogfish) and three key prey species (Atlantic menhaden, Atlantic herring, and bay anchovy).  These species were chosen because diet data indicates that they are top predators of Atlantic menhaden or are key alternate prey species for those predators…

“In August 2020, the [Atlantic Menhaden Management] Board approved the following [ecological reference points] in the management of Atlantic menhaden:

“ERP target:  the maximum fishing mortality rate (F) on Atlantic menhaden that sustains Atlantic striped bass at their biomass target when striped bass are fished that their F target.

“ERP threshold:  the maximum F on Atlantic menhaden that keeps Atlantic striped bass at their biomass threshold when striped bass are fished at their F target.

“ERP fecundity target and threshold:  the long-term equilibrium fecundity that results when the population is fished at the ERP F target and threshold, respectively.

“Atlantic striped bass were the focal species for the [ecological reference point] definitions because it was the most sensitive predator fish species to Atlantic menhaden harvest in the model, so an [ecological reference point] target and threshold that sustained striped bass would likely provide sufficient forage for other predators under current ecosystem conditions…

“Under the [ecological reference points], Atlantic menhaden are neither overfished nor experiencing overfishing.  In 2021, population fecundity (FEC), a measure of reproductive capacity of the population, was above the ERP threshold and target…and fishing mortality (F) was below the ERP overfishing threshold and target…  [emphasis added]” 

In other words, the Atlantic menhaden stock is perfectly healthy.  Not only are there enough menhaden around to ensure the long-term health of the stock, provided that environmental conditions don’t change and fishing mortality doesn’t increase substantially but, because of how the ecological reference points are defined, there are more than enough menhaden in our coastal sea to support a completely recovered striped bass population—and our current striped bass population is still a very long way from that point.

So it’s completely clear, from a scientific perspective, that the current lack of striped bass has absolutely nothing to do with a lack of menhaden. 

That’s a fact that many people still don’t understand, and that lack of understanding creates a potential roadblock to effective striped bass management.

On October 18, I listened in on the most recent meeting of the ASMFC’s Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board.  At the beginning of the meeting, the Board’s Chair opened up the meeting to ten minutes of public comment, which was supposed to address issues that were not on the meeting agenda.  It seemed that most of the public wanted to talk about menhaden, and some of that talk made it clear why focusing too much on menhaden can harm the striped bass.

One speaker, Ron Zalesak, is apparently the president of the Southern Maryland Recreational Fishing Organization, which recently sued the state of Virginia over its commercial menhaden regulations (although it should be noted that Mr. Zalesak spoke only for himself, and did not hold himself out as a representative of the organization).  He argued that the mortality rate (he did not specify whether he meant the fishing mortality rate or the natural mortality rate, although the latter would seem more likely, given the context) of striped bass was “directly tied” to the mortality rate of menhaden, an assertion that does not find support in the latest benchmark stock assessment (it is possible that Mr. Zalesak was confused by the definitions of the ERP target and threshold, which are expressed in terms of a fishing mortality rate that leaves enough menhaden in the water to provide adequate forage for the striped bass stock; however, nothing in those definitions suggests that changes in menhaden mortality would necessarily lead to a change in striped bass mortality, as would be the case if the two mortality rates were “directly tied").

But where Mr. Zalesak’s comments really went astray was when he noted that Maryland’s striped bass harvest had decreased by 72% since 2016, then alleged that such decrease was due to a lack of menhaden, and not overfishing.  That comment, more than any other that he made, exposed the danger of focusing on menhaden, rather than on striped bass biology, for if managers took that allegation at face value, it would mean that to rebuild the striped bass stock, their first concern should be rebuilding the menhaden stock, and not addressing striped bass fishing mortality.  Such course could only lead to more problems for the bass population. 

After all, the benchmark stock assessment demonstrated that the stock was experiencing overfishing in 2016, and in the years immediately before and after,  Such overfishing could only drive down striped bass abundance in the long term.  Thus, managers’ first obligation—pursuant to the management plan as well as pursuant to the best available science—was to end overfishing and reduce fishing mortality to a sustainable level, something that was at least temporarily achieved in 2020 after Addendum VI to Amendment 6 to the Atlantic Striped Bass Interstate Fishery Management Plan went into effect.

If the Management Board had shared Mr. Zalesak’s beliefs, and focused on menhaden rather than on ending overfishing, the striped bass stock would almost certainly be in even worse condition than it is today.

Furthermore, Mr. Zalesak’s comments also ignored the impact of spawning success on striped bass abundance, and on the striped bass catch in the Chesapeake Bay. 

 In 2016, Maryland striped bass anglers were still enjoying the benefits of the big 2011 year class of striped bass, the fourth-largest year class recorded in the Maryland juvenile abundance survey, which dates back to the 1950s.  Another big year class, the 2015s, were still too small to harvest, but were nonetheless being caught by anglers.  With the exception of 2017 and 2018 year classes, which were marginally above-average, striped bass spawning success for the rest of the relevant period was far below average, with spawning failure occurring in the last five years.  Given that so many fewer fish were available to anglers in recent years, it’s hardly surprising that Maryland’s recreational striped bass catch fell by roughly 73.5% between 2016 and 2022, from about 15.3 million fish to less than 4.1 million, and harvest, which is less dependent on the most recent year classes fell by about 58.5% during the same period.

The decline Mr. Zalesak referred to was solely due to factors affecting the abundance of striped bass—overfishing and poor recruitment—and not the abundance of menhaden. 

The most recent benchmark stock assessment noted that the model used to develop the ecological reference points

“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,”

although it also noted that

“diet studies of large striped bass by Walter and Austin (2003) and Overton et al (2008) suggested a greater role of Atlantic Menhaden of all ages in striped bass diets.”

Maryland found that the abundance of juvenile menhaden in 2023 was the highest that it has been since 1990; the big striped bass year classes of 1993, 1996, 2001, 2003, 2011, and 2015 were supported by far smaller juvenile menhaden populations than we see today, which ranged between 10.1% and 24.1% of current juvenile menhaden abundance (the 1996 year class, the largest in the time series, occurred when Maryland’s juvenile menhaden abundance was 14% of what it is in 2023), which again provides compelling evidence that a lack of menhaden has little to do with the current state of the striped bass population.

Yet we constantly hear menhaden blamed for the lack of striped bass, and not only by Maryland anglers.  Two Connecticut charter boat captains who also commented at the October 18 meeting seemed to blame menhaden for the lack of striped bass activity.  One said that he was not seeing menhaden, but that there was nonetheless

“An abundance of striped bass about two miles outside the harbor,”

while the other argued that the amount of larger striped bass—defined as fish over 25 pounds—was “100% related” to the amount of menhaden in the area.  He connected the lack of striped bass in his area to the recently increased commercial menhaden quota, saying’

“I have not seen a pod of bunker in months now, months.”

What he apparently also did not see—or did not care to look at—was the Maryland juvenile abundance index from a few years ago.  For if we assume that a 25-pound striped bass is 12 or 13 years old, and we look at striped bass recruitment from, say, 12 to 20 years ago, we find decent year classes in 2003 (fish that would be close to 50 pounds today) and 2011 (bass just approaching, or just above, the 25 pound mark), but in between those years, the Maryland juvenile abundance index, which provides the best single gauge of striped bass abundance, was well below average.  (It should be noted that the Hudson River produced a large year class in 2007, which contributed to the number of 40-pound fish available today, particularly in areas such as Raritan Bay, New York Harbor, western Long Island Sound and off Long Island’s western South Shore.)

It might be somewhat reassuring to blame a lack of larger bass on a lack of menhaden, particularly if you’re a charter boat captain who doesn’t want to see more restrictive regulations that might chase away customers, but the plain truth of the matter is that you can’t catch a fish that was never spawned, and relatively few bass were spawned during the years 2004-2010, leaving a big hole in the population structure.

Menhaden might make the relatively small number of larger bass easier to catch, but the lack of larger striped bass on many parts of the coast is, again, primarily due to poor recruitment in the Chesapeake Bay, and not a lack of menhaden.

So why are so many people focused on menhaden as the primary cause of the striped bass’ problems?  Probably because the fish was, at one time, the worst-managed fish out of all the species under the ASMFC’s aegis, with the menhaden industry, and particularly the menhaden reduction industry, setting the rules and providing the supposed science in a classic case of the fox guarding the henhouse.

That led to a lot of pro-menhaden publicity, as a number of conservation and recreational fishing organizations fought, for many years, to oust the industry from its catbird seat and create the same sort of management structure for menhaden as the ASMFC used for every other stock it manages (I began working on menhaden issues around 1996 or 1997, and know folks who already had years invested in the issue before I ever came on the scene).  That issue was finally resolved in 2001.

Then, in 2007, H. Bruce Franklin wrote a book titled The Most Important Fish in the Sea, which arguably overstated menhaden’s importance (are they really more important, all things considered, than mullet, herring, sardines, or sand eels?) and contained some misinformation (adult menhaden’s characteristic filter feeding is probably not critical to the health of East Coast bays), but undoubtedly thrust the menhaden into the public consciousness, with not only anglers, but birdwatchers, marine mammal fans, and others concerned with the health of the nation’s coastal waters becoming overnight menhaden advocates.  Conservation groups benefitted from the increased public awareness, and menhaden remained high on their priority lists.

That translated into undoubtedly worthwhile efforts to have menhaden managed primarily for their value as forage fish, rather than as a commodity reduced into fish oils and meal, and various industrial feedstocks, which culminated in 2017’s Amendment 3 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Menhaden, which opened the door to ecological reference points, and ultimately in the 2019 Atlantic Menhaden Ecological Reference Point Stock Assessment Report which, for the first time, applied ecological reference points to the menhaden stock, and found that even under that more restrictive standard, the stock was unquestionably in good health.

By any rational measure, the menhaden advocates had won.  They could point to a healthy menhaden stock capable of fulfilling its role in coastal ecosystems, a sustainable menhaden harvest and, for the first time at the ASMFC or, for that matter, in any East Coast fishery, a management plan based on the ecological role of the managed species, and not merely on sustainable landings.

There are still some peripheral issues outstanding, such as the possibility of local depletion, particularly in the Chesapeake Bay; of damage to inshore bottom structure when nets were deployed in shallow water, and the level of bycatch in the menhaden fishery.  All are worthy of further discussions.  But, when viewed from a stock-wide perspective, the menhaden advocates had achieved all of their major goals.

But then, a funny thing happened.  Many of the advocates did not understand that they’d won.  Instead, they started to blame largely imagined problems in the menhaden stock for real issues in other fisheries.

Right now, on the Atlantic coast, striped bass are the biggest victim of that misunderstanding, as well-meaning advocates—and others seeking to find a justification for continued overharvest—blame the decline in striped bass abundance on a supposed lack of menhaden.

That can have very real, and very negative, consequences for the striped bass stock, if managers fail to take meaningful measures to reduce striped bass fishing mortality, and abandon meaningful efforts to timely rebuild the striped bass population, and instead focus on the menhaden fishery as the cause of the striped bass decline.

Now that the ASMFC’s Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board has approved Addendum II to Amendment 7 of the Atlantic Striped Bass Interstate Fishery Management Plan for public comment, and will be holding hearings all along the striper coast during November, everyone concerned with the health of the striped bass stock must focus on the real problems confronting the bass, and not cloud the issue with unsupported allegations of a menhaden shortage.

For make no mistake:  There are people who are all too willing to stall the striped bass’ recovery, and to put the bass’ future in peril, in order to increase their short-term gains from the fishery.  Some of those people even hold seats on the Management Board.  Handing them a ready-made excuse to stall, or at least weaken, Addendum II, and blame the bass’ problem on menhaden, is the last thing that the striped bass, or striped bass fishermen, need at this time.

As the hearings on Addendum II begin, the Management Board must hear our desire to reduce striped bass fishing mortality.  It must hear that we want the Board to act quickly in response to an adverse stock assessment in 2024.  It must hear of our concerns with spawning failure in the Chesapeake Bay.  For all of those things bear on the future health of the striped bass stock.

But the Board shouldn’t have to hear about menhaden at all.

ASMFC APPROVES STRIPED BASS ADDENDUM II FOR PUBLIC COMMENT

 

Last Wednesday afternoon, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board approved Draft Addendum II to Amendment 7 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass for public comment.  The draft addendum will be published on the ASMFC website sometime before the end of this month.  Once published, public comment will be accepted and public hearings held throughout November and into December.  If all goes as planned, the final version of Addendum II will be adopted in January 2024, and implemented later that year.

It's hard to know what to think about the proposed Addendum.

On one hand, it represents a necessary step toward the timely rebuilding of the striped bass stock, and is a clear improvement over the emergency measures adopted last May.  

On the other hand, it seems to be another example of the ASMFC’s unfortunate tendency to do too little, too late, as the Addendum’s management measures, taken as a whole, seem more likely to fail than succeed, and will be implemented too late to impact some commercial fisheries in the mid-Atlantic region which open on January 1, 2024.

In fact, it was noted at the beginning of Wednesday’s meeting that states may not be required to comply with all of Addendum II’s provisions until 2025.  That may well render such provisions meaningless, as Addendum II is primarily intended to govern striped bass fishing during the 2024 season.  

It is generally expected that, a little less than one year from now, the Management Board will be presented with the 2024 update to the last benchmark stock assessment, and that once such update is released, the Management Board will have to implement another, more restrictive management regime beginning in 2025, to keep striped bass rebuilding on track.

Still, there are some good things in Addendum II that deserve public support, and some bad things that can warp the fishery management process, now and in the future, if allowed to remain in the final version.  In addition, on multiple occasions throughout Wednesday’s meeting, various Management Board members expressed their desire to receive public input on management alternatives—and in particular the more problematic management alternatives—before finalizing the Addendum.

Thus, anyone concerned with effective striped bass management ought to appear at the hearings and/or provide written comments, if for no other reason than to make it clear to the Management Board that rebuilding the striped bass stock by the 2029 deadline remains a priority.  

Draft Addendum II is a clearly flawed document, yet it will nonetheless have a meaningful impact on striped bass management, and it is incumbent upon those who support sustainable striped bass management to try to make that impact as positive as possible.

Many of the Draft Addendum’s flaws were due to no fault of the Atlantic Striped Bass Technical Committee or Plan Development Team, but can instead be attributed to the motion that authorized the Addendum’s development, which read

“Move to initiate an Addendum to implement commercial and recreational measures for the ocean and Chesapeake Bay fisheries in 2024 that in aggregate are projected to achieve F-target from the 2022 stock assessment update (F-0.17).  Potential measures for the ocean recreational fishery should include modifications to the Addendum VI standard slot limit of 28-35” with harvest season closures as a secondary non-preferred option.  Potential measures for Chesapeake Bay recreational fisheries, as well as ocean and Bay commercial fisheries should include maximum size limits.  The addendum will include an option for a provision enabling the Board to respond via Board action to the results of the upcoming stock assessment updates (e.g., currently scheduled for 2024, 2026) if the stock is not projected to rebuild by 2029 with a probability greater than or equal to 50%.”

That motion effectively proscribed many actions that the Management Board might have included in Addendum II to better ensure the recovery of the striped bass stock, and instead focused such Addendum solely on reducing fishing mortality to the target level, an action that might or might not allow a timely recovery to occur (a rough projection provided at Wednesday’s meeting, which the Technical Committee made very clear was subject to significant uncertainty and was not presented as a formal projection, indicated that if Addendum II managed to successfully achieve the fishing mortality target, there was still a 52% probability that the stock would not rebuild by the 2029 deadline).

At the same time, it seems that the measures that are included in Draft Addendum II are heavily biased toward failure.  Dr. Katie Drew, speaking on behalf of the Technical Committee, advised the Management Board that, depending on the options ultimately included in the final version of Addendum II, such Addendum had somewhere between a 33% and 56% probability of reducing fishing mortality to its target level in 2024, and only somewhere between a 33% and 51% probability of rebuilding the stock by the 2029 deadline.

Once again, it needs to be said that such projections provide, at best, only rough-and-ready estimates, that may prove to be very different from the formal projections that will appear in the 2024 stock assessment update.  In an effort to illustrate the level of uncertainty surrounding the projections, Dr. Michael Armstrong, the Massachusetts fishery manager, asked whether, if a management measure was assigned a 40% probability of success, it meant that, in reality, the probability might actually be anywhere between 20% and 70%; Dr. Drew confirmed that was more or less the case.

Still, there is no directionality to the uncertainty—it is equally likely that it overstates as understates the likelihood of success—so it’s not unreasonable to take the rough projections as some evidence that Addendum II is more likely to fail than succeed.

One would think that the striped bass deserves a little more consideration than that, even if Addendum II isn’t likely to survive past the end of 2024.  After all, the motion initiating Addendum II called for “an Addendum to implement commercial and recreational measures for the ocean and Chesapeake Bay fisheries in 2024 that in aggregate are projected to achieve F-target from the 2022 stock assessment update (F-0.17).”  Given that language, any combination of measures unlikely to achieve the fishing mortality target—that is, any combination of measures with less than a 50% probability of success—should not even be included in the Draft Addendum.

According to the information available at last Wednesday’s meeting, in order to have at least a 50% probability of achieving the fishing mortality target, overall fishing mortality must be reduced by no less than 14.5%; if all of the reductions are to be achieved through recreational management measures, recreational-related fishing mortality must be reduced by no less than 16.1%.

So what, precisely, does the Draft Addendum provide?

Most of the management measures address the recreational fishery, which is hardly surprising, given that most of the striped bass fishing mortality is generated by the recreational sector.  As is typically the case, the recreational measures are broken down into those governing the ocean fishery, and those governing the fishery in the Chesapeake Bay.

The options for the recreational ocean fishery are where the Draft Addendum goes farthest astray.  To understand why, one need only recall the old adage which states that

“The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.”

When the emergency management measures were adopted last May, there was some grumbling in the recreational community, primarily among the for-hire fleet and other industry-related entities, that such measures were put in place without any consultation with or input from recreational fishermen or the recreational fishing industry.  At least a few state managers responded to such complaints by assuring dissatisfied fishermen and fishing-related businesses that they would be consulted before any other management decisions are made.

Yet the draft Addendum II that emerged from the August Management Board meeting had only two options for the general ocean size limit—it would either be status quo, defined as the 28- to 35-inch slot which was in place prior to the emergency action, or the 28- to 31-inch slot created by the emergency measures.  To some managers, that limited choice wasn’t really a choice at all, and was inconsistent with their promises to consult with the recreational community before taking further management actions.

Thus, Dr. Justin Davis, Connecticut’s primary marine fisheries manager, felt obligated to provide additional choices, and moved to add an option proposing a 30- to 33-inch slot limit.  Such slot would expose more of the important 2015 year class to harvest, and only reduce fishing mortality by an estimated 12.8%, rather than the 14.1% reduction that would supposedly be achieved by maintaining the current 28- to 31-inch slot.  Dr. Davis claimed that the uncertainty surrounding both projections was so great that, for practical purposes, they were indistinguishable, yet the larger slot’s increased input on the 2015 year class remains impossible to ignore.

The other unfortunate addition to the Draft Addendum, which was made in August, was a provision that would grant special privileges to anglers fishing from for-hire vessels, allowing them to retain fish that fall within a 28- to 33-inch slot, rather than the narrower slot applicable to everyone else.

The conservation impacts of such a so-called “sector separation” measure are minimal; allowing anglers on for-hire boats to keep fish falling within the broader slot, rather than the current 28- to 31-inch size limit, would only lead to a 0.1% increase in overall fishing mortality.  However, the policy implications of such balkanization of the recreational sector are more significant.

First, it is difficult to justify favoring one sector of the recreational sector over others.  If the premise behind such sector separation proposal is accepted as true—that some anglers want to take home striped bass, and the current, narrow slot limit hurts the for-hire fleet’s business because it prevents them from doing so—shouldn’t the same consideration apply to other recreational sectors?  That is, if some anglers won’t patronize a for-hire boat because their chances to keep a bass have diminished, doesn’t it also follow that some surf or private boat anglers won’t buy bait, buy tackle, or patronize fuel docks for the same reason?  And if that’s the case, then why should the Management Board elevate the interests of the for-hire fleet above those of tackle shops, fishing stations, fuel docks, and similar enterprises?

Beyond that question, there is the more profound public policy question of whether it benefits the public interest to subsidize an industry with a disproportionate share of a publicly-owned resource, when that industry, in the third decade of the 21^st Century, insists on maintaining a mid-20^th Century business model that emphasizes killing substantial numbers of striped bass, despite changing demographic, economic, biological, and environmental conditions that, in combination, call for more conservative management measures. 

Or, to put it more simply, why should the public reward an industry that refuses to change with the times with a greater share of the striped bass resource, at a time when everyone else in both the recreational and commercial fisheries are being asked to reduce their level of fishing mortality?

Such questions apply not only to the for-hire fleet in the ocean, but also in the Chesapeake Bay, where other special concessions to anglers about for-hire vessels are being considered.

Not all Management Board members were comfortable with the notion of awarding special privileges to for-hire anglers.  Massachusetts’ Dr. Armstrong noted that

“Splitting modes is a huge move if we do it,”

while David Sikorski, Maryland’s Legislative Proxy, argued that doing so, at a time when the striped bass stock might be at risk of collapse, would be a mistake, and would be

“Sending the wrong signal.”

He noted that

“We’re in a time of conservation.  When to we stop with the carve-outs?”

and asked

“How quickly do we want to race to the bottom? Is how I look at this sector separation issue…We’re racing to the bottom.”

Despite such sentiments, the concept of sector separation seemed to have significant support among Management Board members, and it may take concerted public opposition to keep it out of the final version of Addendum II.

Measures specific to the recreational fishery in the Chesapeake Bay were less objectionable.  The number of options appearing in the Draft Addendum was narrowed a bit, to remove the options that permitted inconsistent regulations in neighboring jurisdictions, as well as options that reduced fishing mortality by less than 10%.  Options remaining in the Draft Addendum will provide reductions estimated at anywhere from the low double digits to over 20%.  

Maryland fishery manager Michael Luisi made an interesting comment regarding such wide range of reductions, saying

“I would like to hear from our stakeholders to hear whether their interest was in saving themselves for one year or in saving the species for the future.”

Although he didn’t say so, his comment was almost certainly aimed at his state’s charter boat fleet, which has aggressively opposed conservative management measures, shamelessly using their connections with Maryland’s former governor to pressure fisheries regulators into supporting measures that would benefit the fleet in the short term, but harm the long-term prospects of the striped bass population.

Finally, the Management Board stripped out all of the potential commercial management options from the Draft Addendum, except for a single provision that, if approved, would reduce commercial quotas by no more than 14.5% across the board.  Because the entire commercial quota is never landed in any fishing year, such provision would reduce commercial fishing mortality by less than 14.5%, largely due to some states with commercial quotas outlawing their commercial fishery, and the lack of striped bass in North Carolina’s waters, which prevents that state’s fishermen from utilizing its existing quota.

Thus, when all is considered, Addendum II is unlikely to achieve the 14.5% reduction in fishing mortality needed to achieve the target level, and is even less likely to allow the stock to rebuild by 2029.  However, that is only part of the story.  There is good news out there as well.

Based on preliminary data from Waves 1-4 (January through August), it appears that the emergency management measure will be successful in returning 2023 recreational landings to 2021 levels, and avoiding a repeat of 2022’s excessive removals.  For the period January 1-August 31, 2023, overall recreational removals were estimated at 2,470,426 fish, which compares favorably with the 2,474,425 fish estimated to have been removed for the same period in 2021.  If that pattern holds for the rest of the year, the emergency management measures will have been successful in reducing recreational removals by 25%, compared to 2022.

Since Addendum II will hopefully build on the emergency regulations by imposing greater restrictions in the Chesapeake Bay recreational fishery and in the commercial fisheries in both the ocean and Bay, it should cause overall removals to be further reduced.

On the downside, even if Addendum II, and whatever additional measures are adopted by the Management Board, manage to rebuild the striped bass spawning stock biomass by 2029, the future of the stock is far from assured.

At this point, all of the fish needed to rebuild the population have already been spawned; the increase in spawning stock biomass will be achieved largely by those fish already in the population growing in size, and not by more fish being recruited into the stock.  However, striped bass recruitment, in three out of the four major spawning areas, has generally been below average in recent years, with only the Hudson River showing relatively good production.  Thus, even if the spawning stock biomass is rebuilt to its target level by 2029, such biomass will begin to decline shortly thereafter, and managers will not be able to restore it, much less maintain it at the target level in the long term, until recruitment improves substantially.

We will probably be fretting about the health of the striped bass stock for a very long time.

Still, Draft Addendum II represents a stopgap that can keep things from getting worse over the next few years.  It is in the interest of all striped bass anglers to turn out for the hearings, send in written comments, and do everything within their power to convince the Management Board to make the long-term interests of the striped bass its priority.

If the Management Board fails to heed such requests, the foreseeable future of the striped bass, and everyone who depends on it, whether for recreation, for food, or for profit, is likely to be extremely bleak.