OF MODERN FISH AND FREUDIAN SLIPS

We’ve all heard of “Freudian slips,” words used in inappropriate contexts that are said to accidentally reveal thoughts that the speaker preferred to keep hidden.

There’s been a lot of debate about whether Freudian slips are truly “Freudian” at all, or whether they’re just a product of sloppy thinking or a tired mind.  However, whether or not actual Freudian slips occur, there are certain actions—not just limited to accidentally inappropriate words, but to other acts as well—that are called “parapraxis” and can be explained as

“the manifestation of a subconscious desire, for example oversleeping on the day of a test, sending an email to the wrong recipient, a slip of the tongue…For psychologists, it is the expression of a repressed desire that resurges through behavior.  Parapraxis then reflects an inner conflict as it expresses an unconscious desire that is impossible to express consciously, but which makes itself known to the individual.”

I couldn’t help thinking about such things this week, as I watched a series of videos produced by supporters of legislation such as S. 1520, the Modernizing Recreational Fisheries Management Act, which its supporters refer to as the “Modern Fish Act,” and H.R. 200, the regressive Strengthening Fishing Communities and Increasing Flexibility in Fisheries Management Act, which represents the only viable Modern Fish Act legislation in the House (H.R. 2023, the original House Modern Fish Act bill, has never been marked up, and so has apparently died in committee).

Before discussing the videos, a bit of background is probably in order.

The so-called Modern Fish Act would weaken the conservation and stock rebuilding provisions found in current federal fishery law, allowing anglers to avoid annual catch limits and any accountability for overfishing, while delaying the rebuilding of some overfished stocks.

Despite that, Modern Fish Act proponents consistently try to portray themselves as conservationists, claiming that their proposed legislation would maintain the health of America’s fish stocks.  In their pamphlet, “A Vision for Managing America’s Salt Water Recreational Fisheries,” which kicked off the effort to weaken America’s fisheries law, Modern Fish Act supporters used the term “conservation” no less than 26 times over just 14 pages, while at the same time urging policymakers to abolish recreational catch limits and delay the rebuilding of overfished stocks.

More than four years after that document was released, they are still actively trying to convince Congress and the public that the Modern Fish Act will

“both improve access and promote conservation of our natural marine resources,”

that

“As anglers, we would never support a bill that would lead to widespread overfishing and fewer fish to catch,”

and that

“the Modern Fish Act gives  recreational angers an opportunity to continue to lead in conservation.”

That’s clearly the message that Modern Fish Act supporters consciously want to convey.

But if we watch the videos, a very different message is subconsciously creeping out, and it’s one that contradicts the intended story.

The true story—rather than the one that they intend to tell—best begins with a video created by the Center for Sportfishing Policy, which features Kellie Ralston, a spokesperson for the American Sportfishing Association, a fishing tackle trade organization, urging support for the Modern Fish Act.

Ms. Ralston opens the piece with a criticism of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, which governs all fishing in federal waters.

“Currently, federal fisheries are managed using commercial fishing concepts like “maximum sustainable yield” and tonnage-based “annual catch limits.”

As she speaks, the background video shows commercial fishermen on a trawler, wearing hardhats and facemasks, hauling in a net.  The scene then shifts to an aerial view of the deck on a large commercial vessel, where thousands of small, silvery fish—perhaps some sort of herring—are pouring down a chute to be iced down and stored in the hold.

The message is pretty clear:  Commercial fishing is an industrial operation that kills lots of fish.  That’s why annual catch limits—allegedly designed for the commercial fishery—must be “tonnage-based.”

Then the scene shifts.  Two recreational fishermen are in a small boat, casting lures in a southern backwater.  There are close-up shots of the anglers’ faces, of casting, of people silhouetted against a reddish sky.  When the one fish shown in this sequence, it is quickly released as the successful angler receives his companion’s congratulations.

While that is going on, Ms. Ralston says,

“Given the nature of recreational fishing, which is based more on the experience than maximizing harvest, this type of [commercially-oriented] is generally not feasible or appropriate.”

That message is pretty clear, too:  Recreational fishermen just want to have fun, and are happy even if they take nothing home, so why manage them with maximum sustainable yield or tonnage-based limits?  There is no reason for such terms to apply.

So far, all is going according to plan.  She is consciously sending the message the Modern Fish Act proponents want her to send.

But then the dissonance sets in.

“Relying on commercial management modes to regulate recreational anglers has resulted in shortened or even cancelled seasons, reduced bag limits, and unnecessary restrictions on anglers.  [emphasis added]”

Stop.  What was that she just said?

We all heard her say that “recreational fishing…is based more on the experience than maximizing harvest.”  Then we heard her complain that the current management system was wrong because it led to “reduced bag limits” and what she considered “unnecessary restrictions on anglers.” 

But if recreational fishermen are primarily concerned with the experience, and not a big kill, why should reduced bag limits be a problem?  Could it be that the “more on the experience” talk is all smoke and mirrors, and that Modern Fish Act proponents are really just trying to put more dead fish in their coolers, weakening the law to keep bag limits high?

Keep asking that question as we look at the next video.

This one strikes a different tone.  It features Nicole Vasilaros, a legislative specialist for the National Marine Manufacturers Association.  Instead of depicting fish—just one sailfish makes a cameo appearance—photos are of people with lots of expensive fishing gear, of boats being built and what might be a new production facility in early stages of construction.

Ms. Vasilaros says,

“Today’s system of fisheries management is outdated, and hampering access for our nation’s recreational anglers.  People won’t purchase boats and equipment if they see no reason to get out on the water…  [emphasis added]”

Again, hearken back to Ms. Ralston’s words in the first video.  She said that concepts such as maximum sustainable yield and annual catch limits weren’t appropriate means to regulate recreational fishermen, and said that anglers weren’t intent on maximizing harvest (even though reduced bag limits were, somehow, bad).  

Yet what is it about today’s federal fishery law that is “hampering access”?

It’s those very same “tonnage-based ‘annual catch limits’” that Ms. Ralston deemed inappropriate, that Magnuson-Stevens requires be set

“at a level such that overfishing does not occur in the fishery.”

It seems that the Modern Fish Act proponents are intent on doing away with annual catch limits in the recreational fishery, just so anglers can overfish--if that’s what’s necessary to give them a “reason to get out on the water” and continue to “purchase boats and equipment.” 

If you think that’s an exaggeration, consider how those folks praised the Secretary of Commerce last summer when he reopened the private boat recreational red snapper fishery in the Gulf of Mexico.  

Mike Leonard, at the American Sportfishing Association, called such reopening

“a welcome relief for the thousands of tackle shops, marinas, equipment manufacturers and others who have suffered from decreasing access to Gulf red snapper in recent years,  [emphasis added]”

even though the National Marine Fisheries Service acknowledged that doing so

“will necessarily mean that the private recreational sector will substantially exceed its annual catch limit, which was designed to prevent overfishing the stock.”

So yes, Modern Fish Act supporters have already demonstrated that they have no problem with recreational overfishing, if it helps “tackle shops, marinas, equipment manufacturers and others” sell more stuff.

In the end, that’s what increased “access” is all about.

And with that, we’ll move on to the third video, which will tie a neat ribbon around it all.

You can find an link to it on he home page of the American Sportfishing Association’s website, as well as on ASA’s Facebook page.  The video is a musical paean to the Modern Fish Act, sung to the tune of Don McLean’s “American Pie.”  

But it’s the lyrics that tell the story…

“A long, long time ago,

In ’76 a bill was passed—

The Magnuson-Stevens Act.

It helped assure that conservation

Helped restore fish population—

Ensure each species got back on track…

Since then a generation’s gone.

The fish have had their time to spawn.

It’s time for us all to move on,

And let the anglers try…

Oh my, my, Magnuson-Stevens Act,

I caught a fish I’d like to keep

but had to throw it right back.

I hope the good old boys

In Congress work to enact,

What We the People want—

The Modern Fish Act…”

And there we have it, all laid out in their own words.  

Despite all of the talk about “conservation,” the “unconscious desires” of the Modern Fish Act supporters have emerged, naked, into the sunlight

.

Magnuson-Stevens may have used conservation to “help restore fish population” and put fish species back on a track toward recovery.  But that happened “a long, long time ago.”  By now, “a generation’s gone.”  “The fish have had their time to spawn.”

Today, “It’s time for all of us to move on,” and leave those days of conservation behind.

It's time to pass the Modern Fish Act, and so ensure that the era of marine conservation—the fishes’ time to spawn—will have ended, and the time for anglers to keep whatever fish they want--and not throw them back--will have begun.

Restrictive bag limits will be a thing of the past, along with annual catch limits that maintain recreational landings below maximum sustainable yield.  Instead, anglers will have greater “access,” overfishing at levels which will give them plenty of reason to get out on the water, and buy lots of new boats and equipment.

Until, of course, the fish disappear.

At that point, someone may have a chance to rewrite Don McLean’s classic again, this time referring to the enactment of the Modern Fish Act as

“The day the fishing died…”

Which is reason enough to contact your reps and senators, and let them know that you’d rather H.R. 200 and S. 1520—the Modern Fish Act—died instead.

For the fish should always have their time to spawn.

DIPLOMACY DOMINATES BLACK SEA BASS DEBATE

Fishery management meetings can be very mundane, on those rare days when there’s no one disputing the data, allocations aren’t being contested and the need for management measures is clear. 

Or they can be bare-knuckled brawls, which pit sectors against sectors, regions against regions or conservationists against the fast-buck crowd.  At those times, tempers flare, pointed comments are thrown and the lambent hostility seems to thicken the air in the room—and that’s just at the management table.  The mood of the audience can make a lynch mob seem tame.

Yet hostility seldom solves problems, and often makes it far more difficult for people to find workable solutions.  While it may be immediately satisfying to posture and make a lot of hostile noise, particularly when cronies are cheering out in the crow, such posturing only causes folks on the other side of an issue to dig in their heels, and be less willing to forge any sort of compromise.

Often, the louder you yell, the less you are heard.

Thus, when the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission held its spring meeting a little over a week ago, it was refreshing to see a particularly thorny black sea bass debate resolved through well-crafted diplomacy, rather than by forcing votes that, regardless of the outcome, were likely to lead to more problems.

Allocation was the key issue, and as anyone familiar with fisheries issues knows, allocation squabbles can be very bitter, and are some of the most difficult fights to resolve.

The black sea bass problem was spawned from a typical set of circumstances.  Warming water had caused the fish’s distribution to shift northward; the fishery in southern states, which had dominated recreational landings a couple of decades ago, had declined, while northern states that had more modest fisheries at the turn of the century suddenly found themselves hosting the lion’s share of the fish.

A recent benchmark stock assessment divided the stock into northern and southern components, and recognized the northern shift in black sea bass abundance.  However, regulations remained mired in past patterns, allowing the southern states, that used to have a lot of fish, to maintain very liberal management measures, while forcing the northern states, where most of the fish now are found and are caught, into ever more restrictive regulatory regimes as their anglers  merely caught the fish that teemed at their doorstep.

That was true even though such benchmark assessment found that

“Relative to F40% (0.355 in the north, 0.365 in the south) [which represents the fishing mortality threshold], the retro adjusted [fishing mortality] in the north (0.14) is well below the threshold wheras retro adjusted [fishing mortality] in the south (0.39) is slightly above…”

meaning that the southern states were arguably overfishing their local black sea bass population (although, since one set of reference points are used for the entire stock, such local overfishing does not trigger any sort of remedial action).

The northern states—those between New York and Massachusetts—believed that the historical approach to black sea bass led to an inequitable result, and tried to correct the problem.  Unfortunately, when the issue ultimately came to a vote, the southern states remained deeply committed to their outdated catch histories, and were unwilling to adopt a new allocation that fully reflected the current distribution of black sea bass.  Because there are more southern than northern states, which lets them control ASMFC’s Summer Flounder, Scup and Black Sea Bass Management Board, the northern states were forced into a so-called “compromise” that compelled them to increase restrictions on harvest once again.

Eric Reid, proxy for Rhode Island’s legislative appointee to ASMFC, probably provided the most apt comment on the situation.

“I don’t need to go to two decimal places to count 6 to 4.  That is my problem.  I do appreciate the fact that we just spent a lot of time trying to cooperate.  When you’re bargaining from a losing position to start with, it really doesn’t make you all that comfortable…”

In the end, the northern states appealed the Management Board’s decision to ASMFC’s Policy Board, and that’s where the diplomacy came in.

At first, it appeared that the northern states had only two choices.  They could take an appeal on the merits of their case and, if the appeal was not successful, they could go out of compliance with ASMFC’s black sea bass management plan, as New Jersey defied ASMFC on summer flounder last season.

Neither option was all that palatable. 

Historically, appeals to the policy board usually failed; there was no assurance that a black sea bass appeal, however meritorious, would fare any better. 

And going out of compliance could have led to even worse outcomes than the Management Board’s decision imposed.  

Ultimately, the states would have to justify their noncompliance to the Secretary of Commerce who, if he ended up dismissing their arguments, had the power to shut down their black sea bass fisheries until they complied.  On the other hand, if the Secretary found their noncompliance justifiable, such finding, combined with the similar finding made with respect to New Jersey’s summer flounder fishery last year, could have emasculated ASMFC’s enforcement powers, and caused serious long-term harm to East Coast fisheries.

Fortunately, the northern states found a more diplomatic approach to their problem, and like most good diplomacy, it involved both a carrot and a stick.

The carrot was rooted in the fact that the 2015 black sea bass year class is very large, and that some of those fish will be larger than 12 ½ inches—the minimum black sea bass size in the southern states—this season.  By adding those newly available 2015s into the pool of fish available to anglers, and thus making more fish available to the entire coast, the southern states, wouldn't have to change their regulations for 2018, and the northern states would actually get a very small increase in quota.

The stick was still noncompliance, but with a twist.  If the northern states went out of compliance, aside and apart from anything the Secretary of Commerce might do, the National Marine Fisheries Service would impose so-called “default measures” of a 5-fish bag, 14-inch minimum size and May 15-September 15 season on everyone, including the southern states.  Such default measures would hit the southern states, with their 15-fish bag limit, 12 ½-inch minimum size, and long fishing seasons, particularly hard.  The southern states didn't want to see that.

So the stage was set for a true compromise that would give everyone some sort of win in 2018. 

But the really big win for the northern states will come in the future, as the Policy Board directed the Management Board to base 2019 recreational measures and, eventually, commercial measures as well, on current patterns of black sea bass abundance, and not on obsolete historical data.

That just shows what diplomacy—and hard work—can do.

There are still some folks who are missing that point, and are complaining that they didn’t get everything that they wanted this year.

But that was never going to happen.  Those who claim otherwise are just fooling themselves—or, perhaps, trying hard to fool someone else.  There are real limits to what the fishery management system allows, and changing that system takes time.

But change, for black sea bass, is coming next year, thanks to the effective diplomacy of fishery managers in the northern states.

For that, they deserve a big round of thanks.

LIVE BLUEFISH MATTER

Anglers and bluefish have a complicated relationship.

We call them “yellow-eyed demons” when they show up in the surf, attacking lures meant for striped bass. And we call them worse things farther offshore, when they show up to ruin shark baits and mangle carefully-rigged—and expensive—ballyhoo intended for tuna.

But when they burst through the surface of a calm summer sea, leaping completely clear of the water before landing headfirst on a topwater plug, we have to admit, however reluctantly, that they are one of the great gamefish of our northeast coast.

Still, great gamefish aren’t always great food fish, and that’s certainly true with big blues.

Small bluefish, fresh from the sea and still lean from their travels, can taste pretty good. Even larger ones that have been feeding on squid, sand eels and butterfish in deep ocean waters can be enjoyable. But once bluefish invade inshore waters and begin feeding on menhaden, their flesh becomes too oily and strong-tasting for most people’s palates.

Thus, most bluefish caught by anglers today are released.

That wasn’t always the case.

During the early years of the fishery, recreational fishermen killed most of their catch, even if they had no intention of eating them. I remember boats coming back to the dock in the 1960s and ‘70s, the anglers on board calling out “Who wants some bluefish?” even before the boats were tied up in their slips.

They got very few takers.

In those days, before states licensed their commercial fishermen, some of the unwanted bluefish were sold to local restaurants. Some were given to (often, almost forced on) reluctant neighbors, while others fertilized gardens. Far too many ended up in a dumpster or were returned, dead, to the bay.

Because bluefish weren’t in much demand as a food fish, the commercial fishery was small; through the 1980s, it only amounted to about 10% of the overall landings. As noted in the initial Fishery Management Plan for the Bluefish Fishery, released in 1989, “bluefish comprise a small percentage of all finfish harvested commercially along the Atlantic coast primarily because the commercial bluefish market is unstable, easily saturated, and characterized by low dockside prices.”

Because anglers so dominated bluefish landings, the original fishery management plan allocated 80% of the bluefish harvest to the recreational sector. When the management plan was amended in 1998, the allocation was amended as well, to 83% recreational and 17% commercial, with the proviso that if the commercial quota in any year was less than 10.5 million pounds, and recreational fishermen were not expected to land their entire quota in that year, a portion of the unharvested recreational quota could be transferred to the commercial sector.

That allocation was based on recreational and commercial landings during the years 1981 through 1989.

During those years, anglers in the New England/Mid-Atlantic region still killed most of their bluefish, releasing only 21% of all the fish caught. Since then, a conservation ethic has pervaded the fishery. In the most recent decade, 2008-2017, that release rate has tripled, with 62% of all bluefish caught returned to the water.

Anglers have come to realize that fishing is more enjoyable when fish were abundant, and that they can help to assure such abundance by releasing unwanted bluefish, instead of using them for crab bait. Unfortunately, it seems that the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council (Mid-Atlantic Council) and Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) now want to penalize bluefish anglers for adopting that conservation ethic.

On April 30, in a joint meeting, the Mid-Atlantic Council and ASMFC’s Bluefish Management Board (Management Board) approved a Draft Scoping and Public Information Document for a proposed Bluefish Allocation Amendment to the Bluefish Management Plan(Scoping Document). One of the primary issues to be addressed in the Scoping Document is whether the current recreational/commercial allocation should be changed.

As the Scoping Document notes, “These allocations were developed using catch data from 1981-1989 (the years prior to regulations that may have affected both recreational and commercial landings) and are still the basis for current bluefish allocations. Stakeholders would like to see allocations reviewed using more recent catch histories.”

While that statement may be true, there are problems with its underlying premise.

Although the terms “catch data” and “catch histories” are widely used in fishery management, it would be far more accurate to say that the allocation and any reallocation of bluefish that might occur are based on “kill” data and “kill” histories, because fish that anglers return to the waters alive were never a part of the calculation.

That skews the allocation discussion, for in catch-and-release fisheries, the most important consideration isn’t sustainable yield, or the number of fish that can safely be removed from the water, but instead sustainable abundance, the number of fish available for anglers to catch, release, then hopefully catch again. Fish can be, and are, utilized, even if they are not killed.

That’s acknowledged in the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (Magnuson-Stevens), which defines “optimum” yield as “the amount of fish which will provide the greatest overall benefit to the Nation, particularly with respect to food production and recreational opportunities… [emphasis added]”

Yet, despite the fact that such language clearly values recreational opportunity as much as it does food production, fishery managers still give purely recreational considerations little weight in their decisions, and instead practice what might be termed “dead fish management,” placing all of the emphasis on harvest. The Mid-Atlantic Council has never acknowledged that recreational fishermen are fully utilizing their bluefish allocation when they maximize recreational opportunities through catch and release.

Capt. John McMurray, an ASMFC commissioner from the State of New York, raised that point at the joint meeting, pointing out that the Scoping Document failed to address “the value of keeping fish in the water.” ASMFC staff agreed to add such language before the document was released to the public.

Capt. Tony DiLernia, who represents New York on the Mid-Atlantic Council, raised another important issue. He pointed out that the Marine Recreational Information Program (MRIP), which estimates recreational catch and recreational harvest, is revising its figures for angling effort. And, as noted in the Scoping Document, “Preliminary MRIP calibration work suggests all effort estimations will increase ~3-5 times. This increase has the potential to drastically alter bluefish catch/landings/effort data for the shore and private angler modes.”

Thus, there is a very good chance that recreational bluefish landings will turn out to be much higher than previously believed, probably high enough that no reallocation of recreational quota to the commercial sector could be justified. Because of that, Capt. DiLernia suggested that the Scoping Document not be released until the revised MRIP data becomes public.

Until then, no one will know how many bluefish anglers truly catch, or kill.

New Jersey ASMFC commissioner Tom Fote agreed. He also reminded everyone that while striped bass may be considered more glamorous, bluefish are the “money fish” on the coast, the fish that, when they are abundant, attract tourists to the party boat fleets and force anglers to replace lures and other gear that the bluefish destroy. An abundance of bluefish is an economic boon.

Despite such arguments, the Mid-Atlantic Council and Management Board, on near-unanimous votes, decided to move forward with the reallocation process and release the Scoping Document for public comment.

That is unfortunate, because the Scoping Document effectively tells anglers that their conservation efforts will prove to be futile, for the fish that they choose to release will only be reallocated to, and killed by, the commercial sector. It tells them that, from an allocation standpoint, they were better off in the days when they fed their dead bluefish to rose bushes and dumpsters, compared to today, when they set most of their live bluefish free.

That is the wrong message to send, and not only because it is contrary to the clear language of Magnuson-Stevens.

It is wrong because it values dead fish more than live ones, when it is only live bluefish, abundant and available, that will allow both the recreational and commercial fisheries to thrive in the future, as well as today.

-----

This essay first appeared in "From the Waterfront," the blog of the Marine Fish Conservation Network, which may be found at http://conservefish.org/blog/ 

NEXT STEPS FOR STRIPED BASS: PART II

Last week, I wrote a piece about possible changes to the way the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission manages striped bass.

ASMFC’s Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board has now held its meeting, and the path ahead has become a little—if just a little—clearer.  Whether you’re optimistic or pessimistic about the future of striped bass management, you could find something that was said at the meeting to support your views.

Once again, ASMFC staff mentioned that the reference points used to define the target spawning stock biomass and fishing mortality rate (as well as the ones used to determine whether the stock is overfished and/or overfishing is occurring) represented a policy decision on “preserving biomass versus allowing fishing.”  

More conservative reference points generally lead to greater abundance, including a greater abundance of the larger, more fecund females, and thus a spawning stock that is more resilient and better able to maintain the population in the face of consecutive years of poor spawns, but require lower levels of harvest.  Less conservative reference points lead to larger harvests in the short term, but increase the likelihood of a depleted stock, or even a stock collapse, should there be poor recruitment for an extended period.

The optimists can point to the fact that a survey of both Management Board and Striped Bass Advisory Panel members revealed that both groups believed that the most important management objective was to

“Manage [fishing mortality] to maintain an age structure that provides adequate spawning potential to sustain long-term abundance.”

Such an objective would require relatively conservative reference points, which would in turn lead to an abundance of striped bass.  

The need for such abundance was also reflected in Board and Technical Committee visions of what constituted a “quality and viable fishery.” 

The greatest number of Management Board respondents described such fishery as one that featured a

“Broad age structure with high abundance of larger, older fish.”

Other highly-ranked options included

“High abundance of market-size fish (>18” in producer areas, >28” on the coast)”

and

“High catch rates, even if not all fish could be retained.”

Advisory panel members chose two of the same three options, ranking an abundance of market-sized fish first, with broad age structure and an abundance of larger, older fish in second place.  Their third choice was

“High abundance of trophy-size fish (>28’ in producer areas, >36” on the coast)”

So it was clear that to many, if not most, members of both groups, abundance—and thus conservative reference points—is a good thing.

But pessimists could also find plenty of comments to justify their view of the striper’s future.  

There are a lot of folks who find the current reference points too conservative; there was also an expressed desire to consider reference points that reflected periods, prior to 2015 (the first season when the current reference points were reflected in regulations),

“when the stock was in good condition.”

At first, that didn’t sound too bad, given that it seemed to include the possibility of biomass reference points reflecting the 2000-2006 period, when there were plenty of striped bass around.  

However, things quickly went downhill after a clarification that such retrospective glance would apply primarily to the fishing mortality reference points—F_target=0.30 and F_threshold=0.41—in place at the time (F_threshold was reduced to 0.34 in a 2011 stock assessment update), with which allowed a substantial kill, and not the biomass reference points, which would have required something close to today’s level of harvest.

Such past reference points would certainly incorporate a higher level of risk than the current F_target=0.18 and F_threshold=0.219.  While it’s impossible to deny that such higher reference points allowed the striped bass spawning stock to reach high levels of abundance in the early years of this century, and didn’t prevent the production of dominant year classes in 1993, 1996, 2001, 2003 and 2011, it’s also impossible to ignore the fact that they also permitted the sharp, decade-long decline in bass numbers that anglers are lamenting today.

More conservative reference points could better avoid such steep declines, and provide a more consistent—but still varying—level of abundance.

It’s harder to categorize some Management Board members’ aversion to biologically-based fishing mortality and biomass thresholds.

Because there was no clear consensus on whether the Management Board wanted to manage the striped bass stock for stability and abundance or for short-term yield, a motion was made to include a range of fishing mortality and spawning stock biomass reference points in the stock assessment, which the Management Board could later review when deciding upon the appropriate risk profile.

Doug Grout, a fisheries manager representing New Hampshire, attempted to amend that motion, to provide that the fishing mortality and spawning stock biomass thresholds be biologically-based, and not based on the 1995 level ofabundance, as is currently the case.  

Presumably, such biological reference points would be tied to the fishing mortality rate and spawning stock biomass calculated to produce maximum sustainable yield; the corresponding targets would be calculated to reflect the risk of overfishing, or producing an overfished stock, that the Management Board was willing to accept.

That seems logical, and is largely how federal fisheries are managed, in order to prevent overfishing and rebuild overfished stocks.  However, ASMFC is not subject to the requirements of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, so absent a clear mandate to set fishing mortality and spawning stock thresholds at sustainable levels, it is free to allow overfishing to occur (as it did in the most recent tautog management plan, which permits overfishing to continue in Long Island Sound until at least 2029) and does not require overfished stocks to be rebuilt by any predetermined deadline, if at all (also the case with Long Island Sound tautog, as well as for weakfish, Southern New England lobster and a number of other depleted stocks).

Thus, when the Management Board voted 9 to 6 against requiring that threshold reference points be biologically based, it provided real reason to worry that some members wanted the “flexibility” to allow overfishing and delay rebuilding the stock, should it ever become too small to produce maximum sustainable yield.

On the other hand, given that the 2011 stock assessment update revealed that F_msy=0.34, and that unless such calculation changed, a biologically-based F_threshold would equal 0.34 as well, it might turn out that non-biological reference points would set the threshold somewhat lower, and result in fewer fish being killed.  While the Management Board might have set F_target well below 0.34, in order to minimize risk to the stock, it also would have been free to set F_target=F_threshold, even though that normally isn’t done.

Thus, the jury will remain out on this issue until the stock assessment is completed, and we see what set of reference points the Management Board actually prefers.

With respect to such Management Board action, this week’s meeting conveyed a bit of good news.  Going in, there was concern that the Management Board might adopt a set of reference points that would not fulfill the current goal of the management plan, which is

“To perpetuate, through cooperative interstate fishery management, migratory stocks of striped bass; to allow commercial and recreational fisheries consistent with the long-term maintenance of a broad age structure, a self-sustaining spawning stock; and also to provide for the restoration and management of their essential habitat.”

However, Max Appleman, ASMFC’s Fishery Management Plan Coordinator for Atlantic Striped Bass, reassured all present that

“the goal of this exercise [to recommend reference points] is to give the stock assessment team a starting point,”

and that any change to the fishery management plan goals, or to the current reference points, would have to be done through the customary adaptive management process, requiring an amendment or addendum and extensive public comment.

Thus, we’re all now in a waiting mode.

The stock assessment, which will include a range of reference points and an explanation of their consequences, will be prepared over the next few months, and peer-reviewed late this year.  It will probably be presented to the Management Board next February.

We can only guess what happens then.

There is the likelihood that a coalition of Chesapeake Bay jurisdictions, almost surely abetted by New Jersey and Delaware, will push for less conservative reference points, and an increased striped bass kill.

There is also a distinct possibility that the reference points ultimately provided in the stock assessment will not apply to the entire striped bass stock, and will instead be specific to each of the three sub-stocks (fish spawned in Chesapeake Bay, the Delaware River estuary and the Hudson River, although the Delaware and Hudson fish might, at least for a time, be combined).  If that occurs, some of the reference points may look very different from what we see now, even if they are substantially similar in effect.

Thus, for the next nine months or so, anglers concerned with the striped bass’ future won’t have too much to do. 

We need to keep our ears open, in case there are new developments.  We need to network, and get folks prepared for bad news.  And we need to again do what we did in 2014; get out and fight for the long-term health of the striper, once the draft addendum/amendment is finally released, and the inevitable effort to increase the kill begins.

No, tha fight never ends.  But at least this time, we’re coming off a win, and have something to defend.