BLACK SEA BASS: MANAGING THE UNMANAGEABLE IN THE NORTHEAST

 

If someone wants to understand why fisheries managers get grey hairs, they only need to look at the northern stock of black sea bass; that is, those fish found north of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina.

Start with the fact that the species is a protogynous hermaphrodite, an animal that begins life as a female, then transitions to male at some older, larger point.  That’s not too unusual a life history; it’s shared by quite a few species, including many of the not-too-distantly related groupers.

Except that north of Cape Hatteras, not all black sea bass follow the hermaphroditic lifestyle; some are apparently born male, and some seem to remain female throughout their lives, meaning that fishery managers need not only consider the age and size at which the transition from female to male occurs, and whether and how such transition might be impacted by fishing pressure, but also the effects of small “sneaker” males and larger, more fecund females on spawning potential.

From there, add the fact that black sea bass seem to be one of the species that is benefitting from a warming ocean.  It is expanding its range farther north, into the rocky waters off New England, where the stock might (or, perhaps, might not) be benefitting from the abundance of hard-bottom habitat that is far less available off the mid-Atlantic coast.  In addition, the success of any black sea bass year class is highly dependent upon the temperature and salinity of the water it encounters during its first winter at the edge of the continental shelf; a warming ocean makes it more likely that such favorable conditions will be found much more often.

Something seems to be favoring the species right now, because black sea bass have, for the past decade or so, been at a very high level of abundance in the northeast for the past decade or so; although accurate historical records are limited, it is very possible that it has recently been enjoying unprecedentedly high level of abundance in the region.

One might think that such abundance would make black sea bass an easy species to manage, but that has not proven to be the case.  Instead, the black sea bass fishery, and in particular, the recreational black sea bass fishery, presents one of the most difficult current challenges for East Coast fishery managers.  The recreational fishery has proven to be nearly unmanageable.

Part of the problem comes from the fact that abundance drives recreational fishing effort.  Anglers tend to target the fish that are easiest to catch, so as black sea bass became more available, more and more fishermen began to target them, and such increase in effort, also fueled by a decline in summer flounder, outpaced the increase in sea bass abundance.  Regulations grew more restrictive in response. Fishery managers never seemed able to get in front of the problem, yet refused to take the one action that could have halted the spiral of excessive landings leading to greater restrictions:  Adopting an annual catch target that accounts for the management uncertainty that has always plagued the process of setting annual regulations.

As a result, going into the 2023 season, it appears that managers will have to adopt additional restrictions once again, in order to achieve a 10% reduction in landings.

Part of the problem probably comes from the fact that the northern stock of black sea bass seems to consist of three separate breeding populations which don’t seem to mix on their summer spawning grounds but, because of differing migration patterns, demonstrate a pattern of partial mixing over the winter. 

The northern spawning population summers between central Long Island, New York—approximately the area around Moriches Inlet—into New England, and spends its winters at the edge of the continental shelf, somewhere between Long Island/New Jersey and Virginia/North Carolina.  The central spawning population summers and spawns between central Long Island and northern Virginia, and engages in shorter winter migrations in a generally southeast direction, while the southern spawning population summers off southern Virginia and norther North Carolina, and makes seasonal migrations in an east/west direction.

The black sea bass stock assessment tries to capture such population differences by assuming a northern and southern sub-stock, divided by Hudson Canyon, off the Long Island/New Jersey coast. 

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission took a slightly different tack, and has created three different management regions; one such region includes New York and New England, one only the state of New Jersey, and one the states between Delaware and northern North Carolina.  Regulations for each region differ, and don’t necessarily track regional abundance. 

Counterintuitively, the northern region, which hosts the most fish during the summer, also has the most restrictive regulations.  For example, in 2022, Massachusetts set a 4-fish bag limit, 16-inch minimum size, and May 21-September 4 season, while New York adopted the same 16-inch size limit, but split its season into two parts, with a 3-fish bag limit from June 23-August 31, and a 6-fish bag from September 30 through the end of the year.

New Jersey, on the other hand, adopted a far more complex, and ultimately more permissive, set of rules, that included a 10-fish bag limit and 13-inch minimum size between May 17 and June 19, closed the season from June 20 through June 30, reopened the season with a 2-fish bag limit for the period July 1 through August 31, closed it again from September 1 through October 6, reopened it again from October 7 through October 26 with an increased, 10-fish bag limit, before closing it for just five days, October 27 through October 31, and finally reopening it for the rest of the year with a higher, 15-fish bag. 

The southern states adopted regulations that were certainly simpler than New Jersey’s, but were also slightly more permissive, even though the number of black sea bass in southern waters is relatively small.  Virginia’s 13-inch minimum size, 15-fish bag limit, and a season that ran from May 15 through December 11, were typical, although the rules differed slightly in other states.

Because of the regional management structure, the same fish may be treated differently at different times of the year.  A fifteen-inch black sea bass might be safe in Massachusetts during the summer, but when it migrates southeast in the fall, and winters on grounds accessible to boats from New Jersey or states even farther south, it may be legally landed; bag limits nearly four times as high as the limit in Massachusetts can result in many such fish being removed from the stock. 

Such regulatory disparity can easily make Massachusetts (and Rhode Island, Connecticut, and New York) anglers ask why recreational black sea bass fishermen are so tightly restricted in the northeast, when the same sea bass that northeastern fishermen must release during the summer can and will be killed elsewhere on the coast during the winter season.

More generally, such restrictive regulations cause northeastern anglers to wonder why, with black sea bass so abundant in that region, they must endure the most restrictive regulations on the coast, when anglers in states farther south, where sea bass are less abundant, are allowed to harvest more and smaller fish.

It's probably not surprising that the current regulatory scheme is causing some real unhappiness among northeastern anglers.  Nor is it all that surprising that some anglers are expressing their dissatisfaction by ignoring the black sea bass rules.

Such rule breaking has been particularly evident in the party boat sector, where gross violations of black sea bass bag limits have occurred.  I’ve reported on such violations before, when anglers on some Montauk party boats were caught keeping as many as 90-plus sea bass, instead of their legal limit of three.  Just last week, while reading the most recent newsletter of the Suffolk Alliance of Sportsman, I came across an item written by an environmental conservation officer reporting on illegal happenings here on Long Island.  It read,

“Many anglers are done fishing by December but, for those willing to take a long trip way offshore, there is still good black sea bass fishing to be had.  [Environmental conservation officers] Perkins, Cacciola, Hilton, and DeVito are aware of this fishery, and targeted a party boat returning to Captree State Park on the evening of December 29^th.  Complainants said that the target boat was keeping over-limit black sea bass, and ECOs had written the boat tickets in late summer for short fluke.  As the boat arrived at the dock, ECOs quickly realized that there were many anglers with over-limit black sea bass, and began to collect IDs and associate fish to each person.  When the situation was controlled, the violators were split up, interviewed, then issued tickets.  Some fishermen admitted they knew the limit was just 6 black sea bass, some claimed the mates and captain told them it didn’t matter, and one tried to claim it was a ‘New Year’s Limit.’  In total, 14 fishermen were written tickets for over limit black sea bass and over 100 fish were seized…The captain of the vessel was also ticketed for underreporting catch on the vessel trip report and over limit black sea bass…  [emphasis added]”

Reading such report, two things stand out.  The first is that the environmental conservation officers were apparently responding to complainants’ tips, which suggests that incidents of anglers going over the black sea bass limit, at least on that particular boat, were fairly common events.  The other is that the crew of the boat seemed to be not only aware of, but actively supportive of, such overages, and encouraged passengers to violate the law.  While such active encouragement has not yet been proven, the fact that the enforcement officers split up the alleged poachers, and yet heard the same story from multiple sources, strongly suggests that the claim is true.

Such connivance on the part of for-hire crew is not limited to New York, but has occurred elsewhere in the region.  It does not appear that we’re going to see better compliance at any time soon; at the January 2023 meeting of New York’s Marine Resources Advisory Council, one Montauk party boat captain announced that, if black sea bass regulations become any more restrictive this year—and that will almost certainly happen—he would no longer try to keep his customers in compliance; he blatantly challenged law enforcement to board him and try to enforce the rules.

In an effort to maximize black sea bass landings at a time when abundance is very high, the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council adopted a so-called “Harvest Control Rule” that would strictly limit harvest reductions, even in the face of gross recreational overharvest, when the spawning stock biomass of black sea bass (and three other species) is more than 150% of the biomass target.  Such approach would allow the Council to sidestep the requirements of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, by setting annual harvest limits that exceed the annual catch limit for the recreational sector.  Such an approach is of questionable legal validity, and has not yet been approved by the National Marine Fisheries Service.

At the same time, at least when viewed from one perspective, such Harvest Control Rule doesn’t seem unreasonable; if black sea bass are at a very high level of abundance, the stock is in no immediate peril if somewhat excessive levels of harvest, and even outright overfishing, are tolerated for a few years.  At the same time, while spawning stock biomass remains very high, with the last stock assessment update estimating it at about 210% of the target level, such biomass has been falling steadily since peaking in 2014, and may well decline farther toward the biomass target.  Should that occur, regulations will, at some point, become much more restrictive.

So if fishery managers maintain relatively liberal regulations in place for the short term, in response to protests from some elements of the angling public, they do so with (hopefully) the awareness that, at some point in the future, they may be forced to adopt regulations that will appear extremely restrictive, and probably draw an equally extreme reaction from parts of the angling community, in order to maintain spawning stock biomass close to the biomass target.

It's the classic case of deciding whether to make a small down payment on sustainability today, in order to maintain the stock close to current levels for a longer period of time, or to maximize current harvest and, in doing so, make it more likely that a very substantial landings reduction will probably be needed five or ten years down the road.

For fishery managers, who will eventually face hostile public opinion no matter what option they choose, it seems very much like a lose-lose proposition.

So is there any way to effectively manage the so-far practically unmanageable recreational black sea bass fishery in the northeast?

The answer may well be yes.

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s regional management system is on the right track, but is badly in need of revision.  The three regions currently recognized don’t really reflect what’s happening on and under the water.  There is no convincing argument for establishing a region containing only New Jersey.

While some small part of southern New Jersey may share the summer black sea bass fishery with Delaware, it is more closely connected to New England and New York.  During the summer, boats from New York and northern New Jersey share the same waters, often fishing side by side on the same wreck or piece of structure.  During the winter, fish that have migrated down from New England and eastern Long Island fuel the greater part of New Jersey’s fishery.  Thus, the ASMFC’s management plan should include only two regions, one composed of New England, New York, and New Jersey, which all share similar regulations and the same pool of fish, and one composed of states between Delaware and North Carolina.  Such structure would combine the fish currently allocated to the two northernmost regions, allow New York and New England to adopt somewhat more generous regulations, and provide more equitable management measures among states that largely share the same body of fish.

To improve the management process, regulations should be made more consistent across regions and across time.  Breaking regulations down by state, and then further breaking down state regulations by time of year, results in less precise landings data, and makes it more likely that regulations will fail to adequately constrain recreational landings.  To accomplish the needed end, black sea bass management should resemble the management approach currently used for scup, with the states responsible for the great majority of the landings—in the case of black sea bass, Massachusetts through New Jersey—all adopting the same size limit, bag limit, and season length. 

If NMFS ultimately disapproves the Harvest Control Rule, an annual catch target that considers management uncertainty should be adopted.

When setting or revising seasons, the release mortality rate should be considered.  While such rate is relatively low—about 15%--in the summer, shallow-water fishery, barotrauma causes it to rise sharply, to about 50%, in the winter fishery, which is prosecuted in much deeper water.  Thus, minimizing or completely shutting down the portion of the season that occurs concurrent with the deep-water fishery would eliminate substantial waste of the black sea bass resource.

Finally, a more aggressive approach to black sea bass poaching needs to be taken, as the mere threat of fines, combined with the low likelihood that any individual violation will be detected, has proven to be inadequate to deter illegal landings.  Administrative sanctions, which have rarely been used up to now, offer an attractive option.

For individual anglers, revoking the fishing license of repeat offenders, thus invoking the Interstate Wildlife Violator Compact, would probably have far greater deterrent effect than the possibility of just paying a few dollars for illegal fish.  Pursuant to such Compact, states share information on poachers with all other Compact members (currently, every state except Hawaii), and anyone who has a license revoked or suspended due to illegal activity in one state will become ineligible for hunting, trapping, and/or fishing licenses, for the duration of the revocation/suspension, in 48 other states as well.

An angler is likely to think twice before risking that sort of sanction.

When it comes to for-hire vessels with a history of repeat violations—and need for repeat violations should be emphasized, as a single misdeed is better addressed with less drastic measures—states should be more willing to suspend the vessel’s for-hire license, and keep it tied to the dock for some period during the fishing season.  The potential for such a penalty would have a far greater deterrent effect than the threat of a simple fine; although the required administrative hearing would be time-consuming, should a suspension be imposed, it would not only sanction the offending vessel, but provide any vessel operator tempted to break the law with a strong incentive to stay honest.

Managing the recreational fishery for black sea bass presents challenging issues, yet such issues are not insurmountable.  Provided that the political will exists, it is possible to create a system that will be more equitable, and be far more defensible, than the system employed today.

Such change will not be easy.  But it is needed nonetheless.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

LOUISIANA SPECKLED TROUT: POLITICS TRUMPS SCIENCE--AGAIN

 

It seems that every level of human endeavor has its own “big lie,” an idea that, although patently untrue, is repeated ever more loudly and insistently by its proponents, who hope that if they do so long enough, people will accept the falsehood as truth.

Probably the biggest lie in fisheries management, currently being perpetuated by groups such as the Center for Sportfishing Policy and Coastal Conservation Association, is that fisheries management is more effective when carried out on the state, rather than on the federal, level.

There’s no objective support for such proposition, if by “effective” fisheries management, one means the sort of management that leads to the prompt rebuilding of overfished stocks, and maintaining such stocks at healthy and sustainable levels for the long term.  

While federal fishery managers have an excellent record of ending overfishing and rebuilding overfished stocks, with the National Marine Fisheries Service having fully rebuilt 47 once-overfished stocks since the turn of this century, state managers have a far more checkered record; some of the most important state-managed recreational fish stocks, including striped bass, southern flounder, speckled trout, and even tarpon, along with local populations of snook, tautog, and red drum, are not doing too well.

When exposed to the harsh and objective light of science, supported by equally objective data, the big lie is quickly revealed; state-managed fisheries aren’t doing too well.

But that’s only true if one believes that science-based management, which yields healthy and abundant fish stocks for all stakeholders to use and enjoy, is the right criterion by which to judge the management process.

The federal fishery management process, bolstered by the legally enforceable management standards included in the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, is fairly hard to warp in a way that will favor one stakeholder group over another, or that elevates the interests of a particular group over those of the general public.  With enough work, it can still be done, but it takes a lot of time, effort, and political clout, along with enough money to buy all three, to get there.

We actually saw it done—twice—in 2017, when then Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross overrode, without even consulting federal fisheries scientists, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s finding that New Jersey was out of compliance with the ASMFC’s summer flounder management plan, and also approved an illegal extension of the private boat recreational red snapper season in the Gulf of Mexico, knowing that overfishing would certainly occur.  But even in an administration that held conservation concerns in deep contempt, and sought to monetize the nation’s natural resources, such “wins” took some work to achieve.

On the other hand, the state fisheries management process is easier to push in any desired direction.  While the fishery managers themselves are, with few exceptions, dedicated professionals who try their best to serve the public interest, they work for administrative agencies that are very much subject to the chief executive’s whims.  While the President of the United States is unlikely to get deeply involved in fisheries matters, state governors, who may be elected by fairly thin margins, are far more attuned to the politics that surround fisheries issues.

State fishery managers, far more than their federal counterparts, can find themselves in a position where they must do as the chief executive dictates—even if the best scientific information dictates otherwise.

So if one takes the position that the most effective fishery management process isn’t the one that’s driven by science, but rather by political influence, and if one prefers a system that caters to short-term economic concerns over one that works to assure the long-term health of fish stocks, then state fishery management programs begin to look very attractive.

We saw why, one more time, last week in Louisiana, when the political process again trumped scientific advice, and doomed the state’s speckled trout population to a tenuous and troubled future.

I’ve written about this topic many times before, beginning over six years ago, in September 2016.  By then, Louisiana’s speckled trout were already in significant decline, with a spawning stock biomass about half of the target level.  Yet things have only gotten worse since then, despite the fact that the fishery was, and still is, overfished by any reasonable definition of that term.

It’s not that state managers haven’t tried to address the situation.  They acknowledge that

“overfishing and other factors have caused the stock to become almost completely comprised of smaller, younger fish.  While there are still some older and larger trout out there, nearly 95 percent of today’s stock is comprised of one and two-year old fish.  While it is true that larger fish are more likely to be female (and have more eggs per individual), these smaller fish make up the vast majority of spawning stock biomass (reproduction potential).  Given this imbalance, there is concern that a major collapse could occur in the event of a poor recruitment year (e.g. major freeze).  By decreasing the current creel limit and raising the minimum size, it is hoped that more of these young fish will be allowed to spawn and help the stock recover while rebuilding the older age classes of females.”

Louisiana’s state fisheries biologists invested about two years in constructing regulations that were generally acceptable to the state’s anglers, and yet would also allow the speckled trout stock to rebuild.  They ultimately proposed reducing the bag limit from 25 trout to 15, and raising the size limit to 13 ½ inches from 12. 

Even such more restrictive regulations were more permissive than those anywhere else on the Gulf Coast.  To the east, Louisiana’s neighboring state of Mississippi has a 15 fish bag limit and 15-inch minimum size, while to the west, Texas allows anglers to keep only 5 fish per day, with the same 15-inch minimum size, although no more than one of the five fish may be more than 25 inches in length.

In October 2022, Louisiana’s Wildlife and Fisheries Commission voted to approve the proposed regulations.

The science, and science-based management measures, had done the best that it could.  Now, it was time for politics to undo what the science had wrought.

While Louisiana fisheries managers had conducted surveys which found that

“a majority [of surveyed anglers] indicated they were moderately to extremely concerned for the spotted seatrout stock,”

and generally supported the proposed regulations, the sad fact is that individual anglers don’t have much political clout; such clout is largely reserved to the organizations with the money and contacts needed to move the political system.

In Louisiana, with respect to speckled trout, that boiled down to the Louisiana Charter Boat Association and the Louisiana chapter of the Coastal Conservation Association, neither of which were enamored of the proposed regulations.

Neither organization seemed to have a problem with the proposed 15-fish bag limit; given that one angler, who was present at the Wildlife and Fisheries Commission meeting when it approved the proposed rules noted that

“The average guy catches two to five fish,”

such limit probably had no practical impact on fishermen.

However, both were adamantly opposed to the increase in the minimum size. 

The charter boat association claimed that it was hard to find a speckled trout more than 12 inches long—not surprising given how badly overfished the stock had become, and with continued overfishing removing most of the fish as soon as they grew into the existing size limit—and that a 13 ½ inch minimum would be bad for business.

The impacts of a continued decline in speckled trout abundance—spawning stock biomass is already at an unprecedented low level—on the charter business apparently never entered into the association’s considerations.  They may have yet not realized how difficult it will be to run a fishing business without any fish.

Coastal Conservation Association Louisiana claimed to be worried about the impact of a higher size limit on the number of larger, more fecund female trout—the same fish that both the state biologists and the charter boat association say no longer exist in appreciable numbers—and made the remarkable statement that

“Although Louisiana anglers harvest less than 2 trout per trip on average (according to [Louisiana’s Department of Wildlife and Fisheries]), we see a reduction from 25 fish to 15 fish as a reasonable move, in the spirit of conservation.”

CCA Louisiana also claimed that

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

Given that the speckled trout stock is both overfished and experiencing continued overfishing, that 99% of the fishing mortality is attributable to the recreational sector, and that Patricia Banks, assistant secretary of fisheries for the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries has flatly stated that

“The fact is that the population cannot sustain the level of removals that is going on right now.  We are taking too many fish out of our waters,”

it seems impossible to argue that reducing recreational landings would be the fastest, best, and really the only way to reduce the level of removals and stop overfishing from occurring.

However, such logic, along with the facts that support it, are no match for political maneuvering.  And so, after the Wildlife and Fisheries Commission approved the proposed regulations, they had to make it over one more hurdle—the state legislature, a place where politics ruled.

In that arena, given the recreational organizations lobbying against their approval, the proposed regulations were doomed.

Yet there are still hopes for Louisiana’s speckled trout.

Fishery managers could try to amend their proposal, in an effort to come up with something that the politically-connected fishing groups might accept.  However, at this point, it doesn’t appear that an increased size limit will meet with their approval, and the current size limit, absent an extremely small bag, won’t do the trout any good.

Fishery managers could also ask Louisiana’s governor, John Bel Edwards, to order the adoption of the proposed rules, and so cut the legislature out of the process.  That might be a somewhat more viable approach, but there is no guarantee that politics won’t prevail over science in the governor’s office as well.

If it does—or if the proposed rule never makes it that far—Louisiana’s speckled trout will be just one more species betrayed by the state management system, and one more victim of fisheries’ Big Lie.

 

 

 

 

WINTER FLOUNDER: MANAGERS WAVE THE WHITE FLAG

 

It’s hard to watch a fishery die, particularly one that you’ve been a part of for virtually all of your life.

I’ve long mourned the demise of the Southern New England/Mid-Atlantic (SNEMA) stock of winter flounder.

I’m not sure when I caught my first flounder, but if I had to guess, I’d say it was sometime during the summer of 1957, when my parents would take me down to a park along the Connecticut shore. There, my father would cast sandworm-baited hooks into the tide and, when something bit, let me reel the fish in. Because of those trips, I was a committed angler by the time I first walked through a kindergarten door, and for that, flounder deserves most of the credit or blame.

Throughout the early 1960s, whether we fished from shore or from our newly purchased used boat, flounder were our usual target. Although they were most abundant during the spring and fall, we caught them throughout the year. Whenever we went fishing, we had faith that at least a few flounder would be around.

And, for decades, they were.

Then, in 1979, things got a little strange. Before then, when we caught a lot of winter flounder, they were generally small. The fish that we kept probably measured somewhere between eight and twelve inches, with most toward the lower end of that range. We released a lot of smaller fish, including quite a few “postage stamps” just three or four inches long, while fish over a pound were rare. Prior to ’79, I never caught a winter flounder that weighed more than a pound and a half.

But in the fall of ’79, we suddenly experienced a flood of larger fish. Many exceeded a pound, and a few two-pounders were caught. There were still smaller fish around, but beginning in ’79, and continuing through the early 1980, large flounder began made up a bigger share of the catch.

In late 1983, I traded Connecticut’s waters for the shallow, sandy expanses of New York’s Great South Bay, where flounder seemed even more abundant than they were in Long Island Sound. The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) estimates show that, in 1984, New York anglers took home about 12.6 million winter flounder, more than they landed in any year before or since. But the trend that we first noticed in Connecticut continued; we were catching more larger flounder, but seeing fewer small fish.

 

In 1988, New York adopted an 8-inch minimum size for recreationally-caught winter flounder; by then, recreational flounder landings had already fallen to 3.8 million pounds, just 30% of what they had been five years before. The fish were clearly experiencing problems, but no one was quite sure what they were, or how to solve them.

Back then, as now, managers recognized three stocks of winter flounder: Southern New England/Mid-Atlantic, Gulf of Maine, and Georges Bank. They believed that the SNEMA stock spent summers in the ocean, entered bays and estuaries in the fall, spawned in late winter, and departed the bays in late spring, although managers recognized that some individuals remained inshore. Recreational and commercial management measures were based on such belief. Both the NMFS and the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) managed the SNEMA stock as a single unit, across a range that stretched from southern Massachusetts to Maryland.

Research conducted in Long Island’s Shinnecock Bay suggests that such broad-scale management may not be appropriate, given the winter flounder’s complex stock structure. The researchers noted that,

 

Winter flounder movements in Shinnecock Bay deviated from the expected behavior for this species south of Cape Cod in terms of inshore residency and response to the seasonal environment. This study provides supporting evidence that winter flounder in Long Island bays exhibit a complex stock structure that warrants further investigation to identify biological traits exhibited by resident and dispersive groups…Complex stock structure may be more common in winter flounder than previously thought…Resolving the stock structure and migratory behavior of Long Island winter flounder is crucial to determine the impacts of local harvest on the sustainability of the species. If resident winter flounder represent a separate genetic population, the seasonally more abundant dispersive population may mask a long-term decline in resident winter flounder that once supported Long Island fisheries and may eventually lead to extirpation of residents. This outcome would require management of each population separately based on population-specific life history variables. On the other hand, if resident and dispersive winter flounder are contingents within a single genetically distinct population that exhibit partial migration, the relative impact of harvest on resident and dispersive individuals can be complex. Management would need to consider the relative abundance of each contingent through habitat or other conservation efforts aimed at a specific contingent.

The management measures that were put in place proved ineffective. The New England Fishery Management Council, which had jurisdiction over the species in federal waters, refused to establish commercial harvest quotas until an amendment to the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act forced it to do so in 2010; the stock was already in such poor condition that such quota was, for a brief while, set to zero. Inshore, winter flounder were such an important part of the recreational fishery for such a long time that state efforts to conserve the species ran into stiff resistance from members of the recreational fishing industry.

 

Natural threats were also increasing. Flounder in their first year of life were facing increased levels of predation from blue crabs as well as summer flounder. Warming inshore waters led to an increased abundance of sand shrimp, a small crustacean that was frequently preyed upon by adult winter flounder, but has now become an important predator of flounder eggs and recently-hatched juveniles.

 

The SNEMA stock spiraled downward, falling so low in some New York bays that genetic diversity was lost and inbreeding began to occur.

 

The last complete assessment of the SNEMA stock, referred to as a “benchmark,” or “research track” stock assessment, was released in 2011. It set the spawning stock biomass (SSB) target at 43,661 metric tons (MT). At the end of 2010, the SNEMA SSB was a mere 7,076 metric tons, far below the SSB target and just 16% of the biomass needed to produce maximum sustainable yield. Rebuilding efforts did not improve the health of the stock. A stock assessment update released in 2015 found that, by the end of 2014, SSB had decreased to 6,151 metric tons, with few young flounder recruiting into the population.

 

SSB continued to decline. A stock assessment update released in 2017 found it had fallen to 4,360 MT, while a third update, released in 2020, saw a further decline to 3,638 MT. Recruitment remained unacceptably low.

 

Updates to the 2011 benchmark stock assessment whittled away at the SSB target. The 2015 update, informed by new data, lowered the target from 43,661 to 26,928 MT; the 2017 update reduced it again, to 24,687 MT. The 2020 assessment then cut the SSB target in half, to 12,261 MT, on the assumption that the low recruitment which had plagued the stock for years would continue well into the future.

The panel that peer reviewed the 2020 assessment update suggested that even the most recent lowering of the SSB target might have understated the impact of chronically poor recruitment. It wrote,

The Peer Review Panel notes, as had been done in previous reviews, that recruitment had been declining throughout the period and was currently very low. As for several other stocks under the purview of the [Northeast Fisheries Science Center] it would be helpful to evaluate if the previously observed high recruitment are possible; i.e., is it simply a matter of building back [spawning stock biomass] and recruits will follow, or are there other factors at play. If the productivity of the resource(s) has decreased, it would be helpful to adjust reference points accordingly. This would be unlikely to change fisheries yield much but would be more realistic in terms of setting expectations.

A paper published in October 2021, in the journal Marine and Coastal Fisheries, strongly suggested that recruitment could be restored. It observed that “larger, older spawners contribute diverse spawning behaviors and disproportionately more to reproductive output,” and argued that years of overfishing led to a population dominated by smaller, younger fish that could not produce sufficient recruits.

 

The paper noted that

For a species that has failed to recover spawner biomass and consistently displays low annual recruitment despite the recent recovery of age structure and reduced fishing effort, long-term fishing reductions (i.e., a moratorium) may be required to promote full recovery.

In 2009, NMFS declared a moratorium for the SNE/MA stock in federal waters; however, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission allowed commercial and recreational fishing to continue in state waters despite depletion of the stock. For Winter Flounder, which has a generation time of about 10-15 years, a moratorium of 10-15 years may be necessary for the population to reap the benefits of the rebuilt storage effect, whereby periodic production of strong year classes by older, larger individuals in years of favorable conditions could spearhead biomass recovery. [references omitted]

Unfortunately for SNEMA flounder, neither the scientists who update the stock assessment, the administrators at NMFS’ Greater Atlantic Regional Fisheries Office (GARFO), nor the New England Fishery Management Council (Council) shared the researchers’ view. The 2022 stock assessment update, following the guidance provided by the Peer Review Panel two years before, slashed the spawning stock biomass target to just 3,314 metric tons, just slightly below the 3,353 metric ton estimate of SSB.

 

Such assessment update explained,

There was a change to the stanza of recruitment that was used in the projections for this update…This new recruitment stanza uses the last 20 years of estimates (2002-2021) for both short term projections, and to estimate the biomass target (SSBMSY) from a long term (100 yr) projection. Previous estimates have used the entire time-series of recruitment (1981-present). Many of the historical recruitment estimates are overly optimistic, if not impossible, for the current stock size and productivity to achieve. Very early recruitment estimates are 20 times the levels seen in recent years.

As a consequence of the decision to use the truncated recruitment time series, the status of the SNEMA stock, which until then was considered badly overfished, was changed to “not overfished and overfishing is not occurring.” The 2022 assessment update nonetheless warned, “While the stock status has changed, the perception of the stock has not, and recent model estimates and fishery independent survey indices all reveal a poor stock condition for Southern New England winter flounder.”

Despite such warning, with SSB slightly above the new target, GARFO notified the Council that no further rebuilding was needed. That was all the encouragement the Council needed to increase the SNEMA winter flounder quota by 53%, to 441 MT, for the 2023 fishing year.

There is no chance that the Council will consider the moratorium that represents the SNEMA stock’s only possible road to rebuilding.

In 2022, New York’s anglers landed an estimated 119 winter flounder, which works out to about 0.0009% of their landings in 1984 although, as a practical matter, the number landed is now so small that it’s impossible for NMFS surveyors to come up with an accurate approximation.

It is hard to watch a fishery die.

It is harder when you know that fishery managers, had they taken bold action, might well have been able to keep it alive.

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

STRIPED BASS AT THE ASMFC: "THAT'S THE FASTEST THEY'VE EVER DONE NOTHING"

 

Last Tuesday, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board considered Addendum I to Amendment 7 to the Atlantic Striped Bass Interstate Fishery Management Plan.

Addendum I—which has been around so long that it had originally been designated Addendum VII to Amendment 6 of the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass—sort-of addresses an issue that has been kicking around inside the Management Board for a few years:  Some states believe that the current commercial quotas are unfair, based on old data, and should be revised.

The problem, as some Management Board members have freely admitted, is that revising allocations is far easier said than done; reallocation is, without doubt, the most controversial topic that any fisheries management body might address.  Those who currently hold larger allocations see those allocations as set in stone, never to be revised until the would ends.  Those who ended up on the short end of the stick view the same allocation process as a gross inequity that must immediately be addressed.  Debate on allocation matters is typically bitter, extended, and ultimately fruitless.

Thus, Addendum I took a different tack.  Instead of seeking an outright reallocation, it would merely permit the voluntary transfer of unused commercial quota in the ocean fishery for striped bass from one state to another.  The addendum offered four different options, which ranged from unrestricted transfer of quota to only allowing such transfers if approved by the Management Board, and subject to whatever conditions the Management Board chose to impose.

Such approach rescued state fishery managers from the unpleasant prospect of telling their commercial fishermen that they agreed to permanently transfer some small portion of those fishermen’s quota to another state, while still satisfying the primary motivation behind the addendum--providing a few more bass to Delaware, which has long argued that its commercial quota was unreasonably small.

Of course, if transfers were permitted, states other than Delaware might get some share of the unused quota, as well.

Most of the unused quota—295,495 pounds—is tied up in North Carolina, which once had a large commercial striped bass fishery, but has seen that fishery wane after the bass stopped wintering off the state’s beaches, and began spending the cold months in federal waters, where fishing is not allowed.  Another 234,210 pounds is held by four “gamefish states”—Maine, New Hampshire, Connecticut, and New Jersey—which prohibit commercial striped bass fishing.  Of that, the 18,298 pounds held by the three New England states is available for transfer, while New Jersey’s 215,912 pounds have been reallocated to the recreational fishery, and so removed from the potential transfer pool.

States with commercial fisheries rarely utilize all of their quota, and any such unused quota would also be potentially available for transfer; even so, the overall amount of fish available for transfer is very small.  ASMFC staff estimated that if interstate transfers resulted in the entire ocean fishery quota being utilized, overall striped bass removals, by both the commercial and recreational sector, would increase by about one percent.

That’s not very much, but there is also a principle involved, and one that many recreational fishermen, including myself, agree with:  When a stock is overfished, and struggling to recover, fishery managers shouldn’t approve any action that would lead to any increase in fishing mortality.  

As Dennis Abbott, New Hampshire’s Legislative Proxy, reminded the Management Board at Tuesday’s meeting, approving enough seemingly trivial increases in landings, none of which, by themselves, would cause significant harm, can still subject the striped bass stock to the “death of 1,000 cuts.”

Stakeholders generally agreed that increasing fishing mortality at this point was a bad idea; of the more than 2,000 comments that the ASMFC received with respect to Addendum I, more than 98 percent opposed interstate quota transfers.

Thus, the Management Board members sitting around the table last Tuesday faced a bit of a quandary.

Some undoubtedly sympathized with Delaware’s plight, believing that the state got the short end of commercial striped bass allocations.  There is a long tradition of cooperation at the ASMFC; although some states sometimes throw up roadblocks, the ASMFC jurisdictions are generally willing to transfer unused quota of other species, embrace conservation equivalency proposals of somewhat dubious merit, and perhaps even overlook minor compliance violations (or place the deadline for coming into compliance so far out in time that it amounts to the same thing), in the spirit of comity and cooperative management, particularly when, as in this case, the likely impact of any transfers on the striped bass resource would probably be small.

On the other hand, while the impacts of transfers might be small, such impacts would still occur, affecting what is arguably the most important fish stock managed by the ASMFC, a stock which is already overfished and trying to rebuild in the face of poor recruitment.  Striped bass is a high-visibility species, and any Management Board action would be closely scrutinized by stakeholders, particularly after stakeholder sentiment, as evidenced by the 2,000-plus comments, was so heavily skewed against transfers.

With the table so set, the meeting began.  And, once the introductory presentations were done, it began with a bit of surprise.

John Clark, Delaware’s fishery manager, moved that the Board approve Option D, which would permit interstate transfers of quota in any year only if approved by the Management Board, which could also impose additional conditions on such transfers.  It was one of the most conservative of the options included in Addendum I, and Mr. Clark's support was somewhat surprising, as Option D was generally disfavored by Delaware’s commercial fishermen who, at a public hearing, preferred the unrestricted transfers allowed in Option B by a margin of 12 to 2.

The fact that Delaware was proposing that the Board approve Option D, and not Option B, was a tacit admission that Option B would probably be voted down.

Mr. Clark argued that Option D was one of the most conservative options proposed in the addendum, and that he preferred it over Option E, which was substantially similar but also prohibited transfers when the stock is overfished, because the states "know" when the striped bass stock is recovering, and should be allowed to make transfers prior to a formal scientific finding that the bass are no longer overfished.

How the states could “know” that a stock was no longer overfished absent scientific advice was something that Mr. Clark did not even try to explain. 

Even so, the motion received a swift second from Stephen Train, Maine’s Governor’s Appointee.  This was a second surprise, as Maine has traditionally been one of the staunchest supporters of striped bass conservation.  Mr. Train provided a clue to his motivation when he noted that his state had benefitted from quota transfers of other species, a clear reference to Maine receiving significant transfers of menhaden that were badly needed for lobster bait, and so he understood the value of transfers as a management tool.

In response to a question from the Board’s chair, Mr. Clark explained that Delaware was only looking for

“A very small amount of striped bass.”

Fifty or sixty thousand pounds, he said, would suffice.  Roy Miller, Delaware’s Governor’s Appointee, claimed that Delaware deserved such fish, first because the existing state quotas were based on voluntarily reported, 1970s-era landings data that did not represent actual landings, and also because pollution in the Delaware River resulted in very poor recruitment during those years.  Such pollution has since been abated, and the Delaware River spawning stock restored, making more bass available to the state.

It's not clear whether Mr. Clark’s motion would have had any significant support, because the next two Board members recognized by the Chair stated their intent to provide substitute motions.  Dr. Jason McNamee, Rhode Island’s fishery manager, was allowed to speak first.

He offered a substitute motion which tasked the Atlantic Striped Bass Technical Committee with running two population projections, one of which assumed that the entire ocean quota was utilized, and another which assumed utilization of the entire ocean quota except such quota as was granted to New Jersey.  His motion was quickly seconded by Dr. Justin Davis, Connecticut’s fishery manager, and ultimately passed by a margin of 13 to 3, with only Massachusetts, North Carolina, and the Potomac River Fisheries Commission voicing opposition.

From a parliamentary standpoint, the substitute motion was a shrewd move.

Given the public comment, as well as the Striped Bass Advisory Panel’s 14-4 recommendation against approving quota transfers, there was a good chance that, if a straight-up vote was taken, none of the transfer options would have prevailed.  Delaying a definitive vote could only help those who wanted to end the prohibition on transfers; there was no way that delay could weaken their cause.  

Even those who opposed quota transfer would find it difficult to vote against a proposal to develop more, and clearly relevant, information, as anyone who voted against such substitute motion might appear afraid of what the Technical Committee’s projections would reveal.

And we probably already know what the projections will say:  The increase in fishing mortality attributable to quota transfers will be small.  The Technical Committee’s confirmation of that fact will allow transfer advocates to discredit the public testimony as well-meaning, but uninformed, as such transfers won’t materially impact the recovery. 

By deferring the decision on Addendum I to May, the substitute motion also assures that final recreational landings data for 2022 will be available to the Management Board when the debate resumes.  Since, as I noted last month, it appears that the 2022 recreationalcatch—that is, landings and discard mortality combined—will probably exceed 2021 catch by at least 10,000,000 pounds, it will be very easy to argue that, compared to such recreational increase, the 300,000 or so pounds of additional commercial landings attributable that might result from quota transfers would be trivial.

Those two arguments could well stack the deck in favor of the Management Board approving quota transfers.

At the same time, an opportunity for a better outcome remains.  Unless some very surprising information emerges at the May meeting, we should expect the Technical Committee to tell us—regardless of its transfer-related projections— that the fishing mortality rate in 2022 was substantially higher than it was in 2021, and that if such fishing mortality rate continues, the striped bass stock will probably not be able to rebuild by the 2029 deadline.

If that proves to be the case, there will undoubtedly be some members of the Management Board—my money would be on the Massachusetts delegation, but there are plenty of others who might play the role—who will want to initiate a new management action which reduces fishing mortality to a level that will permit timely rebuilding.  While any such action would, of necessity, focus on the recreational sector, commercial landings shouldn’t be exempted, for they have also increased in recent years. 

Reducing the overall commercial quota could render the transfer issue moot; so could an action that the Management Board has so far been loath to take:  Treating the commercial sector the same as anglers, and applying any required reduction not to quota, but to actual landings, which would make it far more likely that the commercial reductions would actually be achieved.

After all, everyone should pay their fair share.

Last Tuesday, we saw the Management Board do one of the things it does best, kick the can down the road, rather than make a decision, when faced with a difficult choice.  At the end of 90 minutes of debate, Addendum I  stood where it had at the start of the meeting:  Unresolved.

On the plus side, at least the meeting was short.  My wife, who has been an unnintentional bystander to the countless, often seemingly endless, Management Board meetings that I stream at home, undoubtedly put everything in the proper perspective when she said,

“That was the fastest they’ve ever done nothing.”

At least this time, doing nothing maintained an acceptable status quo.  That won’t be the case in May, when the Management Board will probably be confronted by a large spike in fishing mortality.  At that point, decisive action will be needed.

If the Management Board plays kick-the-can once again, no one will emerge as a winner.  And the bass will most certainly lose.