RECREATIONAL/COMMERCIAL ALLOCATIONS: SHOULD SLEEPING DOGS BE ALLOWED TO LIE

Any regular reader of this blog knows that there is no issue that I dislike more than allocation.

It doesn’t really matter what species is involved, or whether the allocation is between states or between sectors; the pattern will always remain the same.  Those who want to increase their landings will whine and complain that the existing allocation is unfair, is based on old data, and/or doesn’t represent the best economic use of a limited resource, while those trying to hold onto the fish that they already have (and if a state or sector is on the winning side of the current allocation, it can be safely predicted that they will fight any effort to reallocate even a single fish with every tool at their disposal) will argue that shifting some of their current quota to another state or sector is unfair, ignores well-established landing histories, and will cause economic harm to existing fisheries and related infrastructure.

It’s always the same old song, as established and predictable as the rising and setting of the sun.

Any reallocation debate, regardless of the facts or factions involved, will be highly contentious, bitterly fought and, in the end, largely pointless, as the allocations in question shift little, if at all, from what they were before the debate first started.

It always seems that if the time and energy spent debating who gets what share of an often-depleted resource was spent figuring out how to restore that resource to health and maintain it that way for the long term, everyone would end up with more fish, no one would need to fight over the scraps of a declining stock, and the whole allocation issue might even become moot.

But it seems that folks would far rather fight over who gets the most crumbs from a shrinking pie, rather than work together to bake a pie large enough to feed everyone.

While reallocation might be the most bitterly contested issue to arise at a fisheries meeting, recreational catch, landings, and effort data is not far behind.  While the National Academy of Sciences gave the Marine Recreational Information Program, which is used to generate such data, a reasonably clean bill of health, recreational fishing groups have frequently condemned MRIP and questioned its accuracy.

An editorial in The Fisherman magazine said that

“I often refer to MRIP as a silk pillow case; if the old MRIP was a burlap sack carting a load of manure, what we have today is just a prettier external package for the same stuff.”

That’s hardly a strong endorsement of the data collection system.  A joint press release issued by the Center for Sportfishing Policy and the Coastal Conservation Association, employing more discreet language, merely referred to MRIP as a

“flawed federal data system.”

Such disdain for MRIP has little to do with the program’s statistical validity; it’s safe to say that, unlike the folks who reviewed the program on behalf of the National Academies, the magazine editors, anglers’ rights advocates, and fishing industry spokesmen who routinely condemn MRIP are not PhD-level statisticians, and it wouldn’t be surprising to learn that most such critics have received little if any formal training in statistics, fisheries management, or any related discipline.  Their objection to MRIP arises not out of earned knowledge, but largely from the fact that regulations based on MRIP data often force anglers to kill fewer fish than regulations based on other data sets; to justify their demands for higher landings, MRIP must be discredited, so they do their best to undercut anglers’—and legislators’—perceptions of the program.

But their efforts to impeach MRIP recently hit an interesting snag, which brought the two highly contentious issues of reallocation and recreational data together on a snarl that presents a modern-day Gordian Knot to MRIP’s detractors.

When old recreational landings data is recalibrated through the lens of modern MRIP methodology, it turns out that recreational landings in past decades were significantly higher than previously believed.  If such recalculated landings for the base years used to set current recreational/commercial allocations are considered, and such allocations adjusted to conform to the recalculated data, anglers would receive a larger share of a number of important fisheries.

In the mid-Atlantic, the recreational share of summer flounder landings would increase from 40 to 45 percent, the recreational share of black sea bass landings would increase from 51 to 55 percent, and the recreational share of the scup catch would jump from 22 to 35 percent.  A similar application of the new MRIP methodology to red grouper allocation in the Gulf of Mexico would result in a substantial increase in the recreational share of red grouper landings.

As a result, the same Coastal Conservation Association that moaned about a “flawed federal data system” being used to limit recreational catch of red snapper embraced MRIP data that supported a reallocation favoring the angling sector, saying that an increase in the recreational share of red grouper landings represented only

“a relatively simple, technical fix to the allocations of red grouper between the commercial and recreational sectors based on the newest data available as part of revisions to historical recreational harvest data collected by the federal government.”

While CCA still called for the Gulf states to take over responsibility for recreational data collection, something that, based on the results of state-gathered red snapper data, would almost certainly result in even higher recreational landings, the organization called the recalculated MRIP data

“the best information available,”

and argued that

“past federal recreational data collection efforts were found to be significantly in error and [any change in allocation] is an attempt to fix those errors.  Feeding the corrected recreational data into the latest red grouper assessment results in a larger recreational allocation.  Not adjusting the allocations or allocating less than the corrected data indicates is a de facto increase to the commercial sector.

“Corrections of this type to historic federal recreational data will be occurring in many fisheries and it is important that the [Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management] Council and NOAA be consistent and fair in how they apply the new data.  That is why this decision on red grouper will set an important precedent…”

It’s a clearly hypocritical and self-serving statement; the same MRIP data that is produced by a “flawed federal data system” when used to restrict recreational red snapper landings becomes “the best information available” when used to expand anglers’ red grouper kill.  As in just about every fisheries debate, “good data” is data that increases someone's landings, while “flawed data” leads to landings reductions; viewed through such a lens, the statistical validity—or invalidity—of the data means nothing at all.

On the other hand, CCA does make a valid point.  

If a recreational/commercial allocation is based on a series of “base years,” whether the 1981-1989 used for summer flounder or the 1986-2005 used for red grouper in the Gulf, then until such base years are changed, the current recreational/commercial allocation ought to reflect whatever the true landings were during the relevant years, and if a reexamination of historical data shows that managers originally got the allocation wrong, then resetting such allocation to reflect the true relationship between each sector’s landings in the base years does not represent a true reallocation, but merely a correction that managers must make in order to carry out the original intent of the management plan.

Of course, the parties involved don’t see it that way.  While anglers might want to see the resulting allocation shift—which gives them more fish—as merely a “technical fix” that, in all fairness, must adopted, the commercial sector—which ends up with fewer fish—sees the same shift as a gross inequity.

One spokesman for the Gulf of Mexico’s commercial fleet stated that

“Taking 600,000 pounds of red grouper quota not only hurts hard-working American fishermen who rely on grouper for their businesses, but it also takes fish away from the American consumer who, through the covid-19 pandemic, proved that they are looking for more seafood and more domestic seafood.”

Another spokesman for the Gulf’s commercial fishermen noted that

“Hundreds of fishermen attended hearings and the Gulf council meeting in Key West to tell the council how taking away red grouper quota will hurt their livelihoods, their businesses, and the American consumer.  This is a devastating blow to the commercial industry.”

In neither of those comments did the commercial spokesmen address any possible inequity arising out of an ongoing allocation based on data now known to be wrong, or how the former allocation, which granted only 26 percent of red snapper landings to the recreational sector, instead of the 40.7 percent of the landings that, according to the revised MRIP data, anglers actually harvested during the base years, might have harmed the recreational fishing industry or the anglers who could have chosen to retain more fish for personal consumption, rather than being forced to buy their grouper at a local store.

Because, after all, this is an allocation fight, where the “haves” try to hang onto every fish that they can, the “have nots” try to take as many as they can for themselves, and no one particularly cares what is right, fair, or makes any kind of sense when viewed through an objective lens.

The same sort of pattern emerged at the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council, which was considering similar MRIP-based allocation modifications for summer flounder, scup, and black sea bass.  Capt. Rick Bellavance, representing the Rhode Island Party and Charter Boat Association, made a reasonable observation when he noted that

“The revised MRIP numbers were used in the assessments that create our [total allowable catch] and quotas, and if we use it for that then we have to use it for allocation distribution so that they are appropriate and fair…The commercial sector will lose some fish, but they gained some in the assessments due to the new MRIP numbers.”

Capt. Bellavance was referring to how the recalculated MRIP numbers are used in stock assessments; because MRIP revealed that anglers had been landing far more fish than previously thought, when the new MRIP data was fed into the existing stock assessment models, the estimates of population size, as well as estimates of acceptable biological catch (and so recreational and commercial quotas) spiked. 

For example, the acceptable biological catch for summer flounder in 2019, which was used to calculate the annual catch limits for the commercial and recreational sectors, was 15.41 million pounds.  But after a 2018 benchmark stock assessment employed updated MRIP estimates to recalculate the size of the summer flounder stock, the 2020 ABC jumped to 25.03 million pounds, more than a 60 percent increase. 

The commercial sector was more than willing to accept the resulting quota increase, but their failure to also accept the allocation change that flowed from the same MRIP data clearly demonstrates that, in matters of allocation, hypocrisy and self-serving comments are not limited to the recreational side.

Thus, the question remains:  How to deal with the allocation issue unleashed by MRIP.  

CCA predicted that the outcome of the red grouper allocation debate would set an “important precedent” in similar situations elsewhere on the coast.  So far, that hasn’t happened.  While the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council opted to revise its recreational/commercial allocation for red grouper, the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council decided to postpone any action on summer flounder, scup, or black sea bass allocation issues, leaving open the possibility that other fishery management actions might render revisiting contentious allocation issues unnecessary.

Thus, there is no consensus on what ought to be done.

Should managers act to correct past errors, and seek some sort of retroactive fairness that reflects council actions at the time that the base years were set?

Or should they bow to error perpetuated over years, perhaps decades, rather than implement change, because fishermen always gravitate toward the status quo.

Right now, the answers to those questions seems to depend not on data, nor equity, nor any sort of consistent, rational policy at all, but instead on which sector happens to hold enough power to control the outcome of a council vote.

NEW YORK TAKES A STAND FOR PROTECTED SHARKS

 I’ve been fishing for sharks for close to forty years, so I understand why people enjoy it.

Sharks are big, tough fish that can give an angler a workout on reasonable tackle, and they’re often far more available to anglers than tuna, billfish, or tarpon, the other large gamefish of the United States coast.  That’s particularly true in places like the Northeast, where it’s too cold for tarpon and, for most of the season, finding billfish and tuna require long runs to the offshore grounds, while at least a few sharks can often be found within casting distance from shore.

There are a lot fewer sharks around today than there was when I started fishing for them back in the 1970s.  With the exception of common threshers, which are either more abundant or, for some reason, have become more catchable in recent years, every popular shark that we catch off Long Island has become noticeably less abundant.

Out on the ocean, shark fishermen have become noticeably less abundant, too.  A number of well-established shark tournaments, which have been around since the 1960s, have experienced sharp drops in participation, and many are no longer held.  Whether that decline in participation is a response to the declining number of sharks, or to the regulations imposed on some species to slow such decline, is open to speculation.  But there are definitely fewer boats drifting and chumming offshore than there were a few decades ago.

At the same time, there has been a seeming spike in the number of people who fish for sharks from the surf.  Again, the reasons aren’t completely clear.  It’s possible that the decline in the numbers of striped bass and bluefish, particularly during the hottest days of the summer, have sent shorebound anglers in search of alternative targets.  It’s possible that the development of larger, more capable surf fishing gear, and in particular large spinning reels designed for offshore fish, have made catching sharks from the surf easier to do.

There’s little doubt that the Internet has played a big role.  Google a phrase like “shark surf fishing” and you’re sure to get plenty of hits providing links to videos of beach-bound anglers dragging their hard-won catches onto the sand.

And that’s where the problems begin.

For while just about all shark species are suffering from declining abundance, many of the sharks most likely to be caught off the northeastern shore have been particularly hard hit.  Off New York, for example, just about all of the larger sharks caught by surfcasters will be either sand tigers, sandbars (also known as “brown” sharks) or, to a far lesser degree, dusky sharks.  Of those three, both sandbars and duskies are considered overfished, while duskies are also experiencing continued overfishing.  The data surrounding the status of the sand tiger shark is more ambiguous, with some studies showing sharp declines and others finding a more stable population; the fish reproduce very slowly, making it difficult to rebuild a depleted population, but at the same time, sand tigers appear to be less vulnerable to longline bycatch than are most other shark species.

When all factors were taken into account, the National Marine Fisheries Service included all three species on its list of “prohibited sharks” that may not be harvested.

However, such prohibited sharks have still been targeted by shorebound anglers in a catch-and-release fishery that probably causes significant release mortality to species that are already under significant stress.  As noted in a 2020 article that appeared in The New York Times,

“the nature of land-based shark fishing, as opposed to fishing from a boat, brings a high probability that the shark will be harmed at some point between its initial hooking and ultimate release…

“Just because a shark swims away doesn’t mean it will survive for very long afterward, according to shark experts.  Stress and exhaustion from the fight on the line—and abrasions from being dragged up the sand—can leave lasting damage.”

The State of Florida, which hosts many avid surfcasters who target sharks, has released a set of recommendations for handling the fish, which include:

“Keep sharks, especially the gills, in the water,”

“Removing sharks from the water can increase the likelihood of injuries to the shark.”

“Minimize handling and release time and do not delay release just to take pictures.  [emphasis added]”

And

“Do not sit on the shark’s back.”

But anyone who has seen a shark fishing video on YouTube or other Internet site has probably seen anglers perched on sharks’ backs, anglers pulling a shark’s head back at an unnatural angle, wrenching the spine, in order to show off the fish’s teeth, anglers dragging a shark high onto the sand or otherwise behaving in a way likely to injure such fish and make it more likely that they will not survive release.

In 2019, New Jersey’s Department of Environmental Protection sent out a reminder to anglers which included language saying,

“Species listed as prohibited have all been identified by NOAA as being particularly vulnerable due to a combination of factors that include low reproductive rates (sand tiger sharks); vulnerability to certain fishing practices (angel sharks); stocks previously assessed as overfished and/or overfishing is occurring (sandbar and dusky sharks); or species for which there is a lack of data to make informed regulations…

“’If a prohibited shark species is caught, it must be released immediately without removing it from the water and in a manner that maximizes its chances for survival,’ said Division of Fish and Wildlife Director Dave Golden.  ‘That means keeping it in the water when removing a hook, not taking photos of a shark out of the water and certainly not taking it home.’  [emphasis added]”

Unfortunately, too many anglers appear to be far more interested in preserving a record of their catch for later posting to social media than they are in preserving the captured shark’s life.  The fact that the shark belongs to a prohibited species seems to make little difference in their attitude.

Thus, various states have made efforts to protect prohibited sharks from anglers’ abuses.

New York has recently made a strong statement to those who fish for sharks in the state’s coastal waters, saying in part, that

"Prohibited shark species found in New York State waters include Sandbar ("Brown"), Dusky and Sand Tiger sharks.  Large (non-dogfish) sharks that are caught from shore in New York are usually a prohibited shark species.  Prohibited shark species may also be encountered by boat-based anglers in nearshore waters.

Prohibited shark species are protected from fishing activities by Section 40.7. It is illegal to take or possess prohibited shark species. “Take" is defined in New York’s Environmental Conservation Law Section 11-0103 (13) and includes pursuing, killing, and capturing sharks. It also includes all lesser acts such as disturbing, harrying, or worrying, or using any device commonly used to take sharks. Any angler who is making an effort to catch a prohibited shark species is pursuing or targeting that species in violation of 6 NYCRR 40.7(c)(1). Do not fish for or target prohibited sharks in New York waters. Intentional catch and release of prohibited sharks is likewise illegal.

 If a prohibited shark is hooked, the angler must release the prohibited shark immediately and in a manner that maximizes the shark’s chance of survival. Do not tag prohibited sharks or delay release to take pictures...”

While it would be nice to believe that the entire angling community would have enough respect for the resource to forego fishing for prohibited shark species, that’s clearly not the case; there has already been pushback to New York’s recent efforts, with some anglers trying to deflect the blame by pointing fingers at commercial fishermen, who take sharks as bycatch, and others arguing that they are fishing for other species, and just can’t help it if a prohibited shark takes their bait.

On a coast where all but a very small percentage—undoubtedly less than 5 percent, with 1 or 2 percent more likely—of all sharks caught from the beach are non-prohibited species, the latter is a pathetically poor argument, while pointing fingers at the commercial fleet seems almost childish, for only a childish mind would try to excuse their own wrong by arguing that someone else did wrong, too.

Still, despite such resistance, I can only thank New York for taking a strong stand on the prohibited shark issue, and I can only hope that the next action that it takes will be in the enforcement arena.

 

 

 

 

 

GOOD NEWS AT NMFS

Over the past four years or so, the National Marine Fisheries Service did not do itself proud.

Between early 2017 and the first three weeks of this year, the agency responsible for conserving and managing the nation’s living marine resources seemed to go out of its way to make the wrong calls, and subordinate the long-term sustainability of fish stocks to the short-term interests of both the commercial and recreational sectors.

In June 2017, NMFS illegally extended the recreational red snapper season for private boats in the Gulf of Mexico, knowing as it did so that such reopening would lead to overfishing.  NMFS took such action after meeting with representatives of the recreational fishing industry who pushed for the reopening, confident that the extended season would close, and all damage would be done, before anyone could bring suit to contest such wrongful action.  Although NMFS was wrong on the latter point, and later entered into a litigation-ending settlement, promising not to take any such action again, that did nothing to repair the harm caused by the agency-sanctioned overfishing.

Scant weeks after making that ill-advised decision, NMFS showed bad judgment again when it overrode the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s finding that New Jersey’s recreational summer flounder regulations, which were deemed inadequate by both the scientists on the ASMFC’s Summer Flounder, Scup, and Black Sea Bass Technical Committee and by the Summer Flounder, Scup, and Black Sea Bass Management Board, were not in compliance with the ASMFC’s summer flounder management plan.  In taking such action, NMFS failed to consult with either the Administrator of its Greater Atlantic Fisheries Regional Office or with biologists at its Northeast Fisheries Science Center as to the adequacy of the New Jersey rules or the wisdom of overruling the ASMFC’s finding.  Instead, the decision appears to have constituted a political favor to former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who was an early supporter of the newly-elected president and had petitioned the Secretary of Commerce to overrule the ASMFC’s management plan fully three months before the ASMFC had rejected New Jersey’s proposed regulations.

It wasn’t just bottom fish that suffered from NMFS actions over the past four years.  Various highly migratory species endured their share of abuses as well.

Probably none were addressed as badly as the shortfin mako shark, which has been severely depleted in the North Atlantic.  In 2019, a group of ten nations, recognizing the mako’s peril, introduced a motion at the plenary meeting of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas that would have prohibited the retention of any makos caught in the commercial or recreational fisheries.  Sixteen ICCAT members supported that motion once it had been introduced at the meeting, including such nations as Japan, Taiwan, and China, which are usually on the wrong side of fishery conservation issues.  There were only three members opposed, Curacao, the European Union, and the United States, with the U.S. supporting a measure that would allow the highest level of mako retention.

The same scene repeated itself at a virtual, COVID-shortened meeting on shortfin makos held toward the end of last year.

And a little over one year ago, NMFS decided to eliminate closed areas originally instituted to prevent longline bycatch of bluefin tuna, including closed areas in the Gulf of Mexico that protected the only confirmed spawning ground for the bluefin’s troubled western stock.  The supposed justification for such action was the “need” to make such areas accessible to swordfish longliners, which have been unable to land their full swordfish quotas in recent years, and relatively new regulations that set individual bluefin quotas for vessels participating in the pelagic longline fishery.  But while such catch limits would better assure that longliners wouldn’t exceed their bluefin bycatch allocation, wouldn’t it still be better if they killed fewer bluefin over-all?

Apparently not, if you were among the recent NMFS leadership, who seemed to believe that their most important duty was to monetize the nation’s fishery resources, not to manage and conserve them for the long term.

Such attitude must have been terribly frustrating to NMFS’ career employees, who see political appointees come and go, while they stand steadfastly by their responsibilities to properly manage the ocean’s resources, in support of or, as in recent years, despite the policies put in place by those at the highest level of the administration.

Now, it appears that such career employees might be getting a breath of fresh air, and the sort of good leadership that they deserve.  On June 21, NMFS announced that Janet Coit, the former head of Rhode Island’s Department of Environmental Management, would be taking over the reins of the agency.

Ms. Coit might be the perfect choice for the nation’s top fisheries manager.  Upon being appointed, she struck just the right note, saying

“I am excited to join NOAA Fisheries to work with the agency’s incredibly skilled and dedicated employees to rebuild fisheries where necessary, and protect and conserve endangered and threatened marine resources and their habitats.  It’s clear that NOAA Fisheries is already pivoting to capture and incorporate climate impacts into world-class science capabilities.  That will serve us well as we focus on the management of some of the most iconic and sustainable fisheries in the world.”

Rebuilding.  Conservation.  Climate Change.  Science.  Sustainability.  It’s nice to hear such language, spoken with sincerity, coming out of NMFS once again.

I have never met Ms. Coit, either in person or in some remote meeting, but I’m familiar enough with her work to be impressed.  The reason why can best be summed up by a statement she made in March 2020, when she reviewed a Rhode Island Marine Fisheries Council recommendation that the state adopt different size limits for for-hire vessels and private anglers, and also adopt a slot limit larger than the coastwide slot adopted by the ASMFC.  In rejecting that recommendation, Ms. Coit said

“The perspectives of stakeholders and advisors are given due consideration in the decision-making process.  Upon review of the record, it is apparent that the opinions of the RI recreational fishing community are split between the three management options offered at the hearing.  However, given that the striped bass stock is overfished and experiencing overfishing, the factor that emerges as the most important, and upon which my final decision rests, is risk to the resource.  Minimizing such risk is essential to maximizing the efficacy of our management response.  Of the three options, I find the coastwide measure to be the most risk-averse and best suited to quickly and effectively reduce fishing mortality and rebuild the striped bass stock.  Other key factors I considered in making my decision included resource conservation, compliance and enforcement, and equity.  [emphasis added]”

I can’t help but like and support anyone who understands that the right way to manage a resource is to put the needs of that resource first.  They’re a refreshing and needed change from the sort of managers who would knowingly let Gulf anglers kill too many red snapper, or override the ASMFC on fluke just to repay a political debt.

And Ms. Coit can also work across sectors.

Chris Brown, a Rhode Island commercial fisherman who serves as president of the Seafood Harvesters of America, hailed Ms. Coit’s appointment, saying

“I have worked closely with Janet Coit for many years in Rhode Island, and I am thrilled to see her expertise and skillful leadership recognized by this administration.  Janet will be a thoughtful and steady NMFS [Assistant Administrator], carefully listening to stakeholders while keeping sound science, not politics, at the heart of the agency.  She won the respect of the commercial fishing industry in Rhode Island and I expect her to do the same as NMFS AA.”

Ms. Coit, who once said that recreational fishery management needs to consider

“science, integrity, joy, and fun,”

is also well-regarded by anglers.

Capt. David Monti, a Rhode Island outdoor columnist and charter boat operator, recently wrote that

“In my world of fishing, she always seemed to make decisions with the best interests of the fish, habitat and the environment in mind, keeping the politics out of the decision making process as much as possible…

“…If she does half the job she did here in Rhode Island our oceans, the fish, climate ready fisheries, shared use of our oceans and all the people of this country are going to be big winners.”

That sounds just right. 

And Ms. Coit sounds just right, as well.

BLUEFISH: "EITHER WE HAVE A RISK POLICY OR WE DON'T"

 On Tuesday, June 8, the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council (Council) and the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Bluefish Management Board (Management Board) finalized their joint Atlantic Bluefish Allocation and Rebuilding Amendment (amendment).

 

When the amendment process began in 2017, it only addressed allocation, but after a 2019 operational stock assessment found that bluefish had become overfished, the Council and Management Board had to modify the amendment to address stock rebuilding as well.

 

The Council received formal notice that bluefish were overfished in November 2019. Such notice triggered a provision of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (Magnuson-Stevens), which requires that, “Within 2 years after…notification [that a stock has become overfished], the appropriate Council…shall prepare and implement a fishery management plan, plan amendment, or proposed regulations for the fishery to which the…notice applies to end overfishing immediately in the fishery and to rebuild affected stocks of fish… [internal formatting omitted]”.

 

To comply with the law, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) must have a bluefish rebuilding plan in place by November 2021. By approving the amendment in June 2021, the Council is providing NMFS plenty of time to meet that deadline.

The amendment could have taken any one of three possible approaches to bluefish rebuilding.

The first was a “constant harvest” strategy, which maintained the same annual catch limits throughout the rebuilding process. Such a strategy could rebuild the stock within just four years, but would keep landings unnecessarily low in its later years, when the stock had grown large enough to safely support a bigger harvest, and could cause lasting damage to the commercial bluefish fishery.

The second was the so-called “P*” approach, which tied annual landings to the risk of overfishing. Such approach kept landings low during the initial years of rebuilding, when the risk of overfishing was greatest, but allowed them to increase steadily as the stock grew and the risk of overfishing decreased. That approach could rebuild the stock within five years.

The third was a “constant fishing mortality” strategy, which would remove the same percentage of fish from the stock throughout the rebuilding period. Under such an approach, the size of the annual harvest would increase in direct proportion to the size of the stock. Maintaining a constant fishing mortality rate would lead to significantly higher landings in the early years of the rebuilding process than permitted under the P* approach. Such early landings would be high enough to violate the Council’s recently revised risk policy, and could only be permitted if such policy was amended. Despite such higher landings at the beginning of the rebuilding process, the constant fishing mortality approach was expected to rebuild the stock within seven years, well within the ten-year rebuilding deadline established by Magnuson-Stevens.

 

Council staff recommended that the P* approach be adopted, viewing it as “a fair middle point that considers both the biological and social requirements” cited in Magnuson-Stevens. In doing so, it noted that such approach would provide greater economic benefits to the commercial fishery than the constant harvest approach, while still complying with the Council’s risk policy.

The Council and Management Board disagreed with the staff recommendation, and soon took up a motion to adopt the 7-year rebuilding plan. Proponents of the constant fishing mortality approach argued that uncertainties surrounding the cause of the decline in bluefish abundance, the ecosystem impacts of an increasing bluefish stock, the economic effects of changing state commercial allocations (which were also addressed in the amendment), and the chance to maintain a somewhat higher catch limit in 2022 all militated in favor of the longer rebuilding plan.

A number of Council and Management Board members complained that there was no 10-year rebuilding option included in the amendment (such option had been deleted in response to the NMFS’ concerns that it would violate Magnuson-Stevens’ requirement that rebuilding times be “as short as possible”). Many expressed skepticism about the science underlying the amendment, arguing that bluefish abundance fluctuates in response to yet-unidentified environmental conditions, often cryptically referred to as “the cycle,” and is relatively unaffected by changes in fishing mortality. With no longer rebuilding timeline available, such persons supported the 7-year option.

Not everyone agreed that the 7-year rebuilding plan presented the most viable option.

Michael Pentony, the regional administrator for NMFS’ Greater Atlantic Regional Fisheries Office, stated that “I have some concerns with this,” noting that, if the 7-year option was adopted, the Council would have to amend its risk policy. Such policy was already amended once before, when the Council adopted its Atlantic mackerel rebuilding plan in 2019. The regional administrator expressed his belief that making such amendments constituted bad policy, saying “Either we have a risk policy or we don’t.”

 

His words found little support on either the Council or Management Board, although Megan Ware, a Maine fishery manager who sits on the Management Board, did offer a substitute motion to adopt the P* approach. In making her motion, Ms. Ware asked whether, if the Council is so willing to deviate from its established risk policy, it really has a risk policy at all. To further support her motion, she cited public comments supporting rapid rebuilding, and argued that the P* approach struck a reasonable balance between anglers who wanted to see bluefish managed for abundance, and those in the commercial and recreational fishing industries who believed that landings ought to be maximized.

The substitute motion failed, and the 7-year, constant fishing mortality approach was approved by substantial majorities of both the Council and Management Board. Later in the meeting, the amendment, as a whole, was approved, and forwarded to NMFS for review.

Now, one of three things might happen.

·         NMFS may approve the entire amendment, in which case it will issue proposed regulations that implement the amendment’s recommendations, put the proposed rules out for public comment, and then issue final regulations well ahead of the November deadline.

·         NMFS may also disapprove the entire amendment, although looking at the matter realistically, there is no possibility of that happening.

·         Finally, NMFS may disapprove certain provisions of the amendment, and approve the rest. Michael Pentony’s expressed opposition to the 7-year rebuilding plan, and the associated need to amend the Council’s risk policy, suggests that such a result can’t be completely discounted.

When pressed at the June Council meeting on why NMFS went along with amending the policy in the case of Atlantic mackerel, but doesn’t favor such amendment in the case of bluefish, the regional administrator explained that the decision to approve or disapprove a management plan’s provisions requires NMFS to consider the entire administrative record. In the case of mackerel, the Council made a strong argument that the amendment would only constitute a “minimal,” short-duration deviation from the risk policy, but it was “not clear whether the same considerations would apply” to the 7-year bluefish rebuilding plan.

Despite Michael Pentony’s reservations, it is very likely that the entire amendment will be approved, and that the Council’s risk policy will be amended once again.

While that shouldn’t do the bluefish stock any harm, as it’s still likely to be rebuilt by the end of this decade, it could sound a warning for the future of mid-Atlantic fisheries. To echo Megan Ware, if the Council is willing to repeatedly amend its risk policy, and do so without compelling reason, does it truly have such a policy, or merely words on a page that, while they might sound impressive, serve little real function at all?

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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: TACKLING CONSERVATION EQUIVALENCY IN AMENDMENT 7

 The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s doctrine of “conservation equivalency,” which permits states to implement management measures different from those adopted by a particular species management board, is a vexing concept.

In theory, it may make sense to allow states to tailor management measures to their particular fisheries, provided that such measures have the same conservation impact on the stock being managed.

In reality, no two years’ fisheries are the same.  Fish abundance varies from year to year.  A big year class of bass entering the fishery will cause a spike in angling effort; as one Massachusetts fishery manager, Dr. Michael Armstrong, noted in an American Sportfishing Association webinar about one year ago, when striped bass become more abundant,

“fishing effort skyrockets…if the stock doubles, fishing effort doesn’t double, it quadruples.”

On the other hand, when bass become less abundant, particularly if other species are easier to catch, anglers exit the striped bass fishery and direct their effort elsewhere.

That makes it difficult to craft regulations, which rely heavily on past effort, catch, and landings to predict what anglers will do in the future, when conditions almost certainly will have changed.

Add to that unavoidable uncertainty the behavior of states like New Jersey, that try to present already uncertain data in a way that minimizes their harvest reductions, while pushing some portion of their conservation burden onto the shoulders of other coastal states, and one finds, as a practical matter, that crafting regulations that are truly “conservation equivalent” is nearly impossible.

The task is difficult enough that one might reasonably ask whether any imagined benefits of the conservation equivalency process could justify the level of labor and management uncertainty that such process injects into the already challenging task of striped bass management.

Such question arose more than once at meetings of the ASMFC’s Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board, and in comments submitted by stakeholders in response to the Public Information Document to Amendment 7 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass. The Management Board voted to include conservation equivalency as one of the topics to be examined in the draft Amendment 7 to the management plan, and on June 24, the ASMFC’s Striped Bass Plan Development Team met to discuss how to do it.

It was an interesting discussion, that examined conservation equivalency from a number of angles, and systematically addressed its important aspects.  When it was over, the PDT had come up with a comprehensive set of options to place before the Management Board, although some of those options will need Management Board input before being put into final form in the draft Amendment.

The beginning of the PDT discussion touched on basic issues, such as who should be impacted by changes to conservation equivalency rules.  

Should such changes only limit the use of conservation equivalency when applied to the recreational fishery?  That makes a sort of sense, given that’s where most of the abuses take place.  

Should the limits be expanded just a bit farther, to include “non-quota-managed” fisheries?  That would include things like New Jersey’s “bonus” fish program, which transfers part of the state’s unused commercial quota (New Jersey does not permit commercial striped bass fishing) to the recreational fishery, so that anglers may legally harvest striped bass, including immature female striped bass, that fall within a 24 to 28-inch slot.  

Or should restrictions on the use of conservation equivalency apply to everyone, recreational and commercial alike?

That’s something that the Management Board will have to decide.

The Management Board will also have to decide when conservation equivalency should be allowed.  

Should it be prohibited when the stock is overfished, when overfishing is occurring, or during a rebuilding period?  Should conservation equivalency not be allowed after the Management Board adopts measures to reduce harvest?  Or should there merely be a delay—say, three years or so—after new management measures are put in place, before conservation equivalency may be used, so that scientists can get a better idea of how the new rules will impact the stock, before allowing states to create their own exceptions to the Board-approved rules?

One PDT member suggested a more preemptive measure, that would prohibit the use of CE once the Management Board began work on, but has not yet completed, an addendum to implement harvest reductions.

There was also an examination of why conservation equivalency should be invoked.  

One proposal would limit the use of conservation equivalency to situations when biological or ecological conditions put a state or a fishery at a disadvantage compared to the rest of the coast.  For example, rather than maintain the coastwide 28 to 35-inch slot limit on the Hudson River, the application of conservation equivalency permitted New York to adopt an 18 to 28-inch slot there, in order to place most of the fishing pressure on male striped bass, and not on the mature females that ascend the river to spawn.

Another proposal would also permit the use of conservation equivalency to address socioeconomic issues.  However, as at least one PDT member acknowledged, a socioeconomic argument could be made to cover just about any situation, so allowing conservation equivalency to be used to address socioeconomic issues would not constitute any sort of real limitation at all.

Another option would completely bar the use of conservation equivalency in striped bass management, which would be the easiest and, to many, the most desirable course, but would also get quite a few folks upset and leave some real, biologically-based hardships unresolved.

The discussion of when and how conservation equivalency should be used touched on a number of salient points.  There is widespread sentiment, both on the Management Board and among stakeholders, that the use of conservation equivalency in the striped bass fishery has strayed a long way from the original intent of easing real hardships, and that if meaningful limitations were put around its use, most of the other objections to conservation equivalency would probably go away.   I think that is true.

Another PDT member suggested that it would make sense to align the use of conservation equivalency with the goals and objectives of the management plan, which seems completely right—every measure in the final Amendment 7 should further such goals and objectives; after all, isn’t that what goals and objectives are for?

Once again, the Management Board will have to consider such points and decide which, if any, of the limitations will appear in the draft Amendment 7.

After that, the issues became a bit more nuanced and technical.

For example, the PDT discussed whether there should be any limitation on the number of conservation equivalency proposals a single state might present.  The ASMFC publication, Conservation Equivalency: Policy and Technical Guidance Document, warns that

”Proposals that include an excessive number of options may delay timely review by the [Plan Review Team] and other groups and may ultimately delay the report to the Board.  The states should limit the number of options included in a proposal or prioritize the options for review.”

However, that warning, like so many other good ideas contained in the ASMFC’s guiding documents, is generally ignored in practice.  

Prior to the Management Board’s February 2020 meeting, when the current regulations were finalized, various states proposed more than fifty possible conservation equivalency alternatives.  Although rationality later prevailed, and most states agreed, at the meeting, to withdraw their proposals, enough bad ideas survived the process that the probability of reducing fishing mortality to target fell from 50% to a pathetically low 42%.

Ultimately, the PDT decided to refer the question to the Management Board, where it might or might not be resolved.

There is also the issue of the quality of the data underlying state CE proposals.

While the Marine Recreational Information Program produces fairly good data, if it is used on a coastwide basis, data quality quickly declines when it is used at finer scales.  Thus, when it comes to state level data, it isn’t a question of whether managers are using data that’s truly good—it almost certainly isn’t—but whether they’re using data that’s at least good enough.

Thus, three options were put on the table.  Either, 1) allow ASMFC’s Atlantic Striped Bass Technical Committee set the standards for data quality on an ad hoc basis, 2) require a percent standard error of less than 50, or 3) require a PSE of less than 40.  An interesting discussion ensued.

It turns out that MRIP itself has decided that data with a PSE greater than 50 is unsuitable for management use, so one PDT member supported that option.  But another pointed out that MRIP also suggests that data be used only on an annual coastwide basis, rather than being broken down into state, wave, and/or mode; if the ASMFC could regularly ignore the latter guidance, why should it feel bound by MRIP’s cap on PSE?  Plus, putting a hard standard in Amendment 7 would create problems should MRIP decide to adopt a new maximum PSE standard that is either higher or lower than the 50 currently in place.

It was also noted that setting a hard standard for data might create hardships for states which, for whatever reason, have particularly high PSEs, particularly if such states wish to set separate regulations for wave or mode.

That led to another discussion, of whether states that opt for conservation equivalency ought to be required to incorporate a buffer to account for uncertainty; under such buffer, any reduction would have to be 25% greater, and any landings increase 25% less, than would be required or allowed under coastwide measures. Doing so would make sense, as the state-level numbers are far too imprecise to justify depending on the point estimates to constrain harvest.  

While 25% might seem like a very large buffer to some, everyone should remember that it would not have been large enough to prevent Maryland’s massive overages in 2015-2019, when that state not only failed to achieve the 20.5% reduction required, but increased landings more than 50% over what they had been in 2012, because managers failed to consider, and buffer for, the impact of the big 2011 year class entering the fishery when calculating the supposedly “conservation equivalent” regulations.

Another important provision being proposed would require that any state that adopts conservation equivalency must, at a minimum, adopt management measures that would have the same conservation impact, in that particular state, as the coastwide measures adopted by the Management Board.  While such provision makes perfect sense, as any lesser standard would undercut the overall management plan, it’s sad that it needs to be added to the draft Amendment 7 at all, since the ASMFC’s Interstate Fishery Management Program Charter already defines “conservation equivalency” as

“Actions taken by a state which differ from the specific requirements of the [fishery management plan], but which achieve the same quantified level of conservation for the resource under management.  For example, various combinations of size limits, gear restrictions, and season length can be demonstrated to achieve the same targeted level of fishing mortality.  The appropriate Management Board/Section will determine conservation equivalency.  [emphasis added]”

Unfortunately, in practice, the clear intent of the Charter has been subverted by a Management Board that has repeatedly allowed states to adopt conservation-equivalent measures that clearly did not achieve the same "quantified level of conservation" as the coastwide measures.  The most recent example of that was the above-referenced adoption of conservation equivalency measures, primarily for New Jersey and Maryland, in February 2020, which so degraded Addendum VI to Amendment 6 to the Atlantic Striped Bass Interstate Fishery Management Plan:  18% Reduction in Removals and Circle Hook Measures that it ended up having a 58% probability of failing to meet its management goals.

Thus, it’s clear why this proposal would be a boon for striped bass management.

One thing that I found disappointing was that the Technical Committee can’t calculate the probability of a state conservation equivalency measure succeeding, although it can calculate how any such measure will impact the probable success of coastwide management efforts.  It’s not just a question of time or effort; the analytical tools to do state-level calculations just don’t exist, making it impossible for the TC to do the analysis, no matter how willing it might be to do so.

That’s just another reason to be wary of approving CE.

Finally, the Plan Development Team got to one of the most contentious issues:  Whether states should be held accountable for failed conservation equivalency measures, what “failure” even means, and what hoops a state should be expected to jump through to validate its conservation equivalency proposals.

One early suggestion was that states adopting conservation equivalent management measures should also implement data collection programs to supplement the data provided by MRIP.  

Given the uncertainty inherent in state-level MRIP data, there would be a clear benefit in such supplementary data collection, but precisely when such data would be required, and how much supplemental data would be required, remain open questions.  The draft Amendment 7 might include one toothless option that merely “encourages” a state to collect more data, a second that requires supplemental data if the state’s conservation equivalency proposal exceeds predetermined parameters, and a third that would require supplementary data collection for all conservation equivalent management measures.

To the question of just how much supplementary data would be needed, one PDT member responded that such question should be answered on a case-by-case basis,

“depending on how far they’re stretching the data,”

which should probably raise additional questions as to whether proposals that require the states to “stretch” available data ought to be allowed at all.

Yet that still leaves open the question of how to deal with states when their conservation equivalent measures fail to adequately constrain landings.

That’s a difficult question, because many factors play into each season’s landing levels, including angler effort, the availability of the fish themselves, and the uncertainty inherent in MRIP data.  Even in a perfect world, annually shifting patterns of striped bass abundance, and anglers’ response to those shifts, would make it nearly impossible to predict future landings based on past outcomes.

Which is precisely why conservation equivalency should be regarded with a very jaundiced eye.

Given such difficulties, one suggested approach was to impose no accountability at all.  A second would require state action if the apparent overage exceeded the percent standard error in the MRIP estimate—which, given the imprecision in MRIP estimates, would require catch to exceed predictions by a substantial amount.  A three-year average of state landings was also suggested, although by the time those three years were up and an accountability measures could be implemented, it is not unlikely that new management measures would be in the works, rendering any accountability largely illusory.

The discussion then began to examine concepts of fault and consequences.

One PDT member asked whether a state should be held accountable if its original calculations were valid, based on past performance in the fishery, but later changes in the fishery intervened and so rendered the conservation equivalent regulations inadequate to constrain harvest.  Maryland’s overages in 2015-2019 were held out as an example.

PDT members seemed sympathetic to that sort of outcome, but I have to admit that I’m not.  While I respect the fact that the Technical Committee must deal with hard data and not engage in flights of “what if,”—and, quite honestly, I wouldn’t want it any other way—the Maryland overage was entirely predictable.  

Maryland managers knew that the big 2011 year class would be entering into the fishery, beginning in 2015.  Maryland managers knew that would make striped bass far more available to anglers than they were in the base year of 2012.  And Maryland managers knew—or, at least, should have known, if they paid any attention to how the recreational striped bass fishery works—that such increasing abundance would also result in sharply increased recreational fishing effort, which would translate into sharply increased landings.

Granted, those things that managers knew can’t be precisely quantified into additional restrictions on landings.  At the same time, it’s hard to believe that anyone really thought that bag limits, size limits, and seasons based on 2012 performance, when bass were relatively scarce, would have very much relevance on 2015 performance, when a very large year class of bass would flood into the Chesapeake fishery.  What that equates to is pretty close to the definition of “management uncertainty.”  

If state fishery managers failed to put a buffer in place in an effort to at least try to address such uncertainty, the state should, indeed, be held accountable for such failure.

The other question that was raised is whether a state which opted for conservation equivalency should and failed to constrain harvest to the intended levels should be given a bye if the coastawide goals werestill met, given that such state's failure didn’t impair the goals of the management plan.  The PDT seemed sympathetic to that sort of outcome, but I see the matter a little differently.

I believe in accountability.

If states adopt the coastwide measures adopted by the Management Board, as part of a united coastwide effort to conserve and manage the stock, they should be held collectively accountable.  That is, if the coastwide measures fail to achieve their intended goal, I would expect the Management Board to amend such measures to render them more effective; so long as the coastwide goal is achieved, I’m not too concerned with individual states’ performance, because each state is working together for the same end.

But when a state adopts conservation equivalent regulations, it places itself outside the collective effort, and the collective accountability, for the success of the coastwide management plan, and renders itself uniquely responsible for fisheries within its own state.  

Depending on how the CE measures work out, it may find itself compliant with the goals and objectives of the management plan, but it also may find itself undermining the effectiveness of such plan if, because of such state’s failed CE measures, the coastwide plan fail to achieve its goals.  Or, more relevant to the immediate discussion, it may find itself successfully shifting the burden of conservation onto other states’ shoulders, if its CE measures fail to adequately constrain harvest but, because of other states’ reductions, the coastwide goal is still met.

States which would so place the conservation burden on the shoulders of others should always be held accountable, as a matter of fundamental fairness.

If states are accountable for failed conservation equivalent measures, the Management Board must then decide whether accountability measures are only enforced if the stock is overfished, whether they’re enforced when the fishing mortality rate is above target and spawning stock biomass is below the target level, or whether it is enforced regardless of the status of the stock.

Then there’s the question of when the accountability measures would be put in place.  Doing it in the year following the overage isn’t practical, as the MRIP data isn’t finalized until April of that year, when many states’ season are already underway.  Should a state be required to adopt new measures in the second year after the overage?  Or should a phase-in be allowed?

And even with that decided, what should the accountability measures be?  Should as state merely be required to adopt the coastwide measures?  Or, as one PDT member suggested, should “something extra” be required?

Personally, I think that the latter choice represents the right way to go.  There should be some disincentive for states to adopt CE measures that they know carry a big risk of failure.

In the end, the Plan Development Team did a good job of analyzing a difficult and multi-faceted issue.  Perhaps their conversation could be summed up in one member’s remark that there should be

“more emphasis on conservation equivalency proposals that work than on worrying about when they don’t.”

Of course, that assumes that devising CE proposals that work on a regular basis is something that can be realistically expected.  Personally, I’m still unconvinced.

That’s why, at the end of the meeting, when public input was invited, I told the PDT that I believed that crafting effective conservation equivalency proposals was a highly problematic process, and that Amendment 7 should be written to discourage conservation equivalency’s use.

But if CE is to be used at all, it should be under the conditions set forth in the charter—states’ reductions must be the same as they would have been under coastwide rules—plus a 25% buffer to allow for management uncertainty should be adopted.

Under such conditions, states would be reluctant to seek conservation equivalent proposals except for the most compelling reasons, and most of the problems that CE creates would likely disappear.

Let’s hope that, when time comes for a vote, the majority of the Management Board agrees.