STRIPED BASS ADDENDUM III: MORE WORK REQUIRED

 

When the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board met on the afternoon of May 6, the big question was what they were going to do with the first draft of Addendum III to Amendment 7 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass.

As the meeting began, the Management Board faced three possible actions:  It could decide that a 7 percent reduction in fishing mortality was too trivial to worry about and, recognizing that the stock had a 48.5 percent probability of rebuilding if no action was taken, halt work on the addendum; it could accept the draft prepared by the Plan Development Team and, perhaps after making some minor revisions, approve the draft addendum for public comment; or it could decide that some major revisions were needed, and send the draft back to the Plan Development Team for additional work.

In the end, the Management Board chose the latter option.

While some observers expected that outcome, it certainly wasn’t a foregone conclusion.  Although the Management Board never seriously debated abandoning the entire Addendum, John Clark, the Delaware fishery manager, made a motion to strip out the entire section that dealt with harvest reductions, leaving an Addendum that would deal with some odds and ends such as commercial tagging and guidelines on how to measure a bass, but would do nothing to better ensure that the stock would rebuild by the 2029 deadline.

The motion, which was seconded by New Jersey fishery manager Joseph Cimino, had substantial support, and failed to pass by the narrowest of margins, with seven jurisdictions voting in favor, seven voting against, and the two abstaining.  So at least for now, the seven percent reduction in striped bass removals will move forward, although the wisdom of moving forward with the Addendum might be challenged again at the Management Board’s August meeting.

With that vote concluded, the Management Board began to edit the draft presented by the Plan Development Team, and the possibility of approving the edited draft for public comment remained a real possibility.

Chris Batsavage, a North Carolina fisheries manager, made the initial amendment:

“Move to remove Option 4 from Section 3.3 (0.8% commercial reductions.”

That motion, which was seconded by Delaware’s Clark, passed by consensus, and removed what I have always believed was the single most illogical and indefensible provision in the draft Addendum III, as well as in previous draft documents where similar provisions have appeared. 

It arose out of the fact that the commercial fishery accounts for about 11 percent of striped bass fishing mortality.  

After the Technical Committee determined that removals would have to be reduced by seven percent if the spawning stock was to have a 60 percent probability of rebuilding by 2029, someone suggested that instead of both recreational fishing mortality and the commercial quota being reduced by seven percent, the seven percent commercial reduction should instead be multiplied by the commercial fishery’s 11 percent contribution to fishing mortality, resulting in a commercial quota reduction of only 0.77 percent, which was rounded up to 0.8 in the draft Addendum.  

Proponents of that approach argued that cutting the commercial quota by a full seven percent would be unfair, given the commercial fishery’s small contribution to fishing mortality.

It is, of course, an absurd argument, that shows either a pathetic ignorance of basic mathematics or an intentional effort to misdirect management efforts.  If both recreational fishing mortality and commercial quota are cut by seven percent, then—assuming that the contributions to overall fishing mortality remain constant at recent levels—the recreational fishery will be expected to make 89 percent of the cuts while the commercial fishery is responsible for 11 percent—exactly in accord with their contributions to striped bass removals.

On the other hand, if the commercial quota is only cut back by 0.8 percent, and the rest of the needed reductions are placed on the shoulders of the recreational fishery, then the recreational removals would have to be reduced by an additional percentage point—by eight percent instead of seven—to compensate.  No, it wouldn’t have been a large increase in the recreational reduction, and was small enough to get lost amid the uncertainty in the recreational catch and landings data, but it is nonetheless based on a flawed and inherently inequitable concept, and has no place in Addendum III.

We can easily predict how the commercial fishery would have reacted had someone proposed multiplying the seven percent recreational reduction by 89 percent—the recreational contribution for fishing mortality—and having the commercial fishery shoulder the remainder of any needed cuts.  Yet the logic for such an approach would be the same as the logic supporting the 0.8 percent proposal.

Of course, removing the 0.8 percent commercial reduction from the document still leaves an even more inequitable option in place—an option that would force the recreational fishery to cut back its landings, and so shoulder the entire burden of rebuilding, while the commercial quota remains unchanged.  Fortunately, the option for equal, seven percent reductions also remains in the draft Addendum, so we can only hope that true equity, in the form of equal percentage reductions, prevails in any final version of Addendum III that the Board might approve.

Sadly, the commercial fishery isn’t the only fishery that seeks to benefit at the expense of the great majority of recreational fishermen.  The for-hire fleet wants to use Addendum III as a vehicle to take bass away from private and shore-based anglers, too.

The notion of “mode splits”—that is, gifting anglers on for-hire boats with more generous regulations, and relegating private-boat and shore-based anglers to a sort of second-class status—is not new.  It was raised in the draft Addendum II to Amendment 7 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass that was approved in January 2024 (where it was overwhelmingly rejected in stakeholder comments, by a margin of 2,314 to 160), and ultimately in Addendum II as well, and has also been an ongoing theme in other fisheries.  

Just last Wednesday, multiple for-hire operators attending a meeting of the National Marine Fisheries Service’s Highly Migratory Species Advisory Panel asked NMFS to take an unspecified number of bluefin tuna away from private-boat fishermen and give them to the party and charter boat sector, while at the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council, there is an amendment under consideration that would favor the for-hire boats over private boat and shore-based anglers with respect to bluefish, summer flounder, scup, and black sea bass.

It's not clear that the "greatest overall benefit to the Nation," supposedly the standard to be used when chosing between possible federal fishery management measures, would be served by such actions.

Perhaps surprisingly, the first draft of Addendum III addressed the mode split issue in a unique and far more equitable way.  While it included options that would allow the for-hire boats a somewhat wider slot limit, and so let them kill the larger female bass that the generally-applicable 8- to 31-inch slot denies to everyone else, it also included options that attached a price to that wider slot.  Those options invoked the principles of conservation equivalency, and required for-hire anglers to reduce their landings by the same seven percent required of everyone else; in exchange for the wider slot limit, such for-hire anglers would have to accept a longer closed season, which would help ensure that all anglers did their fair share to rebuild the striped bass stock.

Unfortunately, Massachusetts fisheries manager Nichola Meserve rose to

“Move to remove all the split separate equal mode reduction options.”

David Sikorsky, the Legislative Proxy from Maryland, seconded, and that motion, too, was passed by consent.

Thus, the only option that could have brought some equity to the mode split issue was removed from the draft Addendum, although options that elevate for-hire anglers above the rest of the recreational fishery remain.

The third edit to the draft Addendum came when Dr. Jason McNamee, the Rhode Island fisheries manager, moved

“to remove the ocean size limit options of 37-40” and 38-41”.”

New York fisheries manager Martin Gary seconded, and unanimous consent again settled the issue.  Given that such size limits barely achieved the seven percent reduction, while targeting the larger, more fecund females that the current slot limit is intended to protect, the universal support for removing such larger slots should have come as no surprise.

If the proposed changes stopped there, draft Addendum III would probably have already been released for public comment.  However, one more big issue was put on the table, which made it necessary to send the draft Addendum back for more work.

Over the years, Maryland has sought special, state-specific management measures that, in theory, had the same conservation impact as the measures adopted by the Management Board.  There were times when the state placed greater restrictions on its recreational landings, so that it could have a larger commercial quota.  There were times when it shut down its entire recreational fishery for a few weeks, not even allowing catch-and-release, so that its for-hire anglers could retain two fish, compared to the single striped bass that every other recreational fisherman might take home.  There were times when it convinced the Management Board that requiring the use of circle hooks by anglers fishing with bait reduced release mortality enough to justify higher landings.

But in time, the Maryland regulatory structure, with all of the special bits and pieces added on, became too clunky and difficult for state managers to work with, particularly as each new addendum required new management measures in addition to those already in place.  

Things finally got to the point where Maryland believed it necessary to rationalize its recreational striped bass seasons, so that any new measures required by Addendum III, should it finally be adopted, could be more easily applied.  

Thus, at the May 6 Management Board meeting, Maryland’s Sikorski was called upon to

“Move to add the Maryland baseline season option to Draft Addendum III.”

Delaware’s Clark seconded, but it was clear that the Management Board wasn’t going to blindly follow along.  While Maryland made a convincing presentation, which suggested that the new “baseline season” would not increase fishing mortality, many Board members wanted independent confirmation.  So Doug Grout, New Hampshire’s Governor’s Appointee, moved to amend the initial motion to add the words

“contingent upon final review by the [Technical Committee] and [Stock Assessment Subcommittee] of the modifications that were made.”

Raymond Kane, the Governor’s Appointee from Massachusetts, seconded the motion to amend, which then passed easily, with 15 in favor, and 1 abstention.

With that change, the main motion also passed, by a vote of 13 in favor, 2 abstentions, and 1 null vote (which occurs when a majority of a state delegation cannot agree on a position).  

But the Management Board wasn’t yet done.

The Maryland “baseline season” was arguably a form of conservation equivalency, and Amendment 7 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass provides that

“Proposed [conservation equivalency] programs for non-quota managed fisheries are required to include an uncertainty buffer of 10%.”

While Maryland might be able to make a case that its “reset” baseline season wasn’t exactly conservation equivalency, the proposal came close enough that Ms. Meserve moved

“to task the [Plan Development Team] with developing a sub-option for the MD season option that would add an uncertainty buffer.”

The motion was seconded by Cheri Patterson, New Hampshire’s Legislative Appointee, and appealed to enough Management Board members that it passed on a vote of 9 in favor, 5 opposed, and 2 abstentions.

The additional work required before the Maryland baseline might be included in the draft Addendum—work that had to be done by the Technical Committee, the Stock Assessment Subcommittee, and the Plan Development Team—meant that a draft Addendum III could not yet be released for public comment.

A new draft will be prepared in time for the Management Board’s August meeting.  If the Board is satisfied with that version, and if the Management Board still believes it worthwhile to move forward with the Addendum, a draft Addendum III should be released for public comment soon after the August meeting, with public hearings held in late August and September.  Assuming that schedule holds, the final decision on Addendum III would be made at the Management Board’s October meeting.

Right now, I’m not sure how I would like to see the Amendment III story end.

I wanted to see the Management Board adopt additional management measures last December, to protect the 2018 year class and reduce 2025 landings.  That didn’t happen.

In December, such reductions didn't appear necessary to rebuild the stock by 2029.  However, in the short term, they would probably have increased the size of the spawning stock biomass, and put it in a better position once the six years of poor spawns—which began in 2019—begin to impact the SSB.  More restrictive regulations in 2025 would also have protected the 2018 year class—the last above-average year class that the stock has produced—which will be moving into the 28- to 31-inch slot this year.

If Addendum III is finally adopted, its management provisions won’t go into effect until 2026.  By then, the 2018 year class will have been targeted by recreational fishermen for a full season, and about half of the 2018s that survived will have already grown out of the 28- to 31-inch slot.  Both factors will limit the impact of Addendum III.  

So the question that needs to be answered is whether any benefits provided by Addendum III will justify the bad precedents that the Addendum may very well create.

By “bad precedents,” I mean elevating both the commercial and for-hire fisheries above the mainstream recreational fishery to which the great majority of striped bass fishermen belong, and perhaps introducing the concept of no-target closed seasons, when even catch-and-release is illegal, to the entire coast.

Should the Management Board ultimately decide that the commercial quota should not be cut, and should it adopt a mode split proposal, it will have effectively placed the private-boat and shore-based anglers at the bottom of the striped bass pecking order, forcing such recreational fishermen to bear the brunt of the conservation effort, while also forcing them to give up the most in terms of striped bass landings.

Given that the private-boat and shore-based anglers are responsible for more than 98 percent of all recreational trips, and so generate a substantial majority of the social and economic benefits gleaned from the striped bass resource, placing them in such a position seems the wrong thing to do.

And given that no-target seasons are just about impossible to enforce, as it is pretty well impossible to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that an angler is fishing for striped bass and not weakfish, bluefish, red drum, white perch, or some other species of fish, the adoption of such seasons would provide the illusion of reducing harvest, while in fact accomplishing little.

For as one honest fisherman noted in a comment sent in to the Management Board,

"I continue to discuss proposed changes for striped bass management with many fellow anglers.  When I ask them about the no targeting proposal for striped bass they all invariably reply by saying that they will be fishing for blue fish."

And no one will be able to prove otherwise.

Everyone who benefits from the striped bass resource—commercial or recreational, private or for-hire—has a stake in the species’ future health, and should be paying a proportionate price to help ensure that such future is a good one.

If Addendum III doesn’t do that, and skews striped bass management against the most important user group, or imposes unenforceable regulations that will do little to rebuild the stock, an argument can easily be made that Addendum III would do more harm than good, and shouldn’t be adopted at all.

PERSONNEL CUTS THREATEN SCIENCE-BASED FISHERIES MANAGEMENT

 

The message from Jon Hare, the director of the National Marine Fisheries Service’s (NMFS) Northeast Fisheries Science Center (NEFSC) was as distressing as it was clear:

I have raised at both [the New England Fishery Management and Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management] Council meetings the issue that the NEFSC is not going to be able to complete assignments as scheduled in 2025. This is a result of staff reductions that have occurred and will occur in the coming weeks…

The NEFSC is looking at these two time scales—2025 and 2026 and beyond. For 2025, the NEFSC is evaluating the 2025 assessment schedule and associated process steps to try and determine what is feasible given the reductions in staffing. The NEFSC will be reaching out soon to discuss proposed changes to assessment product delivery for 2025 to meet management needs with our decreased assessment capacity…

In our early planning, NEFSC recognizes that two “new-ish” process steps will need to be paused for the time being. First, we intend to not conduct the proposed Management Track input process that was intended for May 2025 to gather input on Fall 2025 [Management Track] assessments. Given that we do not have clarity on what the assessment schedule will look like for 2026 and beyond, we feel it does not make sense to convene stakeholders to gather input on assessments that may not happen in 2026. Second, we also do not intend to convene a Research Track Steering Committee meeting this Spring. Similar to the [Management Track] input situation, once we have an idea on our capacity, we are going to ask the [Northeast Region Coordinating Council] to consider the current Research Track schedule at our May meeting, so planning for additional Research Tracks is premature at this time.

…With respect to assessment schedule changes, NEFSC is actively developing proposed updates for 2025 to discuss with you. As soon as possible, we will reach out to share those ideas and work on solidifying this year’s schedule. Once we’ve done that, we’ll move onto longer-term planning, and will be engaging NRCC members in that as well—with hope that we’ll have some concrete ideas to discuss at the May NRCC meeting.

Thank you.

The note was addressed to members of the Northeast Regional Coordinating Council, an organization composed of scientists and fisheries managers from the NEFSC, NMFS’ Greater Atlantic Region Fisheries Office, the New England Fisheries Management Council, the Mid-Atlantic Fisheries Management Council (MAFMC), and the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (Commission), which was organized to “prioritize, communicate, and coordinate fisheries scientific and management resources through in-person meetings that include Federal, State, Council, and Commission managers and scientists of the Greater Atlantic region of the United States.”

Dr. Hare’s message bodes ill for the fishery management system now in place throughout NMFS’ Greater Atlantic region, which includes all federal waters between northernmost Maine and Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. It also bodes ill for some stocks managed by the Commission which, while primarily pursued in state waters, are nonetheless assessed by the NEFSC.

Fisheries management in the Greater Atlantic region, as in all other federal waters, is governed by the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (Magnuson-Stevens), which has established a number of legally enforceable requirements for all federal fisheries managers and federally managed fisheries. Magnuson-Stevens requires that “Any fishery management plan…with respect to any fishery, shall contain the conservation and management measures…necessary and appropriate for the conservation and management of the fishery to prevent overfishing and rebuild overfished stocks, and to protect, restore, and promote the long-term health and stability of the fishery. [formatting omitted]”

It defines “overfishing” and “overfished” as “a rate or level of fishing mortality that jeopardizes the capacity of a fishery to produce the maximum sustainable yield on a continuing basis.”

Should a stock be found to be overfished, Magnuson-Stevens requires that fisheries managers prepare a rebuilding plan that, among other criteria, “specif[ies] a time period for rebuilding the fishery that shall be as short as possible…and not exceed 10 years, except in cases where the biology of the stock of fish, other environmental conditions, or management measures under an international agreement in which the United States participates dictate otherwise. [formatting omitted]”

Magnuson-Stevens also requires that “Conservation and management measures shall be based upon the best scientific information available.”

The stock assessments provided by NMFS’ fisheries science centers, including the NEFSC, have long been recognized as the “best scientific information available” for managing fish in federal waters. Without timely assessments, it would be impossible to determine the maximum sustainable yield (MSY) of any fish stock, nor the fishing mortality rate that would achieve MSY but not lead to overharvest.

Without such assessments, it would be impossible to determine whether a stock is overfished or experiencing overfishing, or to determine whether a formerly overfished stock had been successfully rebuilt. And the management plans for some fish stocks require even more intensive monitoring.

On June 7, 2022, the MAFMC and Commission jointly adopted the Recreational Harvest Control Rule Framework (Control Rule), which was more formally designated Framework 17 to the Summer Flounder, Scup, and Black Sea Bass Fishery Management Plan and Framework 6 to the Bluefish Fishery Management Plan. The Control Rule was amended by the MAFMC and Commission on April 9, 2025.

The Control Rule abandoned the traditional approach to recreational fisheries management, in which anglers’ recent landings were compared to an established recreational harvest limit (RHL). Depending on whether such recent landings were above or below the RHL, recreational management measures were made either more or less restrictive in the hope to make landings more closely approximate the RHL in the next fishing year.

It was a simple process, but because weather, the availability of different species, and even economic factors such as fuel prices affected angler behavior differently each year, and because the estimates of recreational landings included substantial uncertainty, it was rarely successful in aligning landings with the RHL.

The Control Rule presented a new approach that was, in part, based on stock status. Given the same set of circumstances, different management responses would occur depending on whether a stock’s abundance was “very high,” or more than 150% of the biomass target (B_target); “high,” defined as at least 100% of B_target but less than 150%; or “low,” meaning at least 50% of B_target but less than 100% (the recent amendment to the Control Rule changed those definitions somewhat, and added a fourth category for stocks with an abundance just a little above or below B_target). Control Rule-based management measures would remain in place for two years to better promote regulatory stability, and substantially dampened the sometimes wild, year-to-year changes in management measures adopted pursuant to the previous approach.

However, the Control Rule is heavily dependent upon timely stock assessments, produced every two years, to inform managers of changes in a stock’s status. In 2023, after a scheduled research track stock assessment for black sea bass could not be completed on time, and so delayed the production of a management track assessment needed to inform the Control Rule process, the process of setting recreational black sea bass specifications for 2024-2025 was disrupted. A memorandum from MAFMC staff advised that

The [Control Rule] is intended to allow recreational measures to remain unchanged across two years, aligned with the timing of updated management track stock assessments, which are expected to be available every other year. However…the previously anticipated 2023 management track assessment was postponed to the summer of 2024.

Given this change in the timing of the assessment, the 2024 overfishing limit, acceptable biological catch limit (ABC), recreational annual catch limit (ACL), and recreational annual catch target (ACT), from which the RHL is derived, were all set equal to the 2023 values. The 2024 RHL (6.27 million pounds) differs from the 2023 RHL (6.57 million pounds) only due to the use of updated discard data in the calculations. Framework 17/Addendum XXXIV did not contemplate a situation where the RHL would change without updated stock assessment information… [emphasis added]

Because black sea bass abundance was deemed “very high,” and because 2024 recreational landings were expected to exceed the 2024 RHL, the Control Rule called for new management measures that would effect a 10% reduction in recreational black sea bass landings.

The Summer Flounder, Scup, and Black Sea Bass Monitoring Committee (Monitoring Committee), which is composed of state, Commission, and federal biologists and advises the MAFMC and Commission on management issues, disagreed with the Control Rule’s direction.

Instead, the Monitoring Committee “agreed that the [Control Rule] requirements in this situation are not clear. The framework/addenda which implemented the [Control Rule] did not contemplate a situation where the RHL would change without a stock assessment update. When the framework/addenda were finalized, it was assumed that management track stock assessments would be available every other year.” Because the required stock assessment was unavailable, and after considering multiple factors that fell outside the Control Rule’s methodology, “but with greatest emphasis on the lack of updated stock assessment information,” the Monitoring Committee “recommended that recreational black sea bass measures be left unchanged in 2024.”

The 2023 black sea bass stock assessment was delayed even though the NEFSC was operating at full capacity. If staff reductions lessen the NEFSC’s capacity to complete future stock assessments, there is good reason to ask whether the Control Rule would remain a viable management tool in an environment where the NEFSC could not reliably produce the needed stock assessments every two years.

At the March 13, 2025 meeting of the Summer Flounder, Scup, and Black Sea Bass Advisory Panel (Advisory Panel), one “advisor expressed hesitation with [the Control Rule’s] reliance on timely stock assessments every two years, especially after the black sea bass research track stock assessment was delayed in 2023. This advisor also noted that recent cut backs in various federal agencies could pose challenges for the stock assessments in the future.” However, that comment was buried deep in the resulting report on the Advisory Panel meeting, and did not seem to catch the attention of either the Commission or MAFMC members, who approved the continued use of a modified Control Rule approach despite the NEFSC’s reduced capacity.

Management track assessments for summer flounder, scup, and black sea bass are scheduled for the summer of 2025. The MAFMC and Commission will have until December 2025, when recreational management measures for 2026 and 2027 will be set, to determine their next steps, should the NEFSC prove unable to produce those assessments on time. Merely taking no action, as they did when the 2023 black sea bass assessment was delayed, is not an acceptable default response.

Even fisheries that aren’t managed by NMFS could suffer the consequences of the NEFSC’s reduced capacity. The Commission relies on the NEFSC to perform assessments of the currently overfished striped bass stock. Striped bass are in the midst of a rebuilding program intended to fully restore spawning stock biomass by 2029, while also experiencing historically low spawning success. A benchmark stock assessment, scheduled for 2027, is badly needed to guide future management actions, but the NEFSC’s current travails place that assessment’s timely completion in doubt.

And the NEFSC’s assessment responsibilities go far beyond the species already mentioned. In 2025, besides the summer flounder, scup, and black sea bass assessments already mentioned, the NEFSC had committed to assessing 21 other fish stocks. In 2026, it was scheduled to assess 17 New England groundfish stocks, plus three other commercially important species, Atlantic herring, butterfish, and longfin inshore squid. In 2027, 21 assessments, besides striped bass, had been planned. All of those assessments are now at risk of cancellation or delay because of the cuts to the NEFSC’s science staff.

And the NESFC isn’t alone. NMFS operates six regional science centers, addressing fisheries on every coast of the United States. All are facing deep staffing cuts, which will severely impair NMFS’ ability to conserve and manage the marine resources of the United States.

On April 15, 2025, President Donald Trump issued an executive order titled “Restoring America’s Seafood Competitiveness.” It stated that “The United States controls one of the largest and most abundant ocean resources of the world,” and noted that “Most American fish stocks are healthy.” The abundance that he refers to, and the concurrent health of the nation’s fish stocks, can be directly attributed to the work done, and the successes achieved, by the scientists working for the NEFSC and the other NMFS science centers.

Without adequate scientific staff to support and inform the fisheries management process, the nation’s fish stocks are unlikely to remain abundant and healthy for very long.

-----

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/

NMFS DELAYS ACTION ON KEY NEW ENGLAND COD MANAGEMENT MEASURE

 

Staffing cuts and the resultant delays, and perhaps an executive order, are going to impact the National Marine Fisheries Service’s ability to conserve and manage fish stocks while striving to maintain healthy marine fisheries.

The most recent example of that occurred on April 29, when NMFS announced an emergency action intended to ensure that the New England groundfish fishery might be prosecuted when a new fishing year began on May 1.  NMFS said,

“Today, NOAA Fisheries signed a temporary rule for an emergency action that establishes measures necessary for the Northeast Multispecies [Fishery] to operate at the beginning of fishing year 2025, on May 1, 2025.  This action ensures that the fishery can continue without interruption by setting interim specifications for 2 stocks of cod and for Georges Bank haddock, and affirming specifications for other Northeast Multispecies stocks previously set in Frameworks 65 and 66…”

The emergency action also addressed other issues such as sector allocations, set commercial possession limits and overall catch limits for each regulatory trimester, and prohibit “common pool” commercial boats—that is, those vessels which chose not to participate in the groundfish catch share program—and recreational vessels from landing any Georges Bank cod.

What the emergency action doesn’t do is incorporate the most recent groudfish management actions taken by the New England Fishery Management Council.  In that regard, NMFS noted that

“These specifications are interim measures that authorize the fishery to operate between May 1 and the potential implementation of Framework 69, and do not undermine or inadvertently preclude approval and implementation of Amendment 25 and Framework 69.  However, NMFS noted in the emergency rule that it does not intend to implement the management transition to the proposed four stocks of cod, if approved, until May 1, 2026, because transitioning management in the middle of the fishing year from two stock units of cod to the four stock units would be challenging for fishery participants and NMFS.  Other measures in Framework 69, if approved, would be implemented during fishing year 2025.”

And that’s a big deal.

Scientists have recently determined that they have been managing cod all wrong.  For decades, managers have assumed that there are just two stocks of cod—designated Gulf of Maine and Georges Banks—off the U.S. East Coast, and have tailored management measures to that assumption.  Such measures haven’t worked out very well; populations have cratered, and even seemingly restrictive measures haven’t been enough to put either stock on an upward trajectory.

A recent research track stock assessment determined that there are at least five separate stocks of cod off the northeast coast.  As a practical matter, distinguishing between winter- and spring-spawning cod in the western Gulf of Maine is too difficult to allow for separate management, so both groups of fish are combined for management purposes.  Biologists have also identified separate stocks that they refer to as Eastern Gulf of Maine, Georges Bank, and Southern New England.

Each of those four stocks has its own status, characteristics, and problems.  Western Gulf of Maine is overfished and experiencing overfishing, but scientists believe that if it is managed properly, will increase in abundance between now and 2027.  However, the same scientists are concerned that their projections might be somewhat too optimistic.  The Eastern Gulf of Maine cod, on the other hand, are expected to show decreasing abundance through 2027, with bycatch in lobster pots thought to be a significant source of removals from the population; since such bycatch can’t be quantified, though, there is a lot of uncertainty surrounding the projections. 

Georges Bank cod are very badly overfished, although no overfishing is taking place.  Spawning stock biomass is at its historical nadir while, perhaps unsurprisingly, recruitment is too low to allow rebuilding.  It, too, is in a state of continuing decline.

The final stock, Southern New England, is unique in that most of its fishing mortality is thought to come from the recreational, rather than the commercial, fishery.  However, because there are serious gaps in the recreational data, the level of recreational removals remains uncertain.  The level of recreational release mortality is also unknown.  While the stock is badly overfished, biologists believe that it could increase in abundance over the next few years if recommended management measures are imposed—including a complete closure of the recreational fishery.

The New England Council drafted Amendment 25 in an effort to apply the recent stock assessment's conclusions to cod management in the northeast.

The New England Council intended that both Amendment 25 and Framework 69 would be approved by NMFS prior to the start of the 2025 fishing year.  A notice that the Council released on October 23, 2024 stated that

“To address this new understanding of cod stock structure, the Council is working on an Atlantic Cod Management Transition Plan.  The plan is meant to align the management of cod with the science.

“This detailed transition plan is being carried out in two phases.

“Phase 1:  This first phase is limited to measures that will be implemented by the May 1 start of the 2025 groundfish fishing year.  It includes both Amendment 25 and Framework 69.  [emphasis added]”

Yet the Council’s hopes and expectations counted for little.  It can only recommend management measures to NMFS; that agency, along with its parent agencies, the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration and Department of Commerce, have the sole authority to adopt regulations that conform to recommendations.

And in this case, the agency did not feel a compelling need to have Amendment 25 and Framework 69 in place for the start of the 2025 fishing year, and felt no urgency to conform cod management to the best available fisheries science before May 1, 2026--if it happens then.

That doesn’t necessarily suggest anything sinister.  Completely reordering the cod fishery, so that it conforms to a new understanding of how cod stocks are structured, is a demanding task.  It not only involves new annual specifications, ranging from overfishing limits to annual catch targets, for each of the four newly defined stocks, but also adjusting the quotas of each of the 15 groundfish sectors (as of the 2024 fishing year) to reflect the revised, four-stock management approach.  Such work takes time, and the fact that NMFS only issued its request for comments on Amendment 25 on February 28, 2025 virtually guaranteed that Amendment 25 would not be approved prior to the start of the new fishing year.

Still, it’s impossible to ignore the avoidable delays that kept NMFS from addressing Amendment 25 a little sooner than it has.

The change of administrations, and the resultant, unprecedented disruptions of routine agency functions during the transition period—including draconian restrictions on new legislative actions—undoubtedly also played an important role.  NMFS was effectively paralyzed during the early months of this year, to the extent that, for crucial weeks, it was unable to respond to a gross overharvest of bluefin tuna off North Carolina, a failure that will probably be reflected in lower trip limits for anglers and commercial fishermen elsewhere on the coast throughout the rest of the year.  It’s probably worthwhile to note that the bluefin tuna issue was addressed on the same day that NMFS asked for comments on Amendment 25—the first day that the administration was willing to let fisheries managers again do their jobs.

And once managers could get back to work, there were a lot fewer of them than there were before, due to deep and arbitrary cuts in the number of active NMFS employees.  With fewer people to do the work, it’s inevitable that less work will be done, and that both fish and fishermen will suffer as a result.

Even when NMFS finally manages to take up Amendment 25 for serious consideration, it may well be delayed, or very possibly rejected, though it is based on far better science than is the current cod management plan.

That’s because Amendment 25’s efforts to rebuild cod stocks will result in very small quotas for the foreseeable future, at least in the case of three of the four stocks.  New England fisherman, who have traditionally been willing to sacrifice the future for higher short-term landings, have strongly opposed the measure, with one industry spokesman going so far as to say that the Amendment, if adopted, will

“permanently destroy the centuries-old cod fishing business.”

Strong opposition will slow regulatory progress at the best of times, but now, it will be abetted by an obstacle that fishery managers didn’t have to deal with before:  An executive order from April 17, which calls on NMFS to

“unburden our commercial fishermen from costly and inefficient regulation,”

and directs the Secretary of Commerce to

“immediately consider suspending, revising, or rescinding regulations that overly burden America’s commercial fishing, aquaculture, and fish processing industries.”

Since the first efforts to manage New England groundfish, the region’s fishermen have complained that regulations “overly burden” the groundfishing industry, and the current administration seems particularly sympathetic to such claims.

Because such claims have fallen on sympathetic ears before, resulting in management measures that weren’t restrictive enough to conserve cod stocks, and because past management efforts were performed at too coarse a level, and didn’t accord with the actual structure of northeastern cod stocks, Amendment 25’s management measures, deemed necessary to stop the decline in cod abundance, almost certainly will, in the short term, have a substantial negative impact on New England fishermen, making it more likely that their calls for regulatory relief—or, at the least, for no more regulation—will be heard.

Amendment 25 represents managers’ best chance to turn around the decline in cod abundance off the northeastern coast of the United States.  While success is far from guaranteed—the cod stocks have fallen so far that recovery cannot be assured—Amendment 25 reflects a breakthrough in fisheries science which will, for the first time, align management measures with the structure of cod populations.

Yet NMFS has been dilatory in Amendment 25’s adoption. 

While part of its delay is undoubtedly due to practical matters—the spatial restructuring of a fishery is a difficult thing to do, and takes time to get right—much of it is due to pure politics.  And as a result of such politics, the soonest we might see the most critical aspect of Amendment 25—transitioning to a four-stock management approach—put in place is May 1, 2026.

And even that is not guaranteed.

It is very possible that the blind hand of politics, insensible to both scientific concerns and future consequences, will strike down Amendment 25 completely, in the name of “regulatory reform.”

Should that occur, it might well be striking down New England cod stocks and the New England cod fishery as well, as the best chance for their survival is labeled a “regulatory burden” and set aside.

GULF OF MEXICO RED SNAPPER: ARE STATES SETTING THEMSELVES UP TO FAIL?

 

Gulf of Mexico red snapper, like Atlantic menhaden and some other coastal species, have become what I call “political fish;” that is, species that has seen stakeholder rhetoric become so heated that those driving the debate set aside science and reason, and instead treat their opinions like fact, and try to convince professional managers to do the same.

In such cases, data is ignored or distorted, ideology is substituted for truth, and policy becomes whatever those with the greatest political pull thinks it ought to be.  In the case of Gulf of Mexico red snapper, the recreational fishing tackle industry and its “anglers’ rights” affiliates have spent significant time and effort trying to convince all concerned that

“By any metric, state management [of Gulf red snapper]…has been a resounding success, with better data, longer seasons, and higher angler satisfaction.  All while the snapper population continues to rebound at greater than expected rates.”

But is any of that really true?

There’s little doubt that, because of recreational advocates' pressure and political connections, fishing seasons are longer.  

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis recently announced that the 2025 Gulf recreational red snapper season will run for 126 days, which is the longest season that Florida anglers have enjoyed in many years.  

Louisiana issued emergency regulations to open its recreational season on April 15, 15 days ahead of the scheduled opening day of May 1.  

And in Alabama, where red snapper angling had only been permitted during four-day “weekends” throughout the season, regulators are now going to allow anglers to fish on all seven days of the week from the season opener on May 23 through June 30, at which point fishing will again be restricted to four-day weekends until Alabama’s 2025 recreational red snapper quota is exhausted.

And, at least to the extent that seasons are longer and allow recreational fishermen to put more dead snapper on the dock, there’s little doubt that angler satisfaction is trending higher, too.

But whether the states actually provide “better data,” and whether the red snapper population is currently rebounding at all, much less “at greater than expected rates,” are more than a little debatable.

I have a friend down in the Gulf who has operated a charter boat for many years.  He remembers when the red snapper population was close to its nadir, experienced the start of its recovery, and enjoyed a few years of notably increased abundance.  Now, he’s very afraid that the population is headed the other way, largely due to state fisheries managers finding ways to take too many fish out of the population.

I won’t mention his name—he doesn’t need unasked-for publicity—but he recently sent me an email that expressed his concerns.

“We are all seeing the end of sustainability in the gulf on the horizon.

“Louisiana federal charter boats who never wanted to be sector separated are now wanting to explore being state managed.  This is because Louisiana set their red snapper season to open in April at a 4 fish bag limit for private anglers and state guide boats.  The state guides and state managers are basically rubbing the disparity in the faces of federal permitted charters [who must fish under more restrictive rules]…

“Alabama is going to open its red snapper season the Friday before Memorial Day…but because they can’t catch their [recreational annual catch limit] they are going to [allow red snapper fishing] 7 days a week until the end of June…

“The state members of the [Gulf Fishery Management] Council are pushing toward trying to not have to pay back any overages if they blow their quota.

“What is apparent is the average landed weight of red snapper caught in the gulf continues to plummet…State directors believe all is fine and think the red snapper stock is sustainable.

“What we see is, localized depletion is worrisome.  It is now generalized depletion…In essence, we have an abundance of 1.75 to 2 year old red snapper, but very few 3 to 12 year old year classes.  We all are harvesting fish at a rate that is faster than they can reproduce and populate the reefs.”

My friend is not alone in his concerns.  There are folks in the business who believe that current fishing regulations may be too much of a good thing, and that seasons are running longer than they ought if the fishery is to remain sustainable.

Last year, after Florida’s recreational red snapper season had closed, some local charter boat captains weren’t particularly happy with how things panned out.  Destin, Florida arguably sits at the heart of Florida’s Gulf Coast red snapper fishery.  A September 3, 2024 article in a local publication, The Destin Log, reported that

“For some, it was business as usual.  But most all agree the red snapper season was a bit long…

“The 88-day season (about 3 months) was the longest in more than a decade.”

The paper went on to report that one charter boat operator

“said snapper fishing was ‘tough,’ and he would like to see it end Aug. 1 in the future.

“’This long season is going to make next year even tougher.’ [he] said.”

Another Destin-based captain observed that, in 2024,

“The snapper fishing was by far the toughest snapper season I’ve ever fished.  They were tough from the get-go, and became almost non-existent at the end of the season.

“The numbers just weren’t there this year, and it was a little scary to see.

”I believe the long season, even though it is good for business, is not good for the fishery.  I hope they make a change.”

While a third captain noted that

“We were able to find snappers throughout the season, but it wasn’t necessarily easy and for sure the overall size average was smaller than I’d like.”

Yet instead of shortening the Florida season, and ending it around August 1^st in order to take some pressure off the heavily-fished species, the state recently announced that the 2025 recreational red snapper season will be nearly 50% longer than it was in 2024.  If Florida's 88-day 2024 season was, as the charter boat captain maintained, likely to make 2025 red snapper fishing “even tougher” than it was in 2024, we can only imagine the impact that 2025’s 126-day season will have on recreational red snapper fishing in 2026.

Farther to the west, in Orange Beach, Alabama, a charter boat captain advises clients that,

“A half day trip during the beginning of June, the first month of red snapper season you may catch a mess, if you work hard and everyone participates (and the fish cooperate).  However, if you come during the second week of June or during July or August, you may catch a few for dinner.  You will catch a lot of smaller fish, but they will likely be too small to harvest.  This is due in part to too much fishing pressure in the areas close to shore.”

Based on all of the captains’ comments, it seems to make little sense to increase the seasons and bag limits yet, due to the pressure they're getting from the anglers' rights crowd, that seems to be the direction most state managers are taking.

A lot of the problem lies in the fact that, despite the claims that states are providing “better data,” the data used to gauge each state’s red snapper landings is problematic, with regard to both accuracy and how it is used.

For many years, recreational red snapper landings in the four Gulf states—Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana—were estimated solely by the National Marine Fisheries Service, which first employed the admittedly problematic Marine Recreational Fisheries Statistics Survey and, beginning in 2017, switched over to the Marine Recreational Information Program (Texas had long employed an archaic data collection system that predated the MRFSS, and was incompatible with any other state or federal data collection system).  Both federal programs incorporated a significant time lag, as their catch, landings, and effort estimates were not produced until, at best, 45 days after the end of each of the two-month-long “waves” in which data was collected.  That didn’t work well when federal snapper seasons might run for a period of only a few weeks or, in some years, only a few days.

So all five states began working with NMFS to develop their own data collection systems that could be used to collect information on a more timely basis.  The states’ efforts became more urgent after the Gulf Council began to consider Amendment 50 to the Fishery Management Plan for the Reef Fish Resources of the Gulf of Mexico, which allocated a portion of the recreational red snapper quota to each state, but allowed the states to set fishing seasons and, within strict limitations, size and bag limits that best suited each state’s red snapper anglers, so long as such rules constrained the state’s red snapper landings to or below the state quota.

The problem was, and to some extent still is, that each state’s data collection program differs from all of the others, and from the federal program, in its methodology.  That creates a problem.  As NMFS has explained,

“The current red snapper catch limits…are based, in part, on private-angling landings estimated using the Federal data-collection system, and NMFS uses the estimates from the Federal survey to determine whether landings exceed the total recreational [annual catch limit] (quota) and the stock [overfishing limit].  However, each Gulf state manages the harvest by its private anglers using estimates from its own state data collection program.  The Federal Marine Recreational Information Program (MRIP) based catch limits for Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana are not directly comparable to the landings estimates generated by each of those states, and the state estimates are not directly comparable to each other.  In other words, each state is estimating in a different ‘currency.’  Therefore…NMFS…worked with the Gulf States to develop calibration ratios so that each state’s catch limit could be converted to the Federal ‘currency’ to the currency in which each state monitors landings.”

An initial analysis demonstrated that while some states’ landings estimates were reasonably close to those of NMFS, other states severely undercounted their anglers harvest.  To level the playing field, Mississippi’s and Alabama’s federal recreational red snapper allocations had to be multiplied by factors of 0.3840 and 0.4875, respectively, which substantially reduced the number of fish that anglers in those states could land.  Texas’ quota required no adjustment at all, while Florida’s and Louisiana’s were adjusted very slightly upward. 

Subsequent analysis revised the adjustments, so that Alabama’s and Mississippi’s reductions from the federal quota are not quite as substantial as they originally were, with the federal quota now multiplied by 0.548 and 0.503, respectively.  Florida anglers are allowed to catch more red snapper than they were before, after a new regulation called for their federal quota to be multiplied by a factor of 1.34.   

Such adjustments suggest that the calibration process remains a work in progress, and that further refinements might yet need to be done to assure that state regulations don’t inadvertently lead to overfishing.

  It’s also important to note that, before the calibration process went into effect, private-boat recreational fishermen in the Gulf of Mexico overfished their red snapper quota by as much as 2 million pounds in both 2018 and 2019, but were not held accountable for their overages because the lack of calibration made it appear that they had not overfished.  To the extent that the calibration ratios currently being used don’t accurately capture the differences between state and federal data, and to the extent that the state data collection systems, which largely depend on anglers accurately and faithfully reporting their red snapper catch, suffer from angler underreporting, recreational overfishing may still be occurring today, although hopefully at lower levels.

The other problem is that no one really knows the status of the Gulf red snapper stock.  The assumption, based on past stock assessments, is that it is no longer overfished and not experiencing overfishing, but since the last, comprehensive “benchmark” stock assessment failed to pass peer review, it is not safe to assume that the stock remains healthy.

While we may hope that the stock is healthy and will continue to rebuild, the anecdotal evidence suggests that there may be problems ahead. 

For when fish become harder to find, when the average size of the fish caught starts to fall, and when fishermen find nearby fishing grounds quickly depleted, and are forced to run ever farther to locate the size and abundance of fish that they once caught much closer to home, its likely that bad news is not too far away.

 

 

FISH FARMS UNDER FIRE

 

It wasn’t long ago that aquaculture—fish farming—was widely viewed as a benign activity that promised to feed people while freeing wild fish stocks from the stresses caused by commercial fishing.  Analogies were drawn between the evolution of hunter/gatherer societies into more advanced agricultural communities, as many predicted that the eventual prohibitions of market hunting and the commercialization of most freshwater fish species would logically and inevitably lead to prohibitions on commercial fishing for marine fish species, too.

But somewhere along the way, harsh realities intervened, and—at least to some people—fish farming no longer seems to be the panacea that it once appeared.  As noted in an article released by the Associated Press,

“as [aquaculture] has grown, the problems associated with large-scale farming have grown with it…The farms and the waste from them can degrade and pollute nearby ecosystems, diseases can quickly sweep through the tightly packed fish, and gathering the feed for the animals can cause distant environmental problems.”

One critic argued that

“Approximately 20% of the global catch of wild fish goes toward making fishmeal, and much of it is directed to feed farmed aquatic animals.  This demand has intensified over the years, creating a troubling feedback loop where the aquaculture industry depletes wild fish stocks to sustain itself.  The depletion of smaller forage fish is particularly concerning, as these fish play an essential role in marine ecosystems, supporting larger species, including wild fish, marine mammals, and seabirds.”

The Conservation Law Foundation, an advocacy group that focuses on conservation issues in the New England region, noted that

“up to hundreds of thousands of fish crowd each floating pen.  The fish eat and grow at astounding rates—and defecate.  A typical industrial farm of several hundred thousand fish produces around one million pounds of waste annually.  That’s roughly the same amount of waste generated by Maine’s largest city, Portland, in a year.

“…[The waste] is not captured or treated.  Instead, it floats out through the pens to pile up on the ocean floor.  The waste accumulates over time to form a layer of foul-smelling black sludge that is toxic to small bottom-dwelling creatures.  Eventually, the seafloor around an industrial salmon farm will transform into a lifeless landscape.

“Fish also produce a lot of nitrogen waste.  Nitrogen pollution mixed with warm water creates perfect conditions for toxic algae outbreaks…Nitrogen pollution also clouds the water, blocking eelgrass nurseries on the seafloor from essential sunlight.”

The Conservation Law Foundation also noted the threat that farmed fish can pose to their wild counterparts.

“Contagious diseases quickly spread through the penned fish.  The salmon industry uses antibiotics to prevent disease, but that increases the risk of antibiotic resistance in humans who consume the farmed fish.

“…[S]mall crustaceans, known as sea lice, cling to salmon and eat their skin.  In natural conditions, sea lice parasites attach in small numbers, making them a minor issue that doesn’t affect a fish’s health.  But in industrial salmon farms, they spread easily between captive fish…To control sea lice, the salmon industry has historically used chemical treatments and pesticides—including some that kill crustaceans like lobsters.

“Disease outbreaks and sea lice infestations at industrial salmon farms also threaten nearby endangered wild salmon and fish species that are key to fishermen.  Viruses and sea lice larvae travel through the water from captive fish to wild fish.  Escaped farmed fish…can also transmit disease and parasites.”

After one or more seals damaged net pens that Cooke Aquaculture had installed in the waters off Cutler, Maine two years ago, allowing 50,000 juvenile salmon to escape into the state’s coastal waters, groups such as the Atlantic Salmon Federation expressed concern that the escaped fish could interbreed with endangered, wild salmon, and thus lower the wild fish’s chances of survival.

The National Marine Fisheries Service acknowledges such concerns, but claims that such threats are receding while also providing the reassuring comment that

“Marine aquaculture in the United States operates within one of the most comprehensive regulatory environments in the world.  Farms sited in U.S. waters must meet a suite of federal, state, and local regulations that safeguard environmental health, water quality, food safety, and public health.”

Even so, public sentiment seems to be swinging against fish farms, not only in the United States, but elsewhere in the Americas.

The current antipathy toward fish farms probably had its roots in the 2017 failure at another net pen facility, also owned by Cooke Aquaculture, in the State of Washington, which allowed about 250,000 Atlantic salmon to escape into Washington waters.  Cooke blamed the event on unusually strong tides, but state officials disagreed, finding that the pen had survived similar tides in the past.  Instead, Washington blamed the escape on Cooke’s failure to properly maintain the pen, finding that the company allowed excessive marine growth to build up on the pen, to the point that the aggregate weight of the fouling built up on the pen was six times the weight of the pen itself, and caused the pen to collapse.

The State of Washington, as well as many of its residents, including coastal tribes with long traditions of salmon fishing, were outraged by the escape and Cooke’s alleged negligence, fearing that the escaped Atlantic salmon might survive and compete with already threatened runs of native Pacific salmon.  As a result, in 2018, Washinton legislators passed a ban on farming Atlantic salmon in state waters.

In 2022, Washington informed Cooke that it would not renew the company’s leases, which allow it to establish aquaculture facilities in state waters.  The state alleged that Cooke had violated the terms of the leases, and that it had

“determined that allowing Cooke to continue operations posed risks of environmental harm to state-owned aquatic lands resulting from lack of adherence to lease provisions and increased costs to [the Washington Department of Natural Resources] associated with contract compliance, monitoring, and enforcement.”

Early last January, Washington took the last logical step, issuing regulations that banned all net-pen fish farms, regardless of the species involved, in waters leased by the state.

That ban is being challenged by the fish farmers, in the form of a group calling itself the Northwest Aquaculture Alliance, which claims that the rulemaking process leading to the ban was invalid, because its outcome was predetermined.  It’s never easy to predict what a court might decide, and it is possible that the Aquaculture Alliance could prevail, but it’s probably safe to say that in the State of Washington, aquaculture proponents, like salmon returning to spawn, will have to swim against some very strong currents if they expect to achieve their goals.

Farther north, 2024 saw the adoption of a new rule that would ban net pen fish farms in the Canadian province of British Columbia.  Canadian Fisheries and Oceans Minister Diane Lebouthillier announced that the farms must be shut down by 2029.  While they may continue operations until then, the farms' sea lice management measures will be more closely controlled, they will face stricter reporting requirements, and their interactions with marine mammals will be more closely monitored.

Things aren’t too much different far to the south where, by a unanimous vote of its legislature, the Argentinian province of Tierra del Fuego banned net-pen salmon farms in 2021.  According to the website Patagonia Works, which reported on the ban,

“Consequences of salmon farming include massive salmon mortalities, intensification of toxic algae blooms (such as red tide), introduction of exotic species, the loss of local fauna, generation of dead zones, entanglement of marine mammals and bacterial resistance [to antibiotics].  According to a Just Economics report, the salmon industry seeks to grow fivefold over the next 10 years, threatening the waters of the Beagle Channel.”

Such growth, and the threats to the marine ecosystem that it would create, was unacceptable to the residents of Tierra del Fuego, who sought and received the political support to shut down the net pen farms.

Even in Chile, Argentina’s neighbor and one of the world’s biggest producers of net pen-farmed salmon, people are beginning to question the practice. 

About one year ago, the New York Times has reported,

“a report from the United Nations called salmon farming ‘one of the main threats to the environment’ in Patagonia.  David R. Boyd, an associate professor at the University of British Columbia, who prepared the U.N. report, recommended suspending ‘the expansion of salmon aquaculture pending independent scientific analysis of adverse environmental impacts’—a call that the industry rejected.”

The Times also reported that

“Arturo Clement, the president of the industry association, SalmonChile, acknowledged that, in the past, the sector had ‘made mistakes and we still have much room for improvement…We are convinced that it is possible to make environmental care compatible with economic development.”

Others are not as certain.  They point to the same issues identified elsewhere—antibiotic use, pollution from fish waste creating hypoxic “dead zones” and harmful algae blooms—as threatening Chile’s marine environment.  The Times described Tarsicio Antezana, a retired oceanographer who lives on an island off the coast of southern Chile, seeing

“heaps of garbage and fish waste abandoned by salmon companies…when they leave.  The trash sits on shorelines for months, and in some cases, he said that only outrage from local residents forced the companies to clean up.”

The fish farms are now moving into an area in southernmost Chile, a Patagonian region known as the Magallenes, which is still largely wilderness.  Fish farm opponents argue that increasing the farm’s presence in the Magallenes will have a “catastrophic” impact on the Magallenes ecosystems, which collectively house about one-third of the Earth’s marine biodiversity.  The Times noted that

“Leticia Caro, a member of the Indigenous Kawesqar community, said she has already seen devastating effects of the salmon industry on her people’s ancestral territory in the Magallanes.  She described seafloor contamination, the loss of native fish species her community relies on for food and the dumping of industrial waste in Kawesqar fishing areas.”

Yet, while there are many voices in Chile that oppose expanding the farms, there are also many who seek the economic benefits that the farms provide.  Thus, while the Chilean farms are under fire from some quarters, it is not clear whether the government will take any action to significantly curb their activities.

The global opposition to fish farms has generally focused on salmon net pens sited in cold-water environments.  Land-based production is generally considered a viable, ecosystem-friendly alternative to the open water farms.  Thus, the newest challenge to fish farming might be something of a surprise.

In Maryland—hardly traditional salmon country—the Chesapeake Bay Foundation is seeking judicial review of a permit that would allow a proposed land-based salmon farm to discharge as much as 1.9 million gallons of water per day into the Susquehanna River, the largest and arguably most important tributary of the Chesapeake Bay.

The Foundation’s concerns stem from the fact that AquaCon, the proposed plant’s operator, plans to build the farm just five miles above the Susquehanna Flats, an important spawning area for striped bass and other species such as American shad, hickory shad, alewife, and blueback herring.  The Foundation fears that, just as in the case of net pens, the land-based farm’s discharge water would contain too much waste matter, could promote algae blooms and resulting hypoxic “dead zones,” and so cause substantial harm to the flats’ submerged aquatic vegetation as well as to the many fish that gather on the flats to spawn.

The publication National Fisherman quoted Paul Small, the Foundation’s vice president for litigation, who observed that

“Land-based salmon farms are relatively new and unpredictable.  Knowing the prior failure of these types of plants, and that the Susquehanna River is already overloaded with nutrient pollution, [the] permit must protect against these risks.”

The publication noted that the Chesapeake Bay Foundation is not seeking to prevent the AquaCon plant from ever operating.  Instead,

“CBF will be working to ensure [the] permit is strengthened to adequately consider the imminent threats to the Susquehanna Flats and nearby aquatic habitats.”

Open-water fish farms have, in the past, done significant harm to the waters where they were cited.  As land-based farms are proposed as alternatives, it only makes sense to ensure that they are properly regulated before they begin operations, so that both the farm and the surrounding environment can thrive.

Yet not everyone believes that fish farming ought to be thoroughly regulated.

On April 17, President Donald Trump issued an executive order intended to support the growth of aquaculture in the United States, which requires that the Secretary of Commerce,

“in consultation with the Secretary of Health and Human Services and with input from the United States fishing industry, shall immediately consider suspending, revising, or rescinding regulations that overly burden America’s commercial fishing, aquaculture, and fish processing industries…”

and

“in consultation with the Secretary of Agriculture, shall develop and implement an America First Seafood Strategy to promote production, marketing, sale, and export of United States fishery and aquaculture products and strengthen domestic processing capacity…”

During Trump’s first term, he also made efforts to promote fish farming.  In support of those efforts, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers issued a nationwide aquaculture permit in 2020, which would have opened the door to open-water fish farms for various species, first in the Gulf of Mexico, and then elsewhere along the United States’ coasts.  But on March 17, a judge for the United States District Court for the District of Columbia ruled against the issuance of such permit.

The lawsuit, brought by the Center for Food Safety and a group of environmental organizations, argued that the Corps’ permit failed to properly address fish farms’ environmental threats.  The federal district judge, Kymberly K. Evanston, issued an initial ruling last fall which criticized the Corps for not acknowledging the harm that fish farms cause the environment.  Her March ruling vacated the permit altogether.

The court’s decision points out the difficulties that the administration faces in its efforts to promote fish farming.  Earlier court decisions, in 2018 and 2020, also ruled against offshore aquaculture in the Gulf of Mexico.  In another instance, the federal government provided some funding for a pilot fish farming project that would have been located about 45 miles off Florida’s Gulf Coast.  However, public opinion was so strongly set against the project—regulators received almost 45,000 comments opposing it—that it was eventually cancelled.

Paul Zajicek, executive director of the National Aquaculture Association, believes that the opposition is misplaced, and that would-be fish farmers are unreasonably burdened by

“a permitting system that is too lengthy, too costly, and too subject to legal challenges from groups opposed to commercial aquaculture.”

Given the recent court decision, he believes that companies may now be required to seek permits on an individual project-by-project basis, instead of relying on permits that cover a broad expanse of federal waters.  Such an approach is likely to add time and effort to the permitting process.

But Marianne Cufone, executive director of the Recirculating Farms Coalition, sees no problem with that.

“Florida is not Maine.  California is not Texas.  And in just the Gulf of Mexico, there are significantly different habitats [and] different fish species that could be affected…

“Claiming one size fits all doesn’t seem realistic, and the court agreed.  Now they can’t use one big permit to speed these things through.”

Despite the recent setbacks, fish farming is not a dead issue in the United States.  There are many in the industry who want to see it not only continue, but also expand.

But the rapid growth of aquaculture promoted in Trump’s executive order is unlikely to occur.  Even if regulations governing aquaculture are relaxed—and, in fact, aquaculture isn’t actually regulated by NMFS or by any other federal agency, although some, like the Army Corps of Engineers, might have regulatory authority over some aspects of aquaculture operations—public opposition to such a private appropriation and likely degradation of the nation’s public waterways ensures that any proposed fish farms receive thorough review, to make sure that such projects meet all biological and legal standards.

Given the past problems that fish farms have caused, both in the United States and elsewhere, the public is right to insist that no more be built until all of the public’s concerns are addressed.