Stripers Forever

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission voted today 10-4 against expanding commercial quotas for striped bass, reversing an earlier vote in February. Several states changed their votes to oppose the quota increase and only NY, RI ,DE and NC voted in favor. The recreational community worked hard to point out that all is not well with striped bass stocks, and Stripers Forever in particular made it clear that the supposed increase of the recreational harvest in the face of a declining commercial harvest was a sham. Everyone who took the time to attend a meeting or to send their letters and e-mails is to be congratulated for being part of the voice to prevent further exploitation of striped bass.

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, NOVEMBER 10, 2010 PRESS CONTACT, TINA BERGER, 703/842-0740

ASMFC Striped Bass Board Approves Addendum II
Coastal Commercial Quotas Remain Unchanged; Juvenile Abundance Index Management Trigger Improved

Charleston, SC – The Commission’s Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board approved Addendum II to Amendment 6 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass. The Addendum revises the definition of juvenile recruitment failure based on a recommendation from the Striped Bass Technical Committee. The Management Board approved status quo management for the coastal commercial quotas, which were being considered for an increase as part of the Addendum.

"After lengthy deliberation, the sense of the Board was that recent fishery trends do not warrant an increase in fishing mortality, commercial or recreational, at this time," said Board Chair, Jack Travelstead. "The Board also accelerated the assessment schedule, requesting an update assessment in 2011 prior to the next benchmark assessment in 2013 to more closely track changes in the fishery and the resource."

The proposal to increase the coastal commercial quota was intended to bring more parity between the commercial and recreational fishery sectors. Although Amendment 6 established management programs for both fisheries based on the same target fishing mortality rate, the coastal commercial fisheries are controlled by quotas whereas the coastal recreational fisheries are managed through possession and size limits. As a result, the recreational harvest has increased with expanding striped bass population levels, and now accounts for approximately 70 percent of total harvest. The Management Board opted to maintain the existing coastal commercial quotas for several reasons, including a 66 percent decline in estimated recreational catch from 2006 to 2009; a 25 percent decline in estimated striped bass abundance from 2004 to 2008; and several years of below-average production of fish from the Chesapeake Bay. The 2011 assessment update will help to indicate whether these trends are short- or long-term, and if corrective action is necessary to maintain the spawning stock biomass above the target level.

Juvenile abundance indices are an important component of the striped bass monitoring program. Under the management plan, six states are required to conduct juvenile sampling surveys, and the resulting indices of abundance are analyzed for recruitment failure. "Recruitment" is the appearance of young-of-the-year fish in the nursery areas. When recruitment failure occurs in a given year, there likely will be reduced abundance and availability of fish from that year class when surviving fish become available to the fisheries.

Management action is prompted when recruitment failure occurs for three consecutive years in any of the surveyed areas. The revision results in a fixed value to determine recruitment failure in each surveyed area rather than a value that changes from year to year. Additionally, the data points used in the calculation have been standardized, which will result in a more conservative evaluation of recruitment failure in several surveys. Under the revised definition (as with the original definition), three consecutive years of recruitment failure has not occurred in any area, and no management action has been triggered based on the juvenile abundance indices.

Copies of the Addendum will be available on the Commission website (www.asmfc.org) under Breaking News. For more information, please contact Robert Beal, ISFMP Director, at 703/842-0740 or rbeal@asmfc.org.
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Tina Berger, Public Affairs Specialist
Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission
1050 N. Highland St., Suite 200 A-N
Arlington, VA 22201-2196
(p) 703.842.0740 (f) 703.842.0741 tberger@asmfc.org www.asmfc.org

ASMFC Vision: Healthy, self-sustaining populations for all Atlantic coast fish species or successful restoration well in progress by the year 2015.

Public Hearings on Striped Bass Draft Addendum II Scheduled
Public Comment Accepted Until October 1

Connecticut Dept. of Environmental Protection
July 13, 2010; 7:00 PM
Fayerweather Yacht Club
51 Brewster Street
Bridgeport, Connecticut
Contact: David Simpson at (860) 434-6043

July 14, 2010; 7:00 PM
Marine Headquarters
333 Ferry Road
Old Lyme, Connecticut
Contact: David Simpson at (860) 434-6043

Stripers Forever members – as you may have heard, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission has voted by a 9 to 6 margin to send to public hearings certain options to increase the commercial quota for striped bass. We think it is very likely that this ill conceived idea will be defeated, but, taking nothing for granted, Stripers Forever will provide you with the information that you will need to contact your ASMFC representatives and the legislators to whom they report in order to fight this attempted commercial increase.

Take heart! Thanks to our campaign last month, individual federal officials received over 300 e-mails asking for the National Marine Fishery Service representative to the ASMFC to vote against further commercialization of the striped bass fishery. The NMFS voted against the commercial increase. Your efforts were the reason.

In the ASMFC press release they state that the justification for the commercial increase is that since 2004 the recreational harvest has increased by 13.7%, while the commercial harvest has decreased 3.7%. Let us expose below just how these statistics have been twisted in an attempt to support more commercial killing of striped bass.

The commercial harvest has not decreased at all from 04 to 08. The quota has remained the same every year during this period. If a state exceeds its quota one year, it is reduced by the same amount the following year; in some years various states haven’t reported catching their full quota, but the quota itself hasn’t changed. Not catching your quota is certainly not justification for requesting an increase. In addition, an over harvest one year, requiring a reduced quota the following year doesn’t mean that your harvest dropped. What’s more, everyone at the ASMFC knows that these quotas are being exceeded each year due to large unreported, (read illegal) catches. This is no secret, just look in the news! There is no recognition or estimate of this illegal catch because many of the members of the ASMFC are commercial fishing ideologues who won’t acknowledge this activity, even though they know very well that it goes on all the time.
The recreational catch harvest has not increased by 13.7%, rather it has fallen from 27.4 million pounds in 2004 to 25.7 million pounds (a decrease of 6%) in 2008, and it continued to shrink to 21.5 million pounds (a decrease of 21.5%) in 2009. The 2009 numbers are available, why weren’t they used? We have asked the ASFMC to include these 2009 numbers. They acknowledge there will be some corrections in the final document.
Worst of all, we think is using pounds of harvest as the measure to justify a commercial quota increase. The actual number of striped bass caught – harvested and released – by the recreational community has dropped from 20 million fish to 9.8 million (a drop of 51%) from 2004 to 2009. This is the real story and the infallible indicator of the deterioration of this fishery. The much greater socio-economic value (10.3 times as much per pound) found in the recreational fishery is derived from money spent catching fish. Fewer fish mean less effort and less economic activity. While the ASMFC is splitting some hairs to get a few more stripers killed, the far more valuable sector of the fishery is being severely damaged because of the rapid degradation of the striper population caused, caused large part, by the commercial harvest.

To see the real changes in this fishery over the last few years, follow this LINK to our website and see the charts and graphs detailing the total numbers of fish being killed by the recreational and commercial fisheries. If you have been barraged by the hogwash about how the recreational fishery is really the culprit, and how the commercial fishery’s toll on the population is inconsequential, you’ll get quite a surprise. We are now on the verge of having the striped bass fishery becoming more or less a split between a few thousand largely part-time commercial fishermen and over 3,000,000 members of the public (and the many times greater economic activity they support.)

Let’s not get mad, though, let’s get even. We need to change things, and together we can. Support the striped bass game fish movement and get everyone you know who fishes to join in. Ending the influences of commercial harvesting is the only way that we will ever return to the great striped bass fishing that we had just a few years ago. We’ll contact you soon to start e-mailing the legislators and fishery managers who run the ASMFC and together we’ll beat back this latest attempt to further rape the striped bass fishery.

ASMFC Striped Bass Board Approves Draft Addendum II for Public Comment

Alexandria, VA – The Commission's Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board has approved Draft Addendum II to Amendment 6 to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for Atlantic Striped Bass for public comment. The Draft Addendum proposes two changes to the striped bass management program: (1) an increase in the coastal commercial quota, and (2) revising the definition of recruitment failure based on Technical Committee advice.

The proposal to increase the coastal commercial quota is intended to improve equality between the commercial and recreational fishery sectors. Although Amendment 6 established management programs for both fisheries based on the same target fishing mortality rate, the implementation of state-specific quotas for coastal commercial harvest (and not for recreational harvest) has prevented the commercial and recreational fisheries from responding equally to changes in striped bass population size. Since 2004, coastal commercial harvest has decreased by 3.6 percent, while recreational harvest has increased by 13.7 percent. Under the option, the Board would select a percent increase to be applied to the coastal commercial allocations assigned in Amendment 6.

The Management Board voted to include a second issue in the Draft Addendum based on information presented at the meeting. As part of its review of the juvenile abundance indices, the Striped Bass Technical Committee recommended to the Management Board a revision to how striped bass recruitment failure is defined. Juvenile abundance indices are an important component of the striped bass monitoring program and are used to determine periods of recruitment failure which can trigger management action under Amendment 6. Adopting the proposed recommendation would result in a fixed value to determine recruitment failure in each surveyed area rather than a value that changes from year to year. Use of either the Amendment 6 definition or the Technical Committee recommendation for recruitment failure does not result in any necessary changes to the current management program.

It is anticipated that the majority of states will be conducting public hearings on the Draft Addendum. A press release will be issued once the details of the hearings have been finalized and the Draft Addendum is available for public comment. For more information, please contact Nichola Meserve, Fishery Management Plan Coordinator at (202) 289-6400 or nmeserve@asmfc.org.

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Tina Berger, Public Affairs Specialist
Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, 1444 I Street. NW, Sixth Floor
Washington, DC 20005
Phone: (202)289-6400 FAX: (202)289-6051 Email: tberger@asmfc.org www.asmfc.org

ASMFC Vision: Healthy, self-sustaining populations for all Atlantic coast fish species or successful restoration well in progress by the year 2015.