An interstate striped bass management board approved changes to coast-wide striped bass regulations meant to return fishing mortality rates and the spawning stock biomass back to established reference points. The proposed changes will soon enter a public comment period. Officials were originally considering a 31 percent reduction in striped bass harvest to account for a stock assessment with numbers through 2012 that show the female spawning stock and biomass stock are just near the threshold level of being overfished, even though admittedly recognizing the stock isn’t overfished and overfishing is not occurring.
“The intention is to minimize the chances of overfishing and bring biomass back to its target level,” said Mike Waine, fishery management plan coordinator at the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission – the interstate body charged with managing East Coast fisheries.
Waine said the 31 percent reduction has been changed to 25 percent.
“The reason for the change is because we estimated commercial discard in 2013, instead of assuming it constant from the 2012 level,” Waine said. In other words, according to Waine, ASMFC got 2013 numbers in to better estimate commercial discard numbers, or when a waterman throws a fish back into the water.
There’s a “suite” of management options being proposed, Waine said.
Tom O’Connell, head of the Maryland Department of Natural Resources fisheries service, said now that the 25 percent reduction has been established, the current question before the board is whether states take that reduction in one year or phase it in over three years.
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