2023-12-02 11:16:08
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Maryland’s state fish is once more imperiled.
In the waters of the Chesapeake Bay, invasive predators, warming waters and overfishing have threatened the immensely popular striped bass, known locally as rockfish. The stock of young striped bass has been troublingly low since 2019, according to data collected by the statemaking this the worst stretch in the species’ history since its population collapsed in the 1980s. This year, a key indicator of breeding success sank to its second-lowest ever level.
To reverse that trend and bolster striped bass populations across the Atlantic coast, Maryland is deploying emergency rules shortening the 2024 fishing window to protect the weeks during and following spawning season.
“Maryland waters serve as the spawning grounds for many of the striped bass that migrate up and down the East Coast, and we take our leadership role in managing the overall population seriously,” Maryland Department of Natural Resources Secretary Josh Kurtz said in a statement Wednesday.
State officials and an interstate commission overseeing the fishing industry constantly assess fish populations and periodically set new rules for anglers that aim to balance protecting wildlife with the interests of commercial and recreational fishermen. Maryland’s emergency regulations, which seek to correct for likely overfishing since the early 2000s, were met with approval from conservationists, though some believe the temporary restrictions do not go far enough.
The rules eliminate the state’s striped bass trophy season in early May and shuts down the catch-and-keep fishery on the Susquehanna Flats from May 16 to May 31. Striped bass typically spawn in the Chesapeake Bay in late spring — though in recent years the fish have spawned as early as March because of warm weather.
Those temporary emergency measures last for regarding six months, and the Department of Natural Resources will have to go through the rulemaking process to implement similar restrictions in 2025 and beyond.
The silver fish with black stripes down its body has long been prized as a sport fish and for its flaky white filets. The striped bass is important to recreational fishermen, charter boat operators who take recreational fishers in search of a catch and commercial fishermen who collectively harvest millions of fish across the East Coast each year, according to the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission. But the fish faces many threats in Maryland waters.
Warmer winters have interfered with the water quality in the fish’s spawning grounds, hampering their reproductive success, officials say. Increasing numbers of invasive predators like the blue catfish have been eating juveniles. And while most bass survive the catch and release method fishermen use on millions each year, many succumb to injuries sustained in their battle once morest the line.
A metric of reproductive success for the fish, the “young-of-the-year” index, has fallen from the long-term average of 11.1 to 1.0 in 2023, according to state data. Maryland officials hope the temporary pause in fishing coupled with projections of a colder winter will lift the 2024 index.
Are striped bass doomed? Some conservationists are worried.
“We need the colder winter,” said Michael Luisi, associate director for tidal and coastal management and science for the Department of Natural Resources. “We need a snow melt in the spring that produces the right water quality and conditions in the bay.”
Conservationists welcomed the new rules, but some said more should be done to safeguard the fish population. The Chesapeake Bay Foundation, a nonprofit that advocates for protecting the bay, called for more conservation — highlighting measures coming before the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission early next year.
“While this action is an important step,” the foundation’s executive director, Allison Colden, said in a statement, “further changes to protect striped bass, including those currently under consideration at ASMFC, will likely be necessary to help rebuild the population.”
The commission, which considers interstate regulations to protect striped bass across the East Coast, is proposing changes to amendment 7 of the interstate fishery management plan for striped bass that might change the rules for both recreational and commercial fishermen. The proposed changes include changing commercial fishing quotas, further limiting how many fish recreational anglers can keep, and changing the size of legally harvested fish to protect younger rockfish. The commission is holding public hearings on the proposals over the next two weeks, including one on Dec. 6 in Annapolis.
The Maryland Charter Boat Association did not return a request for comment on Maryland’s emergency regulations or the additional proposed changes that might affect their industry.
Stripers Forever, a group of conservationists focused on protecting rockfish, have been calling for a 10-year moratorium on harvesting to restore population numbers. But Maryland officials, who have the most direct control over the fish’s spawning grounds in the Chesapeake Bay, have said more nuanced approaches that take into account the needs of commercial and recreational fishermen as well as the fish can help bring population numbers back up.
Maryland has banned fishing for striped bass before. In the 1980s, the population declined so severely that state regulators instated a five-year moratorium.
But Luisi said the situation today is not as dire as it was in the ’80s. The spawning stock biomass then was far lower than it is today, he said. But the population of striped bass that peaked in the early 2000s has been slowly declining ever since, due most likely to overfishing, Luisi added. But regulators didn’t realize too many fish were being harvested until more data became available.
“As science changes, we sometimes get information that tells us maybe we weren’t as conservative as we should have been,” he said.
He encouraged members of the public, especially those invested in fishing for striped bass for many years to come, to weigh in on those proposed changes at the upcoming public hearing.
“We don’t want the public to think this [emergency regulation] is it,” Luisi said. “There are going to be additional rule changes for 2024, and possibly 2025.”
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