Fishing Back When: Story by Susan Pollack from the 1983 Yearbook of National Fisherman

One of the most commercially important fish species in the United States seems to be disappearing from the Atlantic seaboard.

The question, of course, is: Why?

A dramatic decline in East Coast striped bass landings during the past decade has now combined with three consecutive years of dismally low reproduction in the fish's major spawning ground, Chesapeake Bay.

This situation perplexes - and worries — scientists, fishery administrators and fishermen. Diminished catches may merely represent the ebb of a natural cycle that, some argue, has caused wide fluctuations in striped bass stocks since landings were first recorded in the 1880s. But scientists, among others, are increasingly concerned over threats to the species' habitat stemming from sewage and power plants. 

Also considered dangerous are the seepage and runoff of toxic chemicals, heavy metals, fertilizers, pesticides, and other pollutants, and the draining, dredging, and filling of marshlands. Scientists likewise fear the long-term effects of increased harvesting pressure by both sport and commercial fishermen.

"From the early 1960s through the mid-1970s, when striped bass stocks were at a historical peak, the recreational catch [along the Atlantic Coast] was five times greater by weight than the commercial catch," according to Dr. John Boreman, a striped bass specialist at the National Marine Fisheries Service's (NMFS) Woods Hole, Mass., laboratory. Although the disparity is not as great today, Boreman says, "The recreational catch still exceeds the commercial."

Yet commercial fishermen are now feeling the squeeze as access to a limited resource has become an increasingly controversial subject for debate in the legislatures, marine resource departments, and fishery councils of coastal states.

Commercial net fishermen continue to resist restrictions that would "put them out of the bass business," but they say they are under increasing pressure as the battle deepens over this most highly coveted inshore species. The conflict over bass has pitted fisherman against fisherman, state against state, and, in some cases, even region against region.

The age-old fight between sport and commercial fishermen is most intense in the states where the latter still earn a living netting for bass. The list includes Rhode Island, New York, Maryland, Virginia, and, to a lesser degree, North Carolina.

Lately, debate has focused on implementing a pending interstate plan to manage the species. The recommendations were released in October 1981 following a four-year study by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission. One proposal in particular has caused considerable controversy: a 24" minimum size for striped bass harvested in coastal waters. (A smaller mimimum would be allowed in certain bays and estuaries.)

The 24" limit dangles over the heads of Rhode Island and New York netters like the sword of Damocles. As they see it, it would remove them from the bass fishery. Meanwhile, in Massachusetts, where a 24" limit was adopted shortly before the release of the interstate plan, some 2,500 people have filed a petition calling for its repeal. Commercial rod-and-reel fishermen who want the regulation stricken from the books are facing off against striped bass anglers who fish strictly for recreation. (Netting bass has been outlawed in the state for nearly 40 years.)

The recreational catch of striped bass has always exceeded the commercial harvest, and there are those who believe the quest for the larger, trophy-sized stripers is contributing to the decimation of high-quality brood stock. Some states propose establishing a maximum-size limit to prevent this from happening. Photo by Garcia Tackle

The striper's intelligence, resilience and ability to attain huge trophy size have been extensively celebrated in angling lore. In July 1981, the sport-fishing world was excited by the capture of a world-record 76-pounder off Montauk, L.I. That event was eclipsed last September when a lifeguard reeled in a 78½-pounder from the New Jersey surf. He was later publicly awarded $250,000 by a tackle manufacturer whose contest he had entered.

To many rod-and-reel anglers and to netters, the bass (or rockfish, as they are called in the Chesapeake) now represent waterborne dollar signs. Today, an increasing number of anglers sell their striped bass to defray fishing expenses and supplement incomes from shoreside jobs. The bass is a firm, tasty white-meated fish for which there has always been a market during both plentiful and lean seasons.

Nowadays, with dwindling catches, striped bass fetch harvesters a better price than any other species of Atlantic finfish, with the exception of swordfish and possibly bluefin tuna. Prices range from $1.75 to $3/lb. at New York's Fulton Market, which sells roughly half of what is caught on the East Coast.

The Pollution Problem

While sport and commercial fishermen and fishery officials lock horns over regulations, the real culprit - pollution - is being ignored, contends Larry Simns, a third-generation Chesapeake fisherman and the president of the Maryland Watermen's Association.

"The problem is not that we don't have a good brood stock," Simns says. "After the fish hatch, they don't materialize. From a waterman's point of view, weather and environmental factors control almost everything."

What has changed most in Chesapeake Bay's spawning and nursery grounds over the past generation, Simns adds, is that "Municipalities have grown, and we're seeing the effects. You can stop all fishing for rock tomorrow, but if the states don't join together to fight pollution, forget it."

As the watermen's spokesman, Simns has been fighting environmental battles for more than a decade and supporting grass-roots efforts to raise hatchery bass. He insists, "When legislators pass a law restricting harvesters and say they've done something, they're fooling the public." There are infinitely more questions than answers in regard to the cause of depressed striped bass stocks.

Scientists who have published tomes about the species (Roccus saxatilis) suggest that the decline probably results from a combination of factors rather than from any single problem. "Even among biologists, there is no consensus about what's happening," says Byron Young, a long-time striped bass researcher with the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation.

Harvesting and environmental pressures are involved, and the latter may affect both predation by other species and food availability. Bass stocks are also affected by meteorological conditions over which man has no control. Furthermore, there are questions over whether chemicals like polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) that have accumulated in the tissues and organs of adult fish may be inhibiting their ability to produce viable eggs.

Many ask about the health of Chesapeake Bay itself and wonder about its ability to sustain future populations not only of striped bass but also of kindred anadromous species such as perch and shad. 

The late of the bay's crab and oyster stocks is also getting attention. A $27-million, five-year study by the Environmental Protection Agency EPA) confirms what many Chesapeake watermen and scientists have warned about for years: Water quality in the bay is deteriorating (see NF Feb. '83)

The submerged aquatic grasses that nurture marine life in the bay have virtually disappeared. Nutrient levels enhanced by nitrogen and phosphorus have doubled in the last 20 years, causing algae blooms and cutting the amount of sunlight reaching the bottom. Dangerous toxins are present.

Moreover, nearly a third of the bay is oxygen-deficient from late spring through scientists who worked on the staff of EPA's Chesapeake Bay program are now seeking to translate the findings of their 600-page report into governmental action.

They are cooperating with scientists from the states of Maryland, Virginia, and Pennsylvania (which border the bay and its tributaries) in developing specific recommendations to monitor and clean up the Chesapeake.

The recommendations, addressing needs for such things as improved sewage treatment and tougher air pollution and erosion controls, are due to be released by October. Meanwhile, work continues under the Emergency Striped Bass Study (popularly known as the "Chafee study" after Sen. John H. Chafee of Rhode Island), which was launched in 1979. 

Chafee introduced the amendment authorizing an initial $4.75 million for research and monitoring by federal agencies and 12 coastal states. Under the Chafee study, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service is performing contaminant research. NMFS, aided by scientists from Maine to North Carolina, monitors estuarine reproduction through surveys of eggs, larvae and juvenile bass.

The pattern of coastal catches by age and sex is also being cooperatively assessed. This research is painfully slow, but it is beginning to reveal links between contaminants in the bay and striped bass mortality and is also shedding some light on other factors of the striped bass dilemma.

A 1975 study by Texas Instruments, which is still regarded as "the handbook" in fishery circles, found that the Chesapeake contributed 90% to coastal stocks, the Hudson 7%, and the Roanoke River in North Carolina 3 %. New evidence indicates that the Hudson River may play a more vital role in contributing to the coastal striper population- particularly the population off Long Island and New England - than had been previously thought.

A key investigator, Dr. Webster Van Winkle of Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, speculates that the Hudson may be producing as much as 20% to 30% of the striped bass caught off Long Island and New England. He attributes this to the river's relatively stable production at a time when the Chesapeake's is at an ebb.

During the peak production years of the 1960s and through the mid-1970s, Maryland, the primary producer of striped bass, also harvested the bulk of the catch. Virginia, North Carolina, Massachusetts, and New York followed.

Today, the same five states still harvest the lion's share, but Massachusetts and New York take a proportionately larger share than they did before, possibly indicating the influence of stable production in the Hudson and the decline in the Chesapeake.

In 1981, the last year for which complete commercial catch data are available, Massachusetts landed 737,000 lbs.; New York, 805,000; Maryland, 1,438,000; Virginia, 381,000; and North Carolina, 417,000.

By contrast, in 1973, when Chesapeake stocks were at a peak, Massachusetts landed 1,386,000 lbs.; New York, 1,741,000; Maryland, 4,976,000; Virginia, 2,888,000; and North Carolina, 1,752,000. A further decline in Maryland's landings in 1982 is cited as evidence of the recent slump in Chesapeake production.

Last year, landings plummeted to 430,000 lbs., a tenth of what they were a decade ago. Maryland DNR's Harley Speir points the finger at poor reproduction in the bay in 1979 and 1980 as the cause. He argues that Maryland's imposition of a spring spawning-area closure is not responsible for the sharp decline in 1982 landings, as others contend. The effects of the Chesapeake's even more dismal 1981 hatch may be felt this year.

The decline in North Carolina's landings is attributed partly to poor egg viability in its Roanoke River spawning grounds in the middle and late 1970s.

An Endangered Species?

In January 1983, NMFS denied as unwarranted a petition from Stripers Unlimited, a Massachusetts sport-fishing organization, to have the Chesapeake strain of striper declared an endangered or threatened species. Yet, despite an improvement in striped bass reproduction in the Chesapeake Bay during 1982, concern continues over the future of that stock.

After climbing fairly steadily for more than a decade, commercial striped bass landings peaked at 14 million Ibs. in 1973 but have since sharply declined to slightly under 4 million Ibs. annually, representing a nearly 50-year low. In 1981, some 3.8 million ibs. were caught, the lowest catch recorded since the 1930s.

Since 1970, the species has failed to produce a "dominant year class," meaning an abundant hatch capable of sustaining the fishery through its ups and downs. The 1970 hatch is credited with having yielded record landings three years later. It is thought that several other less dominant year classes, along with increased fishing efforts, particularly by anglers, contributed to an all-time peak in landings between 1958 and 1976 when commercial catches averaged 9.5 million pounds a year.

Maryland's annual seining survey deemed the most reliable barometer of future landings, revealed dismally low reproduction in the bay between 1979 and 1981. The index of young fish, which is watched avidly as a forecast of catches in the bay two to three years later and along the coast three to six years later, plunged from an all-time high of 30.4 stripers per haul in 1970 to 4.2 in 1979, 1.9 in 1980 and 1.2 in 1981.

In 1982 the index inexplicably bounced back, displaying an average of 8.4 fish per haul, the same as in 1978, considered an average year (see NF Dec. '83, p. 23). "Whether this represents a turn-around, we don't know," says Joseph G. Boone of Maryland's Department of Natural Resources (DNR), who has conducted the seining survey since 1958. The bulk of Chesapeake Bay striper production is in Maryland waters.

A good 1982 hatch was likewise apparent in summer and fall seine surveys in Virginia's tributaries of the bay - the James, York and Rappahannock rivers - according to Dr. Herbert Austin of the Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS).

Most of the meteorological factors thought necessary for a successful hatch were present in 1982: a cold winter and a cool spring with substantial runoff. Under such conditions, frozen nutrients are flushed down into spawning areas to feed the microorganisms that, in turn, feed young striped bass.

Water temperature is also crucial to survival and food availability. Apart from the weather, a joint effort by Maryland's NR and Department of Health and Mental Hygiene to reduce chlorinated sewage effluent entering Maryland's spawning areas by 66% may also have contributed to the improved hatch, observes DR's Speir. Discharges of chlorine, a biocide suspected of killing striped bass larvae and the aquatic organisms they feed on, was reduced at 40 Maryland sewage treatment plants. This was achieved with little effort and a total cost of only about $50,000.

Fishing Ban Reimposed

Last year the DR reimposed a fishing ban in the bay's spawning reaches during the spawning season. The effect of this measure is uncertain. As Speir notes, a good hatch was also evident in the Potomac, which is managed jointly by Maryland and Virginia, but without such a restriction.

The average number of young fish per haul in the Potomac was 10, compared to 13 in the Chesapeake's Choptank River, 6.2 in the Nanticoke River, and 5.5 in the upper bay. The upper bay's failure to produce a good hatch during the past four years troubles scientists, because that area was long considered the Chesapeake's primary spawning ground.

The precise combination of ingredients for a successful hatch remains a mystery. But, remarks VIMS' Austin, "If all the factors line up just right, the key turns in the lock." He adds, "We have come to depend on dominant year classes like Christmas bonuses or money in the bank." Scientists who developed the interstate plan pinpoint the larval stage as critical to the life cycle of the striped bass. 

As their plan clearly states, "Survival during this stage determines the number of fish that will be recruited into the fishery." This appears to be confirmed by egg and larval trawl surveys conducted during the past three years in Maryland's Choptank River by Boone and Jim Uphoff of the DNR. "In 1980 and 1981,” Boone says, "the eggs hatched, and then several weeks later, when the larvae were feeding, great numbers disappeared. From one week to the next, we lost as much as 80% to 90% of the fry. The loss occurred three to four weeks after the hatch." Although data from 1982 have not been fully tabulated, the difference was obvious, reports Boone. "The fingerlings were far more numerous."

The effect of contaminants upon larval striped bass is now being investigated under Chafee funding by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Columbia National Fisheries Research Laboratory in Columbia, Mo., with help from NMFS' Narragansett, R.I., laboratory. According to Dr. Paul M. Mehrle, who heads the research, "No single contaminant has been identified as responsible for the decline of East Coast striped bass stocks."

However, he reports, based on experiments conducted at the Columbia lab last year, "Combinations of contaminants at concentrations similar to those found in spawning habitats of the Chesapeake Bay can significantly reduce survival rates of striped bass larvae in fresh water. Those that move into more saline waters earlier will be less susceptible to contaminants." Striped bass spawn in fresh or slightly brackish water; as the larvae develop, they move into more saline water.

Although striped bass larvae suffer a lower rate of mortality in salt water, sublethal effects can be induced by contaminants. Mehrle's staff observed that contaminants affected feeding behavior and swimming capacity. "In salt water, contaminants may not be killing the fish, but they may be altering their ability to respond to normal stresses," explains Mehrle.

The mix of chemicals to which the 15- to The 17-day-old fry were exposed to organochlorines such as PCBs, DDT, dieldrin, toxaphene, kepone, and chlordane, inorganic compounds such as arsenic, selenium, lead, cadmium, and copper, and a class of chemicals called polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons for 60 to 90 days.

The latter are airborne products of the combustion of fossil fuels, and many are carcinogens. This spring, research began at Johns Hopkins University to determine what effect such contaminants might have on fertilization and survival of striped bass eggs and on the survival of just-hatched larvae.

Tackle manufacturer Robert Pond of South Attleboro, Mass., whose fellow Stripers Unlimited members filed the endangered species petition, had earlier complained that research was ignoring the single most important area of investigation: the viability of the eggs themselves. When the Johns Hopkins project was approved for Chafee funding on March 25, he called it "a step in the right direction."

Pond, who conducted his own hatchery work in the Chesapeake's Nanticoke River in the early 1970s, says he suspected chemicals in the food chain were inhibiting the striper's ability to produce healthy eggs.

Referring to Rachel Carson's similar observations about eagle and osprey eggs, he warns, "We face a silent spring of the fish world. Nobody's facing this reality." During the 1920s and early 1930s, an earlier alarm was sounded about striper's possible extinction. Yet, paradoxically, from a relatively small parent stock, it produced a dominant year class in 1934.

Today, while many longtime fishermen argue that the species may simply be experiencing another ebb in its cycle, the drafters of the interstate plan say they want some built-in guarantees to sustain the fishery.

The Interstate Plan Randy Fairbanks, chairman of the interstate plan's scientific and statistical committee and assistant director of the Massachusetts Division of Marine Resources, says plainly, "We cannot manage meteorological events, and we're in a difficult position to effect short-term solutions relative to contaminant loads or other issues of habitat viability. But with stocks very depressed, we must do the only thing we can: control exploitation." By that, Fairbanks means fishing pressure.

Benjamin Florence, former head of the Maryland DR's striped bass project and a key architect of the plan, agrees with Fairbanks and others that the regulations proposed are a hedge against declining stocks.

But he reaffirms a statement he made in a 1977 scientific paper: "Prevention of overfishing will not guarantee increased reproduction or even necessarily benefit recruitment. Environmental matters are more important."

The interstate plan calls for spawning area closures and the imposition of a minimum size of 24" on stripers harvested along the coast and 14" on those taken in nursery areas such as the Chesapeake, Delaware Bay, and North Carolina's Albermarle Sound and their tributaries. The 24" limit will allow all females, which comprise the bulk of the Chesapeake's migratory population, to spawn at least once before being caught, thus maintaining a brood stock. Males, which comprise the bulk of the fishery in the bay itself, mature earlier. Most are mature by the time they are two years old and all by the time they are three years old and roughly 14" to 16" long.

By increasing size limits and thus delaying harvest, the plan's adherents hope to sustain the fishery by spreading a given year class over a longer period. Meanwhile, the federal government, which financed the interstate plan (in which scientists, fishery administrators, and citizens participated), has taken an increasingly hard line. Last year, U.S. Rep. Gerry Studds of Massachusetts sought unsuccessfully to deny 50-50 federal matching funds for anadromous fish research to states that did not follow the plan's recommendations. These funds have been the mainstay of tagging efforts, seining surveys and stock assessments.

A substitute incentive was included in a package of amendments to the Fishery Conservation and Management Act that President Reagan signed into law in January 1983. It guarantees all states that have complied with an interstate plan for anadromous fish 90-10 matching funds instead of 50-50. Though NMFS has yet to issue a legal interpretation, some state officials fear political pressure on their research.

John Cronan, Rhode Island's Fish and Wildlife Division chief, says that depriving a state of needed research funds simply because it does not comply with all the plan's recommendations "is attempting to solve a problem by taking away a state's ability to solve it." Furthermore, he adds, just because Rhode Island has not complied with an across-the-board 24” limit does not mean it has not done its utmost to cooperate with the plan's intent. He reports that he informed other drafters of the plan that the across-the-board restriction would put many net fishermen out of business.

Allen Peterson, the Northeast regional director of NMFS, believes otherwise. "If the states did not think they could implement the plan, they should never have approved it," he declares. Though Uncle Sam cannot force the states to adopt the plan, since the striped bass are found within their three-mile territorial limits, the government does control funding, he points out.

Peterson claims the plan does not discriminate against netters but is "realistic to the needs of the fishery, although perhaps not to the politics, of the individual states." He also charges that states, including Rhode Island, New York, Virginia, North Carolina, and even Maryland, are guilty of "breach of contract."