Atlantic striped bass was declared overfished in 2019 and is subject to a rebuilding plan that requires the stock to be rebuilt to its spawning stock biomass target by 2029. The 2024 Stock Assessment Update completed in October 2024 and the projection updates completed later in 2024 and most recently in June 2025 provided the Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board the latest current information on stock status and rebuilding. The Board has put more restrictive measures in place since 2019 to address overfishing and contribute to stock rebuilding based on the assessment and projections. While the 2024 Stock Assessment Update indicates the resource is no longer experiencing overfishing, it remains overfished. Short-term projections in the assessment estimate the probability of rebuilding by 2029 is less than 50%, with an estimated increase in fishing mortality in 2025 due to the above-average 2018 year-class entering the current recreational ocean slot limit combined with the lack of strong year-classes behind it.
COMMENT ON THE DRAFT ADDENDUM HERE
In response to the 2024 Stock Assessment Update and the updated projections, the Board initiated Draft Addendum III to consider recreational and commercial management measures for implementation in 2026 to support rebuilding the stock by 2029. This action is intended to increase the probability of rebuilding the stock by reducing fishery removals by -12% with management measures implemented in 2026. For the commercial fishery, this action proposes a commercial quota reduction. For the recreational fishery, this action considers season closures and/or size limit changes.
This action also considers requirements for commercial tagging programs, a coastwide definition of total length for size limit regulations, and changes to the Maryland recreational season baseline. For commercial tagging, states are currently allowed to choose whether to tag commercially harvested fish at the point of harvest or point of sale. To address concerns that waiting to tag harvested fish until the point of sale could increase the risk of illegal harvest, this action considers requiring commercial tagging at the point of harvest or by the first point of landing with the intention of improving enforcement and compliance. There is also concern that inconsistent methods of measuring the total length of striped bass for compliance with size limits undermines the intended conservation, consistency, and enforceability of the coastwide size limits. To address this, this action considers coastwide requirements for defining total length for both sectors. For Maryland’s Chesapeake Bay recreational fishery, this action proposes changing the recreational baseline season to simplify Maryland’s Chesapeake Bay regulations, which could improve compliance and enforcement, and to re-align fishing access based on stakeholder input and release mortality rates.
The Board intends to take final action no later than October 2025 with implementation in 2026, except for commercial tagging requirements which, if selected, may require a later implementation date.
About the Author
First the Menhaden are heavily overfished.
Then the Stripers die off for lack of food.
And so it goes..
How can this be applied to Illegal Aliens?