Evaluating the Effectiveness of Fish Stock Rebuilding Plans in the United States Fish stock rebuilding plans have proven successful in reducing fishing pressure on many overfished stocks and stock sizes have generally increased. However, in some cases fisheries have not rebuilt as quickly as the plans projected, due to factors such as overestimation of the size of stocks and incidental catch by fisheries targeting other species. Even when fishing is reduced appropriately for the actual stock size, the rate at which rebuilding occurs will depend on ecological and other environmental conditions. Because of all these factors, it is difficult to make accurate predictions of the time it will take stocks to rebuild. Therefore, rebuilding plans that focus more on meeting selected fishing mortality targets than on adhering to strict schedules for achieving rebuilding may be more robust to assessment uncertainties, environmental variability, and the effect of ecological interactions. ell-managed, the Sustainable productive Fisheries Act, more Wfisheries clearly defined over- provide a livelihood, a fishing and required nutritious source of food, rebuilding of overfished and recreational activity stocks within a speci- for coastal communities fied time limit. In around the country. 2006, Congress made However, if overfishing additional mandates takes place and stocks for conserving and experience serious rebuilding fish stocks Figure 1. A double-rigged shrimp trawler. declines, the lost produc- Credit: NOAA and strengthening the tivity affects the fishing role of scientific industry and communities that depend on advice in fisheries management. The Act now fishing, and raises concerns about the overall includes regulatory provisions such as ending health of the associated marine ecosystem. In overfishing immediately, annual catch limits the United States, the 1976 Magnuson-Stevens and accountability measures. Fishery Conservation and Management Act To meet these provisions, rebuilding plans was the first piece of major legislation to have required substantial reductions in catch regulate federal fisheries. Although the Act for many fisheries, resulting in social and contained language to “prevent overfishing,” economic impacts to fishing communities and it focused on developing the domestic fishing industry. This report reviews the technical industry. Major declines in the productivity of specifications that underlie current federally- several important fisheries led Congress to implemented rebuilding plans, and the amend the Act 1996. The amendment, called outcomes of those plans. A fishery is a group of fishing operations targeting Overfishing occurs when the rate of fishing similar species, using similar gear, during a similar exceeds FMSY. time of year and/or within the same area. A stock is considered overfished when the A stock is a single species of fish in one population is driven below the maximum geographical area. sustainable yield-derived reference point for that stock. For many stocks, this reference point is set at 50 percent of BMSY. (a) (b) How Rebuilding Plans Work The0 National Marine Fishery Service evaluates 0 . the2 status of US fish stocks to determine which 2 Y Y S S stocks are overfished; that is, which stocks are M M F F 5 5 too. small in size to sustain continued productive . 1 1 y y t fisheries. Once a stock is classified as overfished, t li li Increasing F a a t the appropriate Regional Fishery Management t r r 0 0 . o o Council1 selects and implements a rebuilding 1 m m plan. ng ng i i 5 5 h Rebuilding plans are simple in theory: annual h . s s i i catch0 limits are set to reduce fishing, which 0 F F allows the stock to grow and recover. However, 0 0 in. order to design a rebuilding plan, fishery . managers0 need to anticipate how the stock may 0 respond0.0 to different0.5 levels1.0 of fishing1.5 pressure.2.0 0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 Currently, rebuilding plans use a concept called Maximum SustainableBiom aYieldss B (MSY)MSY to deter- Biomass BMSY mine when a stock is overfished, and to set annual catch limits and rebuilding targets for Figure 2. As fishing mortality increases over time (red line), a fish stock will go from an unfished state (triangle in lower right), to stock size (see Box 1). gradually becoming overfished (diamond in upper left). At this point, a rebuilding plan might go into effect, leading to reduced fishing The Challenges of Rebuilding Plans (green line). According to theory, this should allow the stock to Rebuilding plans based on MSY have proven recover and biomass to increase until it reaches BMSY. successful for many stocks. The committee considered a subset of 55 stocks that were put conditions and ecological interactions. Generating under rebuilding plans at some point between 1997 reliable estimates of MSY depends on having exten- and 2012. Of these, 10 have rebuilt, 5 are rebuilding, sive information about the biology of the species and and 11 of the stocks are on the way to rebuilding if its abundance in the years before it was overfished. recent decreases in fishing mortality are sustained. This wealth of information is only available for a However, data from the most recent stock assess- relatively few stocks, hence there is considerable ments indicate that 20 of the 55 stocks analyzed were uncertainty in the MSY estimates for most stocks. not actually overfished at the time they were placed in Although the MSY approach has been successful for rebuilding plans, a consequence of uncertainties in some fisheries, management based on MSY can fall estimating fish stock abundance. Such uncertainties short in addressing ecosystem complexity and vari- cut both ways: retrospective assessments indicate that ability and in accounting for uncertainty in the stock size may also be overestimated, such that some estimates of reference points. stocks classified as healthy were actually overfished. The remaining 9 of the 55 stocks are still subject to overfishing even though very strict fishing limits have Box 1. Maximum Sustainable Yield been set (below 75% FMSY). Those failures can reflect To be considered sustainable, a population of fish should problems with implementing the rebuilding plans, produce enough young to replace the fish that die each difficulties in reducing unintentional harvest of the year, due to natural causes and to fishing. The maximum, stock (bycatch), or uncertainties in estimating stock sustainable, long-term average yield that can be taken size. from a fish stock is called the Maximum Sustainable Yield (MSY). MSY Reference Points The population level, or biomass, that generates MSY is A major challenge comes from the fact that current called the Biomass MSY, or BMSY. rebuilding plans use a static metric of MSY, which in The rate of fishing, called fishing mortality, which will theory represents average conditions. In reality, maintain the average population size at BMSY is called the ecosystems are dynamic and as a consequence MSY fishing mortalityMSY , or FMSY. varies with factors such as changes in environmental currently possible to incorporate them into models to improve projections to a total overfished 0 newly declared overfished degree of accuracy that is useful for 6 rebuilding management. rebuilt 0 undefined 5 Mixed Stock Fisheries Fish do not live in isolation—each stock 0 is part of a community of species that 4 cks o t live in the same waters. For example, s f o 0 when a fishing net is cast into the ocean, r 3 be it can capture several different fish m u species. This is called a mixed-stock N 0 2 fishery. When one stock within a mixed-stock 0 fishery is declared overfished, reduc- 1 tions in fishing required by the rebuilding plans affect all the stocks in 0 the fishery, leading to a loss of yield and 2000 2005 2010 income. For example, juvenile red Year snapper in the Gulf of Mexico are incidentally caught during shrimp trawl Figure 3. Rebuilding plans have reduced overfishing and helped rebuild many fishing, driving the red snapper to fish stocks. However, some stocks have proven slower to rebuild, and others remain overfished. This chart shows the status each year of all 85 stocks overfished status. Devices were installed designated overfished between 1997 and 2012. in shrimp nets to reduce bycatch, but were not sufficient to end overfishing. Uncertainty in Stock Assessments Subsequent rebuilding plans included a shrimp trawl Because it is not possible to count every individual fishing threshold, in addition to fishing limits for red fish in a stock, scientists rely on a variety of sampling snapper. and statistical methods to estimate abundance. These Alternative Management Strategies estimates are used in models to project trends in Current rebuilding plans rely on a prescriptive future stock size. The accuracy of the population approach, which has had demonstrated successes in estimates and the projections depends on the quality identifying and rebuilding some fish stocks. However, and amount of data available and the ability of the plans’ focus on achieving rebuilding targets within models to reproduce the primary determinants of the set timeframes forces reliance on forecasts and esti- species’ population growth. The frequency of stock mates of MSY-based reference points, which often assessments can vary widely, both within and among carry a high level of uncertainty. Rebuilding plans that regions, from stocks that are assessed annually to focus on meeting selected fishing mortality targets stocks that have never been assessed. As more data may be more effective than a plan with an exact time are collected and new models and assessment period for rebuilding. The report’s authoring methods become available, past estimates of the committee made several suggestions for alternative status of fish stocks can change substantially. For management strategies for rebuilding fish stocks. example, some stocks that were previously classified as overfished (and put under rebuilding plans) would Gradual Reductions in Annual Catch not have been considered overfished based on the Delaying reductions in annual catch until the stock most recent assessments.