MONTAUK, N.Y. — May 10, 2014 — But with the striped bass population in decline, competition for the prized catch has intensified between recreational and commercial fishermen, setting up a showdown over a fishery that generates, according to one study, several billion dollars a year.
As summer approaches, the view from Long Island’s easternmost point transforms at dawn as anglers casting for striped bass begin taking their places along the surf. By June, the fish will be racing through these waters on the way to coastal New England as part of their northern migration, a biological spectacle akin to the movement of salmon on the West Coast.
But with the striped bass population in decline, competition for the prized catch has intensified between recreational and commercial fishermen, setting up a showdown over a fishery that generates, according to one study, several billion dollars a year. On Tuesday, fishery managers will begin meeting to decide how best to respond. Their decision could be the most pivotal since the 1980s, when a series of fishing moratoriums wreaked havoc on the industry. As Billy Joel, who was raised on Long Island, lamented in song: “I was a bayman like my father was before. Can’t make a living as a bayman anymore.”
Then, as now, there were warning signs that the species was in trouble: Habitat destruction, pollution and overfishing during the previous decade severely reduced its numbers. By 1983, scientists had warned that virtually no new stripers were joining the migration.
And then as now the biggest management challenge is the stripers’ seasonal passage, which takes them through the territorial waters of multiple states on a journey from their primary spawning grounds in the Chesapeake Bay to the coast of Maine.
Since 1981, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, with representatives appointed by governors along this route, has managed the striped bass to make sure its numbers remain healthy. But from the start, the commission was crippled by the parochial interests of its members, whose constituents all vied for a cut of the migration. Even after it was clear that the population was on the brink of collapse, the commission was unable to agree on measures to save it.