Archive December 9, 2024

UK and EU agree unsustainable bass fishing opportunities for 2025

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The bass stock is at an unsafe level, yet instead of at least trying to keep the stock stable by cutting fishing pressure, unbelievably the UK and the EU have just agreed to increase bass fishing pressure and shrink the bass stock. And yet the law says when the stock is at this unsafe level “all appropriate remedial measures shall be adopted to ensure rapid return of the stock or functional unit concerned to levels above those capable of producing MSY”. Who in their right minds thinks agreeing to shrink the bass stock will ensure its rapid return to a safe level?

And once again, recreational fishers have been discriminated against – increases for the commercial fishers but not for recreational fishers.

Get ready for Defra and our Fisheries Minister telling us what a great deal they have done, that sustainability is their watchword and they are heroes for not having followed the scientists’ advice that would have shrunk the stock by 7%. Despite them having no idea what additional Total Removals their decision to increase fishing pressure represents or how much it will shrink the stock.

You can read the sea bass changes at page 15 of the attached document.

eu-uk-written-record-fisheries-consultation-2025Download

Bass 2025 Fishing Opportunities

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This morning, the EU Commission has advised that the UK and EU have agreed to set bass fishing pressure below the ICES headline advice, in recognition of the bass stock still being at a dangerously low level. The ICES headline advice was to shrink the stock by 7%.

However, we are still waiting to hear the actual catch limits agreed. If they keep catch limits at their current level, the stock level is expected to decline. The UK and EU have a legal commitment to take all appropriate remedial measures to ensure the rapid return of the stock to a safe level – will they deliver on that?

In particular, have the UK and the EU actually increased catch limits for bottom trawlers and seiners, thus increasing fishing pressure when the stock needs rebuilding? We expect to find out in the course of this week.

The (Bass) Nightmare Before Christmas?

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In 2017 and 2018, the bass stock crashed to scarily low levels.  But since then, as a result of emergency restrictions, the stock has recovered somewhat but remains at an unsafe level, so more stock rebuilding is needed.    But like any good scary movie, just when you think things are getting better, the shocks keep coming.

In recent weeks, we have realised that the scientists’ annual bass stock assessment1 doesn’t contain rebuilding advice.  Instead, it presents “Headline Advice” that, if followed, would actually shrink the bass stock, not rebuild it!

The scientists’ assessment provides other, lower, catch scenarios that fishery managers could follow, but the problem is the fisheries managers’ normally aim to set fishing opportunities in line with the Headline Advice and say this is “sustainable”.  Regarding bass specifically, so far we have only heard Defra talk about the “Headline Advice”, which makes us concerned they may not appreciate that the Headline Advice for bass is not aimed at rebuilding the bass stock and is therefore not “sustainable”.

When we raised this problem with Defra’s UK fishing opportunities negotiators, to their credit they seemed to take it on board that not having scientific rebuilding advice, when you are supposed to be rebuilding stocks, is a rather difficult place for fisheries managers to find themselves and have offered a meeting to discuss this problem in early 2025.

But what will UK and EU fisheries managers decide in the next few weeks for the bass fishery in 2025?

The EU Advisory Council for North Western Waters (which is dominated by commercial fishing interests) has recommended following the Headline Advice and shrinking the bass stock by 7% in 2025 (overturning the more conservative position of its bass focus group that recommended no change to the total bass tonnage killed).   We have heard France is seeking to increase landings by bottom trawlers and seiners, whilst rolling-over catch limits for other gear types – so aiming to reduce the bass stock by 3%.

Bass Angling Conservation supports the position taken by the European Anglers Alliance and the International Forum for Sustainable Underwater Activities:

“the EAA and IFSUA recommend that fisheries managers should not follow the ICES headline advice and instead should consider alternatives to the ICES headline advice and aim for Total Removals that would either increase or, at the very least, maintain the SSB2 in 2025. Recognising the significant challenge of reducing fishing pressure enough to achieve stock growth within the year, we recommend that fisheries managers target a Total Removals level of 1,469 tonnes in 2025, a 26% reduction from the estimated 2024 removals of 1,990 tonnes.”

Where should these cuts fall, if the fisheries managers were to decide to do the right thing by the bass stock?  Recreational fishers have had no increase to their bag limit since 2020, whilst commercial fishing limits were increased in each of 2021, 2022 and 2023, so we argue that fisheries managers should revoke some of those previous commercial fishing increases.

However, fisheries managers know that reducing commercial catch limits upsets commercial fishers, so it seems likely that, at best, fishery managers will settle for a roll-over of 2024 measures and keep their fingers crossed that the scientists are wrong and this won’t shrink the stock by 3%.  Do UK fisheries managers and our Fisheries Minister have the nerve to stand up for the bass stock and the improved long-term socio-economic benefits that will flow from maintaining or growing the bass stock in 2025? We will soon know the answer.

[1] https://doi.org/10.17895/ices.advice.27222843

[2] Spawning Stock Biomass

Sussex Netting Byelaw

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Sussex Inshore Fisheries and Conservation Authority was told that it should consult on radical changes it made to its proposed netting byelaw (scrapping the proposed “netting exclusion zones” and allowing netting very close to the shore).

Bass Angling Conservation has now replied to the consultation. You can read our full response below, but the key points are:

  • SxIFCA needs to consider the needs of recreational fishers, not just commercial fishers. Nearshore nets damage the sea angling experience and reduce socio-economic benefits: nearshore nets can stop sea anglers casting, and strip fish out of a local area, both short term and long term.
  • more protection is needed for sea trout. The Environment Agency has said protecting just the top 1.5 metres of the water column from nets is not sufficient. We need nearshore spatial restrictions.
  • drift nets should be subject to the same rules as fixed nets, following Environment Agency advice.
  • in 2023, no one landed fish into Sussex caught using ring nets or seine nets. So let’s stop them being used Sussex.

BAC Response to SxIFCA Netting Byelaw Consultation – June 2024Download

Cornish Fishery Manager – Undemocratic Behaviours?

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The local fishery manager in Cornwall (the Cornwall Inshore Fisheries and Conservation Association) develops new byelaws in private, excluding the public from Byelaw Working Group meetings and refusing to disclose Byelaw Working Group agendas or meeting papers to the public.  This is despite the UK being a signatory to the Aarhus Convention, which is aimed at transparency in environmental law-making.

Additionally, it allows the Chairman to serve for more than 10 years.  This is contrary to the Government’s Code on  Public Appointments.  A Cornish Councillor said in 2020 “most of the major democratic nations in the world have limitations on the amount of time that a person can remain as president as two terms. And the only people who go longer are the tyrannical states like Russia and some of the other places. I think it is a backward move, something we need not do. I would suggest that we don’t do it.”

If you know any Cornish sea anglers, please pass this message on to them and suggest they kick up a fuss by contacting their MP, Councillors and members of the Cornwall IFCA Committee.

We’re Not Gonna Take It!

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Were-Not-Gonna-Take-It-BASS-FMPDownload

Until the bass plan is amended to prioritise a higher stock target, I will be telling Defra ”We do not accept your plan”.

Have you ever had the frustrating experience of someone asking for your advice, you spending valuable time giving your advice, and then that person ignores it and does something else?  This is what Defra has done to sea anglers with the bass plan – asking sea anglers what they want to see in the bass fishery and then publishing a plan that doesn’t prioritise what we want.

But Defra has listened carefully to commercial fishers, promising them a review of the bass authorisation system that could let more commercial fishers into the bass fishery, suggesting ditching the “bycatch only” rule for netters and trawlers, allowing commercial fishers to land all the bass they catch and changing the system to enable commercial fishers to get their catch limits increased more quickly.

The biggest problem with Defra’s plan is its impoverished objective for our bass stock.   What sea anglers want is simple: improve and protect the bass stock so we (and our children and our childrens’ children) have more and bigger bass to catch – fewer blanks, more trophy fish.   We like catching large, powerful bass and these fish are vital to the stock too, since they are more reproductive than smaller bass.  Currently we have a bass stock structure where too many of the large bass have been removed by commercial fishing, so the stock lacks resilience, increasing the chance of another crash in the future.

95% of sea anglers and 74% of commercial fishers who responded to the consultation told Defra “To allow the bass stock to rebuild and be maintained at a high level, a long-term strategy is needed.”  We asked Defra to look at World class fisheries abroad, for example Australia, where the state of Queensland is targeting stock sizes of 60% of the natural, unfished stock size, recognising that much larger, healthier stocks maximise benefits for coastal communities.   But Defra wants the UK status quo to continue in the short term, targeting a stock size just 33% of the natural, unfished stock size (or, putting it another way, allowing 67% of the bass stock to be killed).

Defra talks about the current stock target being “sustainable” but that is very misleading.  What Defra means by “sustainable” is just that the fish being killed are balanced by the stock growth, so the stock size is stable.   But a wide range of stock targets are sustainable in this narrow sense, there is absolutely nothing special about Defra’s current target, except that it aims to maximise the tonnage of fish being killed, which is a really stupid thing to do.

Until the bass plan is amended to prioritise a higher stock target, I will be telling Defra ”We do not accept your plan”.

With thanks to Sea Angler magazine for permission to use this article.