Recreational Summer Flounder Management Strategy Evaluation

Overview

In 2022, the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council completed a management strategy evaluation (MSE) which evaluated different management strategies designed to minimize discards in the recreational summer flounder fishery. Development of this MSE was part of the continued implementation of the Council’s Ecosystem Approach to Fisheries Management (EAFM) structured framework process.

What is a Management Strategy Evaluation? An MSE is a process that allows scientists, managers, and stakeholders to test the performance of different strategies (e.g., regulations or harvest control rules) designed to address specific objectives.  In many cases, MSEs use a simulation model(s) to evaluate different management approaches within an ecosystem context to determine if those approaches achieve the intended management goals and objectives. An MSE won’t specify a single outcome or strategy that solves and addresses all management issues or concerns. Rather, it provides an opportunity to evaluate and balance different management strategies and their associated biological, social, and economic tradeoffs that best address their management objectives in an ecosystem context.

What were the goals of this MSE? The primary objectives of the Recreational Summer Flounder MSE were to evaluate management procedures that reduce the number of recreational summer flounder discards and develop strategies that convert discards into increased harvest and recreational opportunities. The Council selected this topic based on the unique challenges associated with addressing and reducing regulatory discards within the recreational sector summer flounder fishery, where 90% of the recreational catch is released and 1 out of every 10 fish that are released ends up dying. This issue has also been raised frequently by stakeholders and Advisory Panel members in recent years.

Staff Contact: Brandon Muffley, (302)526-5260

MSE Results and Findings

Through a collaborative, stakeholder-driven, and science-based process, the MSE successfully met its objectives and developed a modeling framework unique to the Mid-Atlantic region. The framework integrates a full summer flounder population dynamics model with an angler economic behavior model to understand how recreational behavior responds to changing regulations and stock availability. The performance of eight management procedures were tested under three different states of the world. The benefits of each management procedure were assessed using a suite of biological, social, and economic performance metrics across four different management objectives.

Results from the MSE suggest there are management procedures that outperform status quo management at reducing discards and converting those discards into harvest while limiting risk to the summer flounder stock. In addition, the simulation framework and individual models developed as part of the MSE can help provide both strategic and tactical advice for a variety of potential management priorities. These models and results can be used to directly inform recreational management, through recreational harvest control rules and annual specifications, to achieve a range of Council objectives.

Learn more about the MSE outcomes and models at the links below.

MSE Process and Timeline

The process and approach to public scoping and stakeholder engagement throughout the recreational Summer Flounder MSE.

Project Initiation: The MSE technical work group, an interdisciplinary group of federal, state, and academic members, was finalized in May 2020 and have met about every 6 weeks since then to develop and review various MSE work products. In September 2020, a kick-off webinar was held with the Council’s Ecosystem and Ocean Planning and Summer Flounder/Scup/Black Sea Bass Advisory Panels. During this meeting, AP members participated in a mock MSE workshop. Participants were later asked to provide feedback via a follow up feedback form.

Stakeholder Scoping: In January 2021, the Council solicited stakeholder input on the recreational summer flounder management. More than 800 responses were received covering all states from Massachusetts to North Carolina. An initial analysis and summary of stakeholder feedback is available at the first link below. The second link provides an interactive dashboard where you can explore the data in greater detail and review feedback by state and stakeholder type.

Virtual Public Workshops: The Council held three MSE workshops in March and April 2021, during which participants provided input on the MSE. Additional information, including background materials and presentations, are available at the ink below.

Core Stakeholder Group Workshops: Input provided via the stakeholder scoping comment form and regional workshops fed into more focused stakeholder workshops. For these workshops, a small core group of stakeholder participants (10-15 in total) representing the range of fishery perspectives helped the Council more efficiently and effectively progress through the MSE process. More information about the Core Stakeholder Group including membership and the process used to identify members can be found in the Summer Flounder MSE Core Stakeholder Group Selection document.



Background: EAFM Structured Framework Process

The Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council’s EAFM structured framework process to incorporate ecosystem considerations into management (from Gaichas et al. 2016).

The Council’s EAFM Guidance Document, approved in 2016 and revised in 2019, established a structured framework process to incorporate ecosystem considerations into the evaluation of policy choices and trade-offs as they affect Council-managed species and the broader ecosystem. The Council has already completed a risk assessment (Step 1) and developed a conceptual model (Step 2) and is now working on development of an MSE (step 3). Additional details about each of these steps are provided below.

Step 1: Prioritize (Risk Assessment) – The first step in this structured framework process includes identifying and prioritizing ecosystem interactions and risks through a comprehensive risk assessment. The Council completed an initial risk assessment in 2017 to help decide where to focus limited resources to address priority ecosystem considerations in its science and management programs. The risk assessment is updated annually and provides a snapshot of the current risks to meeting the Council’s biological, socioeconomic, and management objectives across a variety of factors.

Step 2: Refine (Conceptual Model) – Developing conceptual models is the second step in the Council’s EAFM structured framework process. The Council decided to focus resources on further evaluating summer flounder given the high amount of risk identified from the risk assessment. In 2019, the Council completed the development of a conceptual model that considered 16 different high-risk factors affecting summer flounder and its fisheries. The conceptual model and interactive visualization tool identified the key ecosystem elements and their associated linkages, documented available and missing data sources, and scoped out priority summer flounder management questions and objectives to be further evaluated in Step 3.

Step 3: Analyze (MSE) – MSE is the third step in the EAFM structured framework process. An MSE uses a simulation model(s) to evaluate different management approaches within an ecosystem context to determine if the outcomes associated with the different approaches achieve the intended management goals and objectives. In December 2019, building off the information developed during the conceptual model scoping process, the Council agreed to focus this MSE on evaluating the biological and management implications of alternative strategies to minimize recreational summer flounder discards. The MSE will provide the Council with strategies and alternatives that could be useful in achieving the goals and objectives outlined in the summer flounder management question selected.

Step 4: Implement and Monitor – If appropriate, the Council will use the results of the MSE to implement new management measures to minimize recreational summer flounder discards. Management measures developed through the MSE process are designed to address interaction between species, habitats, fleets, and climate forcing may require additional or different monitoring to determine if the goals and objectives are being met. Careful consideration of performance measures and monitoring systems to be used in real time needs to be part of this process.

More information about the Council’s EAFM process and activities can be found at: https://www.mafmc.org/eafm.

Background Documents

Technical Work Group Membership

  • Lou Carr-Harris, NEFSC

  • Kiley Dancy, MAFMC staff

  • Geret DePiper, SSC/NEFSC

  • Jon Deroba, NEFSC

  • Gavin Fay, SSC/UMass Dartmouth

  • Sarah Gaichas, SSC/NEFSC

  • Jorge Holzer, SSC/Univ. of Maryland

  • Emily Keiley, GARFO

  • Jeff Kipp, ASMFC

  • Doug Lipton, NOAA Fisheries

  • Brandon Muffley, MAFMC staff

  • Mark Terceiro, NEFSC

  • Mike Wilberg, SSC/Univ. of Maryland

  • Greg Wojcik, CT DEEP