The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) and the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council (MAFMC) jointly coordinate the management of interstate black sea bass resources amongst Atlantic Coast states. State commercial allocations were established in 2003 based on landings data from 1980 to 2001. Today the fishery has changed drastically, increasing in abundance in the northern part of its range and expanding into new areas where they were previously rare. Since 2010, black sea bass have become abundant in Long Island Sound and a significant proportion of these changes were attributed to climate change by several different scientific investigations.
The Black Sea Bass Management Board reviewed and revised commercial state allocations for black sea bass to address the climate-driven population changes. The Board acknowledged the significant change in the Long Island Sound and the challenges it created for fisheries there and voted to give the State of Connecticut an additional 2 percent to its commercial allocation. New York requested identical consideration due to the shared nature of Long Island Sound and similar fishery management difficulties and was denied. New York State successfully appealed this decision on May 6, 2021 during ASMFC’s Spring Meeting Interstate Fisheries Management Program Policy Board. Revised allocations will be reviewed during ASMFC’s Summer Meeting in August 2021. For more details on the appeal, visit DEC’s website.
