ALBANY — The state expects the population of coastal striped bass to fall significantly starting in the 2030s after an annual survey found decreased numbers of juvenile fish for the third year in a row.
The 2025 survey, in which juvenile bass are netted and released at 13 sites on the lower Hudson River, caught 8.27 fish per haul, significantly below the survey average’s 25th percentile. Though the 2025 numbers are slightly higher than in 2024, which in turn were higher than 2023, the overall trend of lower-than-average numbers suggested a forthcoming drop in catchable adult fish on the Atlantic Coast, according to the state Department of Environmental Conservation.
Striped bass are one of several aquatic species that live in the Atlantic Ocean and breed in the Hudson River. There, female striped bass release up to 3 million eggs for males to fertilize. After the eggs hatch, the juvenile stripers mature in the Hudson for up to two years before swimming to the Atlantic. Low numbers of these juvenile fish can portend low numbers of adult fish in coming years…