Ever since April 2017, when the Modernizing Recreational Fisheries Management Act — the so-called “Modern Fish Act” — was introduced in the House of Representatives, anglers have been urged to support the bill, its Senate companion, S. 1520, and the much more dangerous Strengthening Fishing Communities and Increasing Flexibility in Fisheries Management Act, H.R. 200. […]
Photo by John McMurray For the past year and a half, anglers have been bombarded with press releases from various industry and anglers’ rights groups, urging them to support two bills, H.R. 2023 and S. 1520, which are both formally titled the “Modernizing Recreational Fisheries Management Act,” but are better known as the “Modern Fish […]
Photo by John McMurray For many years, anglers have criticized estimates of recreational fish landings produced by the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), which are used by fishery managers to set seasons, bag limits and other regulations. Such anglers typically argue that NMFS overestimates recreational harvest, which results in unnecessary restrictions being placed on recreational […]
Shortfin makos swim through the ocean like they own the place, moving swiftly and decisively below the surface, or cruising up on top displaying their distinctive blue-black dorsal fin, like a flag, to the sun. Along the northeast coast, they’re the shark most sought out by anglers, because they are a fish of superlatives. Shortfin […]
Now that H.R. 200, a bill that would amend and reauthorize the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (Magnuson-Stevens), has passed the House of Representatives, it poses an even greater threat to the federal fishery management system. Much of that threat arises out of the uncertainty that would be introduced by many of the provisions […]
Atlantic bluefin tuna, photo courtesy of Wikipedia When I was a senior in high school, my German class trekked into Manhattan to attend a play based on the Franz Kafka novel, Der Prozess. I didn’t have a clue about what was going on. Kafka’s work can be difficult enough to understand, even in translation. I […]
Fisheries bill could pave the way for harmful reauthorization of the Magnuson-Stevens Act For well over a year, anglers and federal legislators have been the targets of a sophisticated and very well-funded public relations effort designed to convince them to support the so-called “Modern Fish Act,” a bill that would weaken key provisions of the […]
For many years, anglers and businesses critical of recreational fishing regulations have focused their ire on the Marine Recreational Fisheries Statistics Survey (MRFSS) and on MRFSS’ successor, the Marine Recreational Information Program (MRIP), claiming that the landings estimates those surveys produced were very inaccurate and did not truly reflect recreational harvest. Their criticisms of MRFSS […]
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