Author Charles Witke will testify at a House Natural Resources Committee hearing on the Magnuson-Stevens Act on July 19th. In this post, he explains why the recent Commerce Department decision undermines ASFMC and the future of cooperative interstate fisheries management. Late in the afternoon of July 11, 2017, the United States Department of Commerce (Commerce) […]
Black sea bass photo courtesy of Charles Witek Over the past couple of seasons, no fish has frustrated Mid-Atlantic fishery managers—and Mid-Atlantic recreational fishermen—as much as the black sea bass. There are a lot of them out there. A benchmark stock assessment completed late in 2016 estimated that the spawning stock biomass (SSB) at the […]
Recently, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) issued a rule which reopened the federal red snapper season for private-boat anglers in the Gulf of Mexico (Temporary Rule). While such Temporary Rule was welcomed by many participants in the red snapper fishery, it is in serious conflict with the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (Magnuson-Stevens), […]
Fluke photo by John McMurray. Managing federal fisheries is a relatively simple process, thanks to the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (Magnuson-Stevens). Pursuant to Magnuson-Stevens, “Conservation and management measures shall be based on the best scientific information available.” Such “Conservation and management measures shall prevent overfishing.” To better assure that overfishing doesn’t occur, each […]
On May 1, the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council (MAFMC) released a request for proposals “to evaluate the feasibility of developing a fishing mortality (F) based management approach to the recreational summer flounder fishery.” Currently, summer flounder are managed with a combination of bag limits, size limits and seasons intended to constrain recreational harvest to, or […]
Photo: river herring, courtesy of Patrick Paquette On April 6, 2017, Rep. Garret Graves (R-Louisiana) introduced H.R. 2023, the so-called “Modernizing Recreational Fisheries Management Act.” Rep. Graves is the same congressman who, in the last session of Congress, introduced H.R. 3094, the “Gulf States Red Snapper Management Authority Act,” which attempted to strip the National […]
Photo: Gulf of Maine Atlantic Cod, by Joachim S. Mueller Counting fish is a difficult job, and even the best stock assessment contains its share of uncertainty. The 2014 stock assessment update for Gulf of Maine cod found that, depending on the model used, the current spawning stock biomass might be as low as 2,100 […]
Photo by John McMurray Every now and then, my wife and I will be talking to someone who doesn’t fish. Upon learning that we do, and that we own a boat, a typical reaction is something like “That’s really nice. You don’t have to go to the store to buy fish.” And one of us […]
Join our email list to receive occasional updates and priority alerts
