Over the past half-dozen years, the summer flounder stock has been having some problems, although most anglers probably didn’t notice until the last season or two. Annual trawl surveys conducted by the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) revealed that summer flounder spawning success had been below average in every year between 2010 and 2015, the […]
The Marine Fish Conservation Network is a nonpartisan organization. The thoughts and opinions of this author are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Network. This election year is one of the big ones, when races for the President, the House of Representatives and one-third of the Senate happen at the same […]
Photo: Summer Flounder Summer flounder, more commonly known as “fluke” at the northern end of their range, were at the center of fisheries debates throughout the first eight or ten years of this century. It was the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council’s (MAFMC) failure to take the conservation and rebuilding provisions of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation […]
Summer Flounder, photo via NOAA Of all the issues that face fisheries managers, probably none are as controversial as reallocating harvest. It’s a no-win issue for regulators. The need to establish annual catch limits makes fisheries management a zero-sum game. The only way to increase the landings of one group of fishermen is to decrease […]
As part of the ongoing red snapper debate, various “anglers’ rights” organizations frequently tout the superiority of state fisheries managers, when compared to their counterparts at the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS). One such organization, the Coastal Conservation Association (CCA), has frequently expressed its support for H.R. 3094, legislation that would strip NMFS of all […]
H.R. 3094, the so-called “Gulf States Red Snapper Management Authority Act,” has been one of the most controversial fishery management bills introduced in the current session of Congress. Sponsored by Rep. Garret Graves (R-Louisiana), H.R. 3094 would strip the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) of all authority to manage red snapper in the Gulf of […]
To date, salt water fishery management is largely about dead fish. We worry about fishing mortality. We try to figure out how many fish can be landed without doing long-term harm to the stock. What we don’t think about very often is how many fish we should leave alive in the water to make the […]
Louisiana Congressman Garret Graves is the primary sponsor of H.R. 3094, legislation that would strip the National Marine Fisheries Service of its authority to manage red snapper in the Gulf of Mexico, and to turn that authority over to the five Gulf states. Rep. Graves has provided a number of justifications in support of such […]
Join our email list to receive occasional updates and priority alerts
