Sunset over Stellwagen Sanctuary. Photo courtesy of Anne Smrcina, NOAA Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary When various conservation organizations began pushing the concept of marine protected areas (MPAs) back in the late 1990s, I didn’t like the idea at all. Back then, the MPAs being proposed were, with few if any exceptions, so-called “ocean wilderness […]
For many years, reducing or eliminating “bycatch,” unwanted fish or other creatures incidentally caught by fishermen while seeking other species, has been a goal of fisheries managers. The Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (Magnuson-Stevens), defines “bycatch” as “fish which are harvested in a fishery, but which are not sold or kept for personal use, […]
Photo: Black sea bass caught off a wreck near Fire Island Last October, I was trolling east off New York’s Fire Island when I happened to glance out to sea. Off in the distance, perhaps two or three miles south of where I was fishing, I noticed a party boat anchored up over an inshore […]
Today, red snapper management in the Gulf of Mexico may be the most bitterly debated issue in fisheries management. By 1990, the stock was badly overfished. Abundance had fallen so low that the population retained only 2.6% of its spawning potential. Since then, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) implemented a successful recovery plan. Spawning […]
Summer Flounder photo courtesy of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation When there are lots of fish, they’re easy to manage. The best example might be scup in the northeast. Abundance is twice the biomass target; in recent years, neither the recreational nor the commercial landings have approached the annual catch limit. Badly depleted stocks can also […]
Photo: Red Snapper I recently attended a media summit in Galveston, Texas, which was hosted by Trout Unlimited, the American Fly Fishing Trade Association and The Ocean Conservancy. Titled “The State of Our Fishing Waters: The Connection Between our Headwaters and the Ocean,” it had an ambitious agenda; presentations began promptly at 7:00 a.m. But […]
This post continues Charles Witek’s two-part personal journey in U.S. fisheries management and conservation. Read Part One here. I had gotten more and more involved with fisheries conservation over the years. By 1996, I sat on the executive board of the Coastal Conservation Association (CCA), an organization that had worked hard to get SFA signed […]
This post is the first in a two-part series about Charles’s personal journey with U.S. fisheries management and the Magnuson-Stevens Act. Read Part Two here. As a boy growing up in the southwest corner of the New England coast, I had no way of knowing that Congress would someday pass the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and […]
Join our email list to receive occasional updates and priority alerts
