When it comes to fisheries management, you can’t have too much data. The Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (Magnuson-Stevens) requires that “Conservation and management measures shall be based upon the best scientific information available,” and that’s a good thing. Yet it also creates a problem, for a penny-pinching Congress has long denied the National […]
It’s nice to think that salt water fish are managed solely by concerned scientists, who look at the data available and always make decisions that will best guarantee that stocks will be sustainably harvested and available to us in the long term. But that’s not the case. Science plays a role. Both the various coastal […]
Folks tend to think of fishing as an innocent pastime, something that takes us back to a cane-pole childhood where cares were few and simple pleasures abundant. Unfortunately, today’s fisheries are as politicized as timber and oil production, with various interests each fighting for a share of the resource. Anglers must play a role in […]
On Monday, December 7, the House Natural Resources Committee held an oversight field hearing in Riverhead, New York. Entitled “Restoring Atlantic Fisheries and Protecting the Regional Seafood Economy,” it illuminated the debate surrounding reauthorization of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (Magnuson-Stevens). The Committee had already approved H.R. 1335, the so-called Strengthening Fishing Communities […]
Fisheries managers are finally paying attention to forage fish, the myriad species of small fish, squid and crustaceans that the predators need to survive. At the federal level, the Pacific Fishery Management Council got the ball rolling with its Comprehensive Ecosystem-Based Amendment 1: Protecting Unfished and Unmanaged Forage Fish Species. That Amendment would prevent the […]
On Georges Bank and in the Gulf of Maine, cod stocks have collapsed. A stock assessment update released in October 2015 found that the Gulf of Maine stock was experiencing a fishing mortality rate five times the sustainable level, while abundance had fallen to just 5% of the biomass target. The Georges Bank stock is […]
The National Environmental Policy Act, informally referred to as “NEPA,” has been called “the Magna Carta of environmental law.” It assures that the public interest in maintaining a healthy environment is protected, by requiring all federal agencies “to incorporate environmental considerations in their planning and decision making,” and compels such agencies to prepare “environmental assessments” […]
If you’re not an angler who fishes the coast somewhere between Virginia and Massachusetts, you may never have heard of a tautog. Where I live on Long Island, we usually call them “blackfish,” which pretty well describes their appearance, although it doesn’t say anything about their white chin and dirty-white belly, or the thick, sturdy […]
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