Kate Masury, executive director of Eating with the Ecosystem, joined the Marine Fish Conservation Network for a Waterside Chat on October 16, 2024. Among many topics, Kate and host Tom Sadler discussed: Eating with the Ecosystem, the work they do, and how they are a nonprofit that started as a food gathering Their place-based approach […]
Category Archives: Commercial Fishing
ASMFC Stalls Striped Bass Rebuilding Efforts
On December 16, 2024, conservation-minded striped bass anglers waited to see whether the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s (ASMFC) Striped Bass Management Board (Management Board) would vote to reduce 2025 striped bass landings, and so make it more likely that the currently overfished striped bass stock would be rebuilt by 2029, the deadline set by […]
The ASMFC Moves Forward — Slowly — To Conserve Striped Bass
By any objective measure, the coastal migratory population of Atlantic striped bass has fallen on hard times. In Maryland, the juvenile abundance index (JAI), which has gauged the success of each year’s spawn since 1957, was 2.0 in 2024, far below its long-term average of 11.0. It was the sixth consecutive year of spawning failure […]
Magnuson-Stevens in a Post-Chevron World
After June 28, 2024, when the United States Supreme Court handed down its decision in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo (Loper Bright), some of the commentary in both the popular press and various legal publications made it sound as if the sky had fallen. One opinion article in the Tampa Bay Times went so far […]
FISH Act Helps Ready the U.S. Seafood Industry for the Future
Rep. Mary Peltola’s reputation as an advocate for fishing and Native Alaskan fishing communities was never more evident than with the introduction of her Fisheries Improvement and Seafood Health (FISH) Act in June 2024. At a time when more and more legislation is introduced to do nothing more than “send a message” about the sponsor’s […]
Building Boom: Congress Funds Regional Ecosystem Based Fisheries Management Projects
This article is reprinted with permission from the Wild Oceans Horizon Newsletter Spring 2024. Top photo: river herring The use of ecosystem based fisheries management (EBFM) is widely accepted as the strongest framework for achieving sustainability in fisheries, both in terms of ecological and human well-being. More than a decade ago, the regional fishery management […]
Why Regulate Recreational Fisheries?
Photo: Charles Witek in a different era of fishing technology When I was young, marine recreational fisheries, at least in the northeast, were virtually unregulated. There was a 16-inch (fork length) minimum size for striped bass that was in place throughout the region, but other than that, anglers could take as many fish as they […]
Watch: Waterside Chat with Colles Stowell
Colles Stowell, founder and president of the One Fish Foundation, joined the Marine Fish Conservation Network for an online Waterside Chat on May 30, 2024. Colles and host Tom Sadler discussed: How our seafood system has changed from mostly local or domestic to mostly imported in a few short decades How we’ve become so dependent […]