Much of the crucial aid distributed to fishing families in response to the COVID-19 emergency this year has been provided using the regulatory machinery from the NOAA fishery disaster program . Forty years ago, Congress included the fishery disaster program in the Magnuson-Stevens Act in order to protect fishing communities from rare and unpredictable environmental […]
“Them that’s got shall get Them that’s not shall lose…” Billie Holiday, from “God Bless the Child“ When jazz singer Billie Holiday belted out the words to “God Bless the Child” back in 1941, she certainly wasn’t thinking about fisheries. But some of the words of that song still apply, as fisheries managers, reflecting fishermen’s […]
Top photo: Linda Behnken Straight from the waters off Sitka, Alaska, Linda Behnken describes the hardships that the coronavirus pandemic has brought to America’s fishermen. 2020 has been a hard year for her and her fishermen peers, just as it has for all fishermen, coastal communities and many others across country. Fishermen provide our country […]
Top photo: Charles Witek with black sea bass Since March 2019, the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council (Council), in conjunction with the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s (ASMFC) Summer Flounder, Scup, and Black Sea Bass Management Board (Management Board) have been quietly working on changing the way that some recreational fisheries are managed. The reform initiative […]
Top Photo: Fly-fishing in Bristol Bay, via World Wildlife Fund If you are following the saga of the proposed Pebble Mine in Bristol Bay, Alaska, you would be forgiven if you thought recent action by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) was the death knell for the proposed mine. On August 24, the USACE […]
The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) held its regular summer meeting on August 3-6, when it addressed a number of issues that will impact anglers in New England and the Mid-Atlantic. Big decision on Atlantic menhaden The biggest news to come out of the meeting was the Atlantic Menhaden Management Board’s (Menhaden Board) decision […]
Top: Shortraker rockfish, photo via NOAA Fisheries A lifetime ago, on the day after Christmas last year, the Associated Press published a news story about West Coast fisheries that tens of thousands of Americans read, and you may have read it too. Calling the recovery of rockfish stocks off the West Coast “the biggest environmental […]
Photo by John Papciak, North Bar Media An operational stock assessment, released in August 2019 (Bluefish Assessment) advised that bluefish are overfished. In response, the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council (Council), in conjunction with the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s (ASMFC) Bluefish Management Board (Bluefish Board), is preparing a Bluefish Allocation and Rebuilding Amendment (Rebuilding Amendment). […]
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