Gulf Red Snapper Management In The Spotlight Again

Gulf Red Snapper Management In The Spotlight Again

Of all the fisheries issues that have arisen over the past decade, the fight over recreational red snapper management in the Gulf of Mexico is among the most acrimonious, and one of the most difficult to resolve. It started out simply. As fisheries managers began to successfully rebuild the red snapper stock, red snapper anglers […]

Kevin Scribner: Support Fishermen and Communities in Bristol Bay During the Coronavirus Pandemic

Kevin Scribner: Support Fishermen and Communities in Bristol Bay During the Coronavirus Pandemic

Communities and fishermen in and around Bristol Bay, Alaska have depended for generations on abundant salmon runs for food, income, and a way of life. Fishermen and salmon have maintained this sustainable relationship through science-based fisheries management and a respect for the salmon’s natural habitat. That relationship is facing an uncertain future right now. First, […]

A View from the Hill: October 2020

A View from the Hill: October 2020

It has been quite some time since our last View from the Hill edition, and there is plenty to report from 2020, but we’ll keep focused on activity that has taken place since the summer in order to keep this edition as succinct as possible. Not long after returning from their August break, Senate Majority […]

COVID Shows the Need for New Risk Management Tools in Fisheries

COVID Shows the Need for New Risk Management Tools in Fisheries

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 […]

Mid-Atlantic Fisheries: Time To Abandon the Past, And Embrace the Future

Mid-Atlantic Fisheries:  Time To Abandon the Past, And Embrace the Future

“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 […]

Linda Behnken Describes the Economic Toll of the Coronavirus Pandemic on America’s Fishermen

Linda Behnken Describes the Economic Toll of the Coronavirus Pandemic on America’s Fishermen

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 […]

“Recreational Reform” at the Mid-Atlantic Council

“Recreational Reform” at the Mid-Atlantic Council

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 […]

Pebble Mine Update: What the Army Corps Did and Didn’t Do

Pebble Mine Update: What the Army Corps Did and Didn’t Do

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 […]