Read Part II of this two-part series. Top Photo: Summer Flounder When the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council (Council) and the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s (ASMFC’s) Interstate Fishery Management Program Policy Board (Policy Board) met in joint session on June 7, 2022, they approved the so-called “Percent Change Approach” to a “Harvest Control Rule” (Control […]
This piece first appeared on NRDC’s expert blog and is reprinted with permission. Top photo by John McMurray. Healthy fish populations are building blocks of a healthy ocean. They support marine ecosystems, including other wildlife like whales and seabirds. They are also engines of our coastal economies and the communities that rely on them, with […]
We were trying to protect the blowfish, and for a few hours, it looked like we would. Then things got derailed by a group of folks who clung to the status quo. Blowfish, more properly known as “northern puffer,” range along the entire eastern seaboard of the United States, although they’re probably most common between […]
Top photo: Panoramic shot of the “Ghost-Town-Hole” with just 4 boats plying the waters for salmon on Sunday, October 16th, 2022 It’s as if Mother Earth knows, fall is for putting away a cache of food for the long winter ahead, and rarely does she disappoint, at least until this year. In my 26 years […]
Photo by Kyle Schaefer In April 2019, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s (ASMFC) Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board (Management Board) accepted a benchmark stock assessment that found the striped bass stock to be both overfished and subject to overfishing. The Management Board acted quickly to reduce fishing mortality and end overfishing, but was much […]
Science-based fisheries management has been the key to maintaining long-term healthy and abundant fisheries upon which coastal and Indigenous communities depend. The law that ensures the successful and sustainable science-based management of U.S. federal fisheries is the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, which has been evolving since it first passed in 1976 to end […]
Capt. Lucas Bissett joined host Tom Sadler on September 28, 2022 for latest of the Network’s monthly Waterside Chats (now available as a podcast). Lucas is the executive director of the American Fly Fishing Trade Association, and he’s also an award winning saltwater fly-fishing guide, a member of the Marine Fish Conservation Network’s National Policy […]
Photo by John McMurray Most anglers probably don’t realize that the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) has a policy that addresses recreational fisheries management (Recreational Policy). Most anglers have probably never even considered the issue. Yet it’s an issue that deserves some thought for, as the introduction to the Recreational Policy notes, “The purpose of […]
