Author: Theresa Labriola
NOAA Fisheries Cuts Safety Net for Pacific Whales and Sea Turtles
by Theresa Labriola For more than forty years, California fishermen have used mile-long drift gillnets to catch thresher shark and swordfish, a period during which most of the world banned drift netting, including off the east coast of the United States. That’s because driftnets indiscriminately entangle any large animal they encounter, ...
Got Tuna?
TWO WAYS TO HELP SCIENTISTS STUDY PACIFIC TUNA by Theresa Labriola Anglers can help NOAA’s Southwest Fisheries Science Center (SWFSC or Center) with their research of Pacific Bluefin Tuna and Pacific Albacore. Here’s how. In recent years, Pacific bluefin tuna bigger than 150 pounds have schooled off of California. This year, ...
Pacific Council Corrects Course on Buoy Gear
by Theresa Labriola In September, the Pacific Fishery Management Council reversed an earlier decision to postpone permitting buoy gear in the swordfish fishery in favor of more research. Changing its mind, the Council has now decided to pursue authorization because five years of research already tells us that this new, ...
Pacific Council “Flip-Flops” on Greener Gear
by Theresa Labriola When a politician changes heart over something that millions of others have changed their mind on and owns up to it, we call them “evolved.” But when the Pacific Fishery Management Council, led by California, changes course on authorizing deep set buoy gear (DSBG) despite overwhelming public ...
This is How the Government is Preparing for Climate Change
The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) just took a huge step in preparing our ocean, fisheries and coastal communities for climate change. This type of foresight and required coordination is difficult, and hasn’t happened as often as it should in the past. The Western Regional Action Plan (WRAP) lays out why and ...
Big Victory for Little Fish
Feds Finalize Ban on New West Coast Forage Fisheries By Theresa Labriola – For more than a decade Wild Oceans has been a champion for a broader ecosystem approach to managing marine fisheries beginning with protections of predator-prey relationships. On April 4, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) issued the Final Rule ...
Watching for Gray Whales Also Means Keeping an Eye on Ocean Health
By Theresa Labriola – It’s that time of year, when the gray whale migration peaks as they leave their northern Pacific feeding grounds for their breeding grounds in the warm lagoons of Baja California, Mexico. In December, I visited Granite Canyon Research Center, south of Monterey, CA, where the Southwest Fisheries Science ...
I AM WILD OCEANS
How did I get here? People wonder, “How did a New York lawyer wind up advising on the management of Pacific fisheries, striped marlin, long lines and drift nets?” My family’s boat rarely left the dock without me on board. Whether fishing for striped bass or tuna, in calm waters ...
Pacific Council Finishes Precautionary Plan to Protect Unmanaged Forage
By Theresa Labriola – In September 2015, I attended the Pacific Fishery Management Council in Sacramento to celebrate the Council’s completion of their first ecosystem-based amendment, three years in the making, which will protect unmanaged and unfished forage fish from directed commercial fishing. The Council approved regulations drafted by the National Marine ...
Pacific Council on the Right Path to Safeguard Forage
By Theresa Labriola – Thanks to everyone who signed our petition asking the Pacific Fishery Management Council to initiate a process for developing a forage status indicator. In June, I traveled to the Council meeting in Garden Grove, California to hand deliver your petition to the Council. While there, I ...
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