New legislation will improve marine resource conservation and promote innovative new fishing gear by Theresa Labriola Last Tuesday, Senators Feinstein (D-Calif.), Capito (R-W.Va.) and Harris (D-Calif.) introduced the Driftnet Modernization and Bycatch Reduction Act to phase out the use of mile-long drift gillnets in the eastern Pacific by 2020 and bring California swordfish fishing in-line with…
Ecological Reference Points for Menhaden are Ready, But Menhaden Managers Are Not by Ken Hinman, November 17, 2017 Earlier this week, the ASMFC’s Menhaden Management Board, meeting in Baltimore to finalize Amendment 3 to its Atlantic Menhaden Management Plan, voted to wait at least another two years before adopting catch limits that account for the…
Draft Amendment 3 to the Interstate Management Plan for Atlantic Menhaden Finally Offers a Way to Protect “The Most Important Fish in the Sea” by Ken Hinman In nature, you cannot do just one thing, as Walter Youngquist puts it, because everything is connected to everything else. That’s why you can’t fish for Atlantic menhaden…
With ESA Listing Denied, Attention Shifts Back to International Management Bodies by Ken Hinman The U.S. government earlier this month denied a petition to list Pacific bluefin tuna under the Endangered Species Act, citing recent international actions that may have stabilized the population and could, if continued, put bluefin on “a positive trajectory.” NOAA Fisheries,…
At The Crossroads by Ken Hinman On the long road to change, we encounter twists and turns, roadblocks and detours. Right now, on the way to changing the way we allocate Atlantic menhaden among fishermen and other predators in the ocean (e.g., striped bass), we are at a crossroads. For well over a decade, the…
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, and for every fish caught…
by Ken Hinman, President, Wild Oceans Science cannot teach us what we need most to know about nature, that is, how to value it. – Holmes Rolston There are three steps in the resolution of an environmental problem. First, of course, we must recognize that a problem exists. Then, we analyze and assess the situation….
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, it looks like history may repeat itself, and scientists are asking anglers for…
by Ken Hinman, Wild Oceans President Chris Weld, a co-founder of the National Coalition for Marine Conservation, now Wild Oceans, in 1973, died March 5th in Boston at the age of 84. When Susie Weld, Chris’ wife of 62 years, called to tell me Chris had passed, I felt a chill, like when a door…