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 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…
by Ken Hinman, Wild Oceans President About 30 years ago, while I was researching an article for Marlin magazine, “Plastics Plague Ocean Life,” an angler fishing a Texas tournament landed a marlin with a plastic ring from a baby bottle around its bill. In the same tournament a fisherman hooked a red snapper sporting a…
On February 1st, the Atlantic Menhaden Management Board met in Alexandria, Virginia to review public comment on an array of options for changing the way we manage what is perhaps the most important forage fish on the east coast, and to decide which options will go forward as part of Draft Amendment 3 later this…
by Ken Hinman, Wild Oceans President A rule to fully implement the Billfish Conservation Act of 2012 had the ignominious honor of being the only proposed rulemaking left unfinished by the Department of Commerce before the change of Administrations in January. For four years, the National Marine Fisheries Service struggled with the issue of whether…
In this Spring 2017 edition of the Wild Oceans Horizon, we fondly remember the man who started it all. Chris Weld, a pioneer in the fisheries conservation movement and co-founder of Wild Oceans (then called the National Coalition for Marine Conservation), has left us, but his legacy lives on and continues to inspire and energize…
SENATORS INTRODUCE BILL TO PROTECT BILLFISH Amendment Clarifies Intent of 2012 Conservation Act February 16, 2017. A bipartisan group of senators introduced legislation yesterday to amend the Billfish Conservation Act of 2012, making it clear that the original intent of the BCA was to prohibit sales of any marlin, spearfish or sailfish in the mainland…