Category: Prey Base
Policy Underway for Unmanaged Mid-Atlantic Forage Fisheries
Wild Oceans has for the last six years been engaged in ensuring strong implementation of the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council's (Council) Unmanaged Forage Omnibus Amendment (UFOA). We did not have to wait long for a challenge to this crucial safeguard for Atlantic coast forage species: in 2021, fisheries managers received ...
WE’VE Moved the Line for Menhaden
On August 5th, Atlantic menhaden management reached a critical milestone. The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s (ASMFC) Atlantic Menhaden Management Board voted unanimously to adopt ecological reference points (ERPs) that will be used to set annual catch levels for the Atlantic coast. With so many predators – from bluefish and ...
KICK ‘EM WHILE THEY’RE DOWN
Continued Fishing During Decline Results in Deeper Sardine Collapse Pacific sardine has undergone large population fluctuations for centuries and there is consensus that environmental conditions are the main factor driving the changes. However, maintaining continuous high volume fishing on the northern subpopulation of Pacific sardine when stock productivity is in rapid decline, ...
Commerce Secretary Upholds Chesapeake Bay Menhaden Cap
Virginia’s Menhaden Fishery to Shut Down in June 2020 if it Doesn’t Take Action to Comply with the Bay Cap The U.S. Department of Commerce is standing by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission’s (ASMFC) decision to find the Commonwealth of Virginia out of compliance with a critical measure in ...
Tell Secretary Ross to Uphold the Menhaden Bay Cap
"Atlantic menhaden are a critically important – perhaps the most important – forage species for some of the Atlantic coast’s most iconic species, including those that support valuable recreational and commercial fisheries." –Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission
Help Herring Over the Final Hurdle
Let NMFS Know that You Support Measures to Protect Atlantic Herring’s Role as Forage DEADLINE: October 21 Last fall, the New England Fishery Management Council adopted groundbreaking measures to conserve Atlantic herring and safeguard its role as prey. Humpback whales, porpoises, seals, puffins, terns, tuna, striped bass, cod, pollock ...
3. MEETING RESISTANCE
The third in a series of blogs, A Question of Science, which looks at changes in the way we assess the health of one of our most important prey species. In the first two parts of this series I described how the 2010 Atlantic menhaden stock assessment was scrapped after it triggered ...
OCEAN VIEW
Here’s our latest Ocean View editorial, just one of the features that appears in our member newsletter, the Wild Oceans Horizon. For access to more insightful articles and fisheries news written by our staff, please consider supporting Wild Oceans as a member. Is the menhaden fishery certifiably “sustainable”? Not yet it isn’t. The Marine Stewardship Council ...
PLAN APPROVED TO MANAGE CHUB MACKEREL
Mid-Atlantic Council Takes on Management of Emerging Fishery On March 7th, The Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council voted to bring chub mackerel into the existing fishery management plan (FMP) for Atlantic mackerel, longfin squid, shortfin squid and butterfish. Wild Oceans supported the Council’s decision, emphasizing that chub mackerel, like the other species in ...
2. LOSING CONFIDENCE
The second in a series of blogs, A Question of Science, which looks at changes in the way we assess the health of one of our most important prey species. I started following and attending Atlantic menhaden stock assessments on a regular basis in 1999. That same year, as a ...
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