Pacific Council Finishes Precautionary Plan to Protect Unmanaged Forage

Wild Ocean Team

Published On October 22, 2015

Reading Time 1 minute

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 Fisheries Service (NMFS), that identify a suite of unmanaged forage fish as ecosystem component species in each of the Council’s four fishery management plans (FMPs). Through this action, the Council recognized the vital ecological role that forage species serve as food for predatory fish, birds and mammals within the California Current Large Marine Ecosystem.