Atlantic Save the Mahi-Mahi Campaign

Led by Blair Wickstrom of Florida Sportsmans Magazine, targets the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council (FMC) and NOAA, and calls for, by anglers, greater conservation restraints for mahi-mahi and wahoo, species that support South Florida’s sportfishing industry.  Without further constraints, it is feared the stock may collapse. The Campaign calls for further reductions in mahi-mahi (dolphin fish) and wahoo bag limits from what was approved recently in Amendment 10. If final approval is given by the Secretary of Commerce to Amendment 10, it leaves the 10 mahi-mahi per person limit in place but drops the vessel limit from 60 to 54 for private boats. The Amendment dropped the wahoo limit from 2 fish per day to 1 fish per day.

The Campaign calls on the Secretary to further drop bag limits and boat reductions by intervening with the FMC. The Campaign advocates for:

* Reduction in recreational vessel limit for dolphinfish to 30 fish max

* Creation of a 2,000-pound commercial trip limit

* Maintain the current 10-fish per angler bag limit

Please submit your comments before February 22, 2022, on Amendment 10 as currently approved by February 2022 via www.regulations.gov using the identification of “NOAA-NMFS-2021-0093.”

The Campaign successfully convinced Florida’s Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission in December 2021 to advance a Proposed Amendment to reduce the mahi-mahi bag limit from 10 fish per person per day to 5 fish and reduced the not to exceed vessel limit from 60 fish to 30 fish per day.   The Commission is expected to finalize the proposed changes at its March meeting, 2022.

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