No Protection for Overfished Atlantic Blue Marlin as Protections for Sharks Grow Stronger
The Final Amendment 15 was recently issued by NMFS and fails to provide protections for overfished blue marlin. Instead, the text reflects the government’s lack of understanding of the highly migratory nature of blue marlin, treating them more like residential sailfish. The text even fails to reflect a general understanding of billfishing, insinuating that all […]
TBF’s Official Comments in NMFS Amendment 15
The Billfish Foundation (TBF) made official comments to the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) on Draft Amendment 15 to the Consolidated Highly Migratory Species (HMS) Fishery Management Plan. We are extremely disappointed in the overly complex, technical, and lengthy presentation of the amendment, feeling as though the reader would need a Ph.D. in modeling fish […]
Draft Amendment 15 Looks to Open Closed Zones
After 23 years of defending the Closed Zones off the U.S. East Coast and in the Gulf of Mexico, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) just shared its options in Amendment 15 to open the Zones again to pelagic longline fishing. It was pelagic longline fishing that brought about the Closed Zones for at the time the U.S. vessels were killing the largest quantity of juvenile swordfish among all nations fishing for the Atlantic species. If the swordfish nursery areas are in open zones, stock declines will likely follow, as will anglers’ hook-up rates for billfish, tunas, swordfish
