Assessing Florida’s Sailfish Population
Management of sailfish in the Atlantic Ocean falls under the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tuna (ICCAT), which is responsible for tuna and associated species like billfish. The first official stock assessment for Atlantic sailfish was completed by this management body in 2009, and identified two separate stocks: the eastern and western. In Florida, anglers interact with the western Atlantic sailfish stock, which was found to be overfished and likely undergoing overfishing. The most recent assessment, done in 2016, states that both sailfish stocks of the Atlantic Ocean suffered the greatest declines in abundance prior
