NOAA Issues Final Guidance on Annual Catch Limits to End Over-fishing

SOUTHAMPTON, NY, January 21, 2009 (The Boating Channel) - NOAA’s Fisheries Service yesterday issued final guidance on annual catch limits designed to help restore federally managed marine fish stocks and end overfishing.

Annual catch limits are amounts of fish allowed to be caught in a year. The 2007 amendments to the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act required fishery management plans to establish mechanisms for specifying annual catch limits at such levels that overfishing does not occur. Additionally, the act calls for measures to ensure accountability with these limits, and that the limits do not exceed the scientific recommendations made by the regional fishery management councils’ scientific committees.

“The Magnuson-Stevens Act requires that we end over-fishing by 2010,” said Jim Balsiger, acting NOAA assistant administrator for NOAA’s Fisheries Service. “The commercial seafood industry and recreational saltwater fishing provide our nation food, jobs and other incredible benefits that we want to continue for future generations when we end over-fishing.“ [More]