America's fisheries continued to recover and grow stronger in 2009, with swordfish — once the subject of a "do not eat" campaign mounted by environmentalists fearing its pending extinction — leading a group of four stocks taken off the overfished/overfishing watch list of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Along with Atlantic swordfish, Atlantic scup, Gulf of Maine thorny skate and Gulf of Mexico pink shrimp were also removed from the overfished/overfishing list. NOAA defines "overfishing" to mean a harvest rate higher than what would produce a maximum stainable yield, and "overfished" to mean a stock whose biomass level is below a biological threshold established under a management plan.
Overall, the Stock Sustainability Index, which measures the performance of 230 key stocks, went up for the ninth straight year. The increase in 2009 was 3.1 percent; for the nine-year era of improvement, the index is now up 60 percent.
NOAA's Office of Sustainable Fisheries described the index as representing "significant progress."
The report, released Monday, held that 85 percent of the stocks examined were free from overfishing and 70 percent were not overfished.