September 2, 2025 — “It’s harder to catch fish nowadays,” Leilani Sablan Naden, a biologist with the University of Guam Sea Grant, said during the 10th Assembly of Planners on Aug. 20 at Hyatt Regency Guam.
There have been recommendations to limit the catch by size or a ban on commercializing nighttime spearfishing.
Naden and fisheries supervisor Michael Dueñas from the Department of Agriculture’s Division of Aquatic and Wildlife Resources, DAWR, shared progress on Guam’s fisheries management plan during the assembly.
Guam is the least managed island in Micronesia, and the abundance and size of Guam’s fish stocks have gradually decreased for the past 20-plus years due to climate change, soil erosion and sedimentation, land-based pollutants, and overfishing, according to DAWR.