April 15, 2015 — NOAA today submitted its annual report to Congress on the state of all U.S. fishing stocks and did everything but paint a big smiley face on the cover.
There was very little to smile about, however, in New England and its Northeast Multispecies fishery, which continue to lead all U.S. regions in the number of damaged or imperiled stocks.
In its report, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said the number of stocks subject to overfishing or being overfished are at all-time lows since it first began preparing the annual report in 1997.
At the end of 2014, according to the report, 26 (8 percent) of 308 assessed fish stocks are on the overfishing list which denotes stocks with a harvest rate that is too high or, in the words of Alan Risenhoover, director of NOAA Fisheries office of sustainable fisheries, "too many fish are being taken too fast for that stock to maintain itself at productive levels."
That is a net reduction of two stocks from 2013 and represents a 1 percent improvement.
Six stocks came off the overfishing list in 2014, including Gulf of Maine haddock and Western Atlantic Blufefin tuna, while four stocks were added.
Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times