June 5, 2025 — Since 1987, NOAA’s Southeast Fisheries Science Center has operated fishery observer programs in the U.S. Gulf to monitor the impacts of fishing activity on finfish stocks and protected species.
What began as an economic evaluation of turtle excluder devices (TED) has evolved into a critical effort to collect biological data and refine gear technology in both shrimp and reef fish fisheries in the Gulf of America (President Donald Trump’s new name for the Gulf of Mexico).