The rebuilding of American fisheries continued its slow progress through 2011, with summer flounder declared a recovered stock and the Mid-Atlantic region showing better progress than other places around the coasts, the National Marine Fisheries Service stated in its annual report issued Monday.
“More stocks were declared rebuilt in 2011 than any other single year tracked,” according to the 2011 Status of U.S. Fisheries Report. Altogether some 177 stocks out of 219 that have been scientifically assessed are doing well and not in danger of being overfished, NMFS said. That’s 79 percent of the stocks compared to 77 percent in 2010.
Those half-dozen new recoveries include summer flounder and Gulf of Maine haddock, a species that is sustaining New England fishermen through their long travail of reduced catches and new government regulations. Despite good news coming out of the Mid-Atlantic, New Jersey fishermen still feel the effects of New England-driven restrictions on some species such as winter flounder.
“In New England, we have the oldest and longest-standing fisheries in the country, and fisheries that were heavily impacted by foreign fishing before passage of the Magnuson Act” in 1976, Galen Tromble, chief of NMFS’ domestic fisheries division, said during a news conference after the report was released.
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