December 14, 2015 — WASHINGTON – The federal agency in charge of the nation’s fisheries should do a better job counting fish so it can develop proper catch limits for recreational anglers, a report by Congress’ investigative arm concludes.

The analysis by the Government Accountability Office was requested nearly three years ago by several Republican senators from the Gulf Coast who believe the Obama administration may have been overly restrictive in imposing catch limits on several popular fish, including red snapper.

The GAO report says the National Marine Fisheries Service has taken “many steps” in recent years to improve data collection but needs to adopt a master plan for counting fish in a more accurate, timely and transparent manner.

For example, the agency doesn’t have a complete registry of recreational anglers, often misses some groups of fishermen while conducting surveys, lacks catch-and-discard data in areas where access to the coastal communities is limited, and needs more “shoreside observers” to improve data collection.

“Without a comprehensive strategy, NMFS may have difficulty ensuring that the variety of steps it is taking to improve data collection are prioritized so that the most important steps are undertaken first,” the report says. “Further, without communicating the strategy and NMFS’ progress in implementing it, NMFS may have difficulty building trust among its stakeholders, and these stakeholders may have difficulty tracking the agency’s efforts.”

Read the full story from USA Today at Pensacola News Journal