August 30, 2023 — The following was released by Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council:
To monitor and evaluate fishery performance, the Council publishes annual reports for each of its five fishery ecosystem-based management plans. The publication highlights some of the changes in the U.S. Pacific Island fisheries from 2020 to 2022. Fishery statistics can be affected by numerous variables, including environmental changes and socioeconomic variables. In recent years, the impacts and subsequent recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic also affected fisheries in multiple ways. Some of these effects are described, in addition to recent stock statuses and management measures. Full reports and data used to generate the reports are available online.