July 11, 2024 — Only days after the Supreme Court dealt a blow to the federal government’s program placing human observers on commercial fishing boats, a federal watchdog said NOAA Fisheries should do a better job monitoring the industry.
A report released Wednesday by the Government Accountability Office said NOAA Fisheries — also known as the National Marine Fisheries Service — has failed to execute its program as Congress intended under law.
NOAA has long relied on independent observers to ensure compliance with regulations and collect data to guide fisheries management decisions. In recent years, as critical fish stocks have declined due to overfishing and climate change, regulators have placed greater emphasis in particular on reducing the accidental taking of unwanted species, which is called bycatch.
Such species — including marine mammals, sea turtles, seabirds and juvenile fish — are usually unnetted and released, but they can suffer injuries that lead to death.
GAO found that not all fisheries have sufficient observers and that NOAA Fisheries hasn’t gathered the information on what resources are needed for the programs or told Congress what is needed. In the Gulf of Mexico, only two percent of shrimp trawl fishing trips included an observer.