September 23, 2014 — While commercial fishermen account for every pound of fish brought to port and sold, angler harvest is monitored by government contractors who call random phone numbers using coastal phonebooks, while also interviewing a small sampling of anglers at local docks.
The Magnuson-Stevens Act, named after Sens. Warren Magnuson and Ted Stevens, is a federal law implemented in 1976 to ensure that fishery resources are managed for the “greatest overall benefit to the nation, particularly with respect to food production and recreational opportunities.”
Reauthorized in 2007, the law was altered to require rigid “annual catch limits” (ACL) coupled with “measures to ensure accountability.” An annual catch limit is not just a quota, but a strict numerical limit; if that limit is surpassed as per the recreational data collection, the sector gets punished. That’s the accountability.
Under present law, rebuilding deadlines for fisheries are key factors in setting ACLs for saltwater anglers, with periodic stock assessments ultimately determining whether rebuilding deadlines will be met. Combined with random sampling estimates, the coast wide recreational fishery is dependent upon government bureaucracy, without governmental accountability measures.
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