Question

Summarize in detail the current (≥ 2011) status of U.S. Fisheries. Briefly describe 2 actions that can potentially improve the stocks of U.S. Fisheries. (25 points)

Answer 1

Summarization-

In the end of 2016 it was seen that the list of overfishing included 30 stocks and the overfished list included 38 stocks. It has been seen that the number of stocks that can been rebuilt since 2000 increased to 41. The NOAA Fisheries keep track of 474 stocks or stock complexes in 46 fishery management plans, or FMPs. Every year, assessments of various fish stocks and stock complexes are carried out in order to determine their status. These assessments include stocks of both known status and previously unknown status. On the basis of assessments which has been conducted at the end of 2016, four stocks have been removed from the overfishing list and six were added. There were no changes in the number of stocks on the overfished list. As required by the MSA management framework, the councils are developing management measures to end overfishing and rebuild all stocks added to the overfishing and overfished lists.

ACTIONS THAT CAN POTERNTIALLY IMPROVE THE STOCKS OF U.S FISHERIES

• Use Bayesian methods and other techniques to in order to include realistic uncertainty in stock assessment models;
• developing better assessment models for recreational fisheries and methods to evaluate the impacts of the quality of recreational data on stock assessments;
• development of new means in order to estimate changes in average catchability, selectivity, and mortality over time, rather than assuming that these parameters remain constant