National Marine Fisheries Service

NMFS SE Panama City Laboratory ecologists take a blood sample from a juvenile bonnethead shark during a Gulf of Mexico Shark Pupping and Nursery Survey off the shores of Tyndall Air Force Base.

Measuring a juvenile bonnethead shark

The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) is a United States federal agency, responsible for the stewardship of national marine resources. The agency conserves and manages fisheries to promote sustainability and prevent lost economic potential associated with overfishing, declining species and degraded habitats.

Background

The National Marine Fisheries Service is a United States federal agency, informally known as NOAA Fisheries.^[1] A division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) which is in the cabinet-level Department of Commerce, NMFS is responsible for the stewardship and management of the nation's living marine resources and their habitat within the United States' Exclusive Economic Zone, which extends seaward 200 nautical miles from the coastline (about 370 kilometers). NOAA oversees the NMFS.

Using the tools provided by the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, the NMFS assesses and predicts the status of fish stocks, ensures compliance with fisheries regulations and works to end wasteful fishing practices. Under the Marine Mammal Protection Act and the Endangered Species Act, the agency is also tasked with recovering protected marine species such as wild salmon, whales and sea turtles.

With the help of the six regional science centers, eight regional fisheries management councils,^[2] the coastal states and territories, and three interstate fisheries management commissions,^[3] NMFS conserves and manages marine fisheries to promote sustainability and to prevent lost economic potential associated with overfishing, declining species, and degraded habitats. While the coastal states and territories generally have authority to manage fisheries within near-shore state waters, the NMFS has the primary responsibility to conserve and manage marine fisheries in the U.S. exclusive economic zone beyond state waters. The agency also attempts to balance competing public needs for the natural resources under its management.

Law enforcement

The NMFS also serves as a federal law enforcement agency, working closely with state enforcement agencies, the United States Coast Guard, and foreign enforcement authorities. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries Office for Law Enforcement is based in Silver Spring, Maryland.

Regulations

The NMFS regulatory program is one of the most active in the federal government, with hundreds of regulations published annually in the Federal Register. Most regulations are published to conserve marine fisheries under the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act; other regulations are published under the Marine Mammal Protection Act and Endangered Species Act. The NMFS also regulates fisheries pursuant to decisions of "regional fishery management organizations"^[4](RFMOs) and other RFMOs to which the U.S. is a party, such as the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission,^[5] the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas, the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission,^[6] the Agreement on the International Dolphin Conservation Program,^[7] the International Pacific Halibut Commission, etc.

In 2007, the NMFS issued regulations to protect endangered whales from fatal fishing-gear entanglements after environmental groups sued to force action on the rules, which were proposed in early 2005. The rules were enacted to specifically protect the North Atlantic right whale, of which about only 350 remain. Marine gear entanglements and ship strikes are the top human causes of right whale deaths. On July 1, the shipping lanes in and out of Boston Harbor were rotated to avoid an area with a high concentration of the right whales.^[8] In the Fiscal Year of 2017, the Marine Mammal and Sea Turtle Program of NOAA's National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), Greater Atlantic Regional Fisheries Office (GARFO), Protected Resources Division (PRD), carried out the mandates of the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA) and the Endangered Species Act (ESA), and was charged with protecting the whales, dolphins, porpoises, seals and sea turtles that occur within the Greater Atlantic Region (GAR). This program currently includes marine mammal health and stranding response, large whale disentanglement, and sea turtle stranding and disentanglement. To implement this program NMFS established several networks of volunteer organizations that it authorizes to respond to stranded marine mammals and sea turtles and entangled large whales and sea turtles. NMFS seeks the submission of proposals addressing Marine Animal Entanglement Response in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. ^[9]

Regional fisheries management councils

There are eight domestic regional fisheries management councils that make binding regulations for federal waters off various parts of the U.S. coast:^[10]

• North Pacific Fishery Management Council ^[11] (Alaska)
• Pacific Fishery Management Council^[12] (West Coast)
• Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council ^[13] (Hawaii and Pacific territories)
• Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council^[14]
• Caribbean Fishery Management Council^[15] (Puerto Rico and U.S. Virgin Islands)
• South Atlantic Fishery Management Council^[16]
• Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council^[17] (Upper North Carolina to New York)
• New England Fishery Management Council^[18]

Fisheries science centers

The National Marine Fisheries Service operates six fisheries science centers covering marine fisheries conducted by the United States. The science centers correspond roughly to the administrative division of fisheries management into five regions, with the west coast utilizing two fisheries science centers.^[19]

The Northeast Fisheries Science Center is headquartered in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. It operates laboratories at five other locations, and an additional marine field station.^[20] The primary mission of the Northeast Fisheries Science Center is the management of fisheries on the Northeast shelf.^[21] However, it also oversees the operation of the National Systematics Lab, in conjunction with the Smithsonian Institution.^[22] The Northeast Fisheries Science Center also operates the Woods Hole Science Aquarium in conjunction with the Marine Biological Laboratory.

The National Marine Fisheries Service maintains the Northwest and Alaska Fisheries Science Centers are both located in Seattle. The Alaska fisheries Science Center is located on the grounds of the now-closed Naval Station Puget Sound. The Northwest Fisheries Science Center is located adjacent to the University of Washington. This site is also home to the Northwest and Alaska Fisheries Science Center Library. This library was founded in 1931. As of 2011, this library contained 16,000 books and subscribed to 250 periodicals. Its subject interests include aquatic science, biochemistry, fisheries biology, fisheries management, food science, and marine science.^[23]

The Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center is headquartered in Honolulu, Hawaii, on the campus of the University of Hawaii at Monoa.^[24] It operates several facilities, including facilities for NOAA ships at Ford Island.

The Southeast Fisheries Science Center is headquartered in Miami, Florida, and monitors marine fisheries in the American Southeast, including Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands. It additionally operates five labs, some of which operate multiple facilities.^[25]

The Southwest Fisheries Science Center, headquartered in La Jolla, California, monitors and advises fisheries in NOAA's Southwest region. It operates facilities on the campus of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.^[26]

History

The National Marine Fisheries Service traces its ancestry to the United States Government′s oldest conservation agency, the United States Commission of Fish and Fisheries, which was established in 1871 because of a growing awareness in the United States of the depletion of fish stocks in the Atlantic Ocean off the United States East Coast. Commonly referred to as the United States Fish Commission, the agency studied and managed live ocean resources. In 1903, when the United States Department of Commerce and Labor was created, the commission came under the authority of the new department and was reorganized as the United States Bureau of Fisheries. In 1913, when the Department of Commerce and Labor was split into the United States Department of Commerce and United States Department of Labor, the Bureau of Fisheries came under the control of the Department of Commerce. In 1939, the bureau moved to the United States Department of the Interior.^[27]

In 1940, the Bureau of Fisheries merged with the Bureau of Biological Survey to create the new United States Fish and Wildlife Service, still under the Department of the Interior. In 1956, the Fish and Wildlife Service underwent a reorganization that established under its authority the Bureau of Commercial Fisheries, which focused on the commercial exploitation of fisheries, and the Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife, which focused on recreational fishing.^[27]

In 1970, President Richard Nixon transferred the Bureau of Commercial Fisheries and almost all its functions from the Fish and Wildlife Service to the Department of Commerce, and simultaneous with its transfer the office was renamed the National Marine Fisheries Service. It was placed under the control of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which was created as a component of the Department of Commerce on 3 October 1970 primarily through a reorganization of the Environmental Science Services Administration, which NOAA replaced.^[27]

The NMFS received the authority to conserve ocean wildlife through the passage of the Marine Mammal Protection Act in 1972 and the Endangered Species Act in 1973.^[27] In 1976, the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, commonly referred to as the Magnuson–Stevens Act, gave the NMFS the authority to manage marine fish stocks, creating eight regional fisheries management councils to oversee fisheries,^[27] and the Sustainable Fisheries Act of 1996 amended the 1976 legislation by making changes to authorize new ways of replenishing depleted fish stocks.^[27] In 2007, President George W. Bush signed into law the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Reauthorization Act of 2006, which updated the Magnuson–Stevens Act with deadlines to end overfishing, increased use of market-based management tools, the creation of a national saltwater angler registry, and an emphasis on ecosystem approaches to management.^[27]

Controversies

In recent years, the agency has come under intense scrutiny from the fishing industry, both commercial and recreational, and Congress, leading to a multi-part investigation by the Commerce Department Inspector General which found serious problems and misuse of funds.

During her confirmation hearing, Dr. Jane Lubchenco, NOAA Administrator in the Obama Administration, expressed a commitment to fix a relationship between the fishing industry and NMFS. Lubchenco herself called the relationship between NMFS and those whom it regulates "seriously dysfunctional."

Dale Jones, former director of federal fishing law enforcement, and his deputy director Mark Spurrier were removed from their positions in April 2010 of after a series of audits by U.S. Department of Commerce Inspector General Todd Zinser. Mr. Zinser and his investigators found that Jones had presided over wildly excessive and disproportionate treatment of New England fishermen, misuse of government funds, and a document shredding party while Zinser was investigating his department. Andrew Cohen, Special Agent in Charge NER, was relieved of his position in September 2010 due to findings of overzealous law enforcement practices.

During 2010, the U.S. Department of Commerce Office of Inspector General issued four Reports or Reviews of NOAA Fisheries Enforcement Programs and Operations. Here are the links to the four reports January 2010 OIG Report, April 2010 OIG Report on Destruction of Documents at NOAA Fisheries During an Ongoing OIG Review, July 2010 OIG Report on Asset Forfeiture Fund, September 2010 Final OIG Report. The cluster of OIG Reports found such a troubling situation within NOAA that on September 23, 2010 Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke reached down into NOAA and took command himself for resolving the issues raised by Inspector General Zinser Secretary Locke to Appoint Special Master to Review NOAA Law Enforcement Cases, Restricts Use of the Asset Forfeiture Fund.

In 2016, the NMFS caused the death of the L95 orca of the critically endangered Southern Resident orca population. The Southern Resident orca population travels along the coast of both the United States and Canada, and Canada does not use barbed satellite tags to track orcas because the method is invasive, but the NMFS made the unilateral decision to tag Southern Resident orcas.^[28] The L95 orca died five weeks after being shot with a barbed satellite tag and the Canadian necropsy concluded the barb caused a lethal fungal infection.^[29] Prior to L95's tagging, Center for Whale Research Senior Scientist Ken Balcomb documented tag detachment issues and was assured by the NMFS that these issues were "fixed," but the tag on L95 broke off and pieces of the barb remained in L95 until death.^[30] Although Ken Balcomb documented infections where barbs had failed to detach on orcas and presented his findings to the NMFS,^[31] the NMFS site read years later in October 2016, "Our experience with previous occurrences of tag attachment failure has shown no impact to the whale’s general health."^[32] Though ocean water could enter the wound and orca skin is not sterile, the NMFS stated the fungal infection may have occurred because the barbed tag was dropped in the ocean and was sterilized with only alcohol, rather than both alcohol and bleach, prior to being aimed again at the orca.^[33] Two other orca of the Southern Resident orca population disappeared within weeks of being tagged by the NMFS and are presumed dead, although the cause of death is uncertain as the bodies were not recovered.^[34] Wildlife biologist Brad Hanson supervised the NMFS's orca tagging program. He was not removed from his position following the scandal.^[35]

See also

• List of United States federal law enforcement agencies
• National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries Office for Law Enforcement

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to National Marine Fisheries Service.

• Official website
• Northwest and Alaska Fisheries Science Centers Library