Contact: Scott Smullen or Gordon Helm        FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
                                             1/12/98

As we enter the 1998 International Year of the Ocean, the National Marine Fisheries Service is making strong commitments to curtail and eliminate overfishing and bycatch in U.S. waters, officials with the Commerce Department's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration emphasized today. Overfishing and bycatch are major culprits in the depletion of living resources in the world's oceans.

"It is now against the law to overfish a fish species," said Terry Garcia, assistant secretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere and NOAA deputy director. "Congress gave us that tool last year by passing amendments to the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act."

Even before Congress's action, the fisheries service partnered several success stories, including reversing overfishing in some fisheries. Atlantic striped bass, once on the brink of extinction, now are at an all-time high. For the first time in 30 years, there are some signs of recovery of groundfish on Georges Bank. Spanish mackerel in the Gulf of Mexico are no longer overfished, because of effective management (quota and fishing gear restrictions) that has turned this into a sustainable fishery. The Alaska groundfish fishery, the largest by volume in the nation, remains robust and well managed.

"Under the recently amended Magnuson-Stevens Act, all U.S. fish species must be assessed and recovery plans developed within a year for those species identified as overfished," said Rolland Schmitten, director of the fisheries service. "Working with the regional fishery management councils, we plan to meet that short time frame."

The fisheries service is the federal agency that conducts research and gathers data about the ocean's marine resources to build sustainable fisheries through effective management. Congress is now updated each year by the fisheries service on the status of fish stocks. Once a fish species has been determined to be overfished, a management plan to rebuild that species must be developed, or modified, to rebuild that species as soon as possible, but no longer than within 10 years with certain limited exceptions. The fisheries service is finalizing national standard guidelines that will be used by regional fishery management councils to strengthen fishery management plans to prevent overfishing and rebuild overfished stocks.

"Everyone also recognizes that bycatch is a major concern," Garcia said. "We're well along the road to completing a national bycatch plan." The plan is expected to be completed within 60 days.

The proposed National Bycatch Plan has several objectives, with the ultimate goal of significantly reducing bycatch. Until recently, the ocean has been considered a limitless resource, and bycatch a traditional part of marine fishing. Extensive bycatch data does not exist, but among the fisheries service's first objectives is to determine the magnitude of bycatch and bycatch mortality.

The National Bycatch Plan will assist the regional fishery management councils in carrying out new provisions of the Magnuson-Stevens Act, including a national standard requiring that bycatch be minimized, and, to the extent it cannot be avoided, that mortality of such bycatch be minimized. Councils must also amend their fishery management plans by next October to establish standardized reporting methods on bycatch, and to meet the new national standard with measures that minimize it.

NOAA, a primary sponsor of the United Nation's International Year of the Ocean, is the federal agency charged with scientific research and data collection about the global oceans, atmosphere, space, and sun. NOAA applies that knowledge to science and service that touch the lives of all Americans.