overfishing has ended according to "Top" scientist

[zimmy]

Originally Posted by MakoMike

The commercial interest have zero influence over the standards for overfishing, the standards are set by the Science and Statistics committee (SSC), which is composed entirely of NOAA scientists. As far as populations estimates go, all I will say is that they are also done by the scientists and every time one has been reviewed it turns out that they have grossly underestimated the population. Look at pollack and monkfish for an examples.

National Standard 1 strives for maximum sustainable yield. Much of the data comes from catch and effort data provided by commercial fisheries. To say commercial interests do not influence the standards is untrue. The recent revisions in the MSA will certainly help, as not allowing overfishing to continue at any standard is critical. That said, I think there is plenty of evidence that a higher standard for overfishing would be beneficial for ocean health.

[Mr. Sandman]

"National Standard 1 strives for maximum sustainable yield"

This has always annoyed me. I hate that term. We should be MUCH more conservative than that. This implies we should squeeze every last drop that we can from the resource, but since we really don't know the depth of the resource how do we know when too much is too much?...Not until it is too late! I would like to see a more sensible and conservative approach, one that insures that the heath of the fishery, not exploits it for maximum yield (ie profit).