WASHINGTON (July 3, 2024) – As of late, Reps. Jared Huffman (D-CA), Ed Case (D-HI), Mary Peltola (D-AK), and James Moylan (R-Guam) presented the Maintaining The usa’s Fisheries for the Long run Act of 2024, a invoice that reauthorizes the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Control Act (MSA), our country’s number one federal fisheries regulation.
“This invoice introduces more potent protections for seabirds, which depend on wholesome forage fish populations to continue to exist,” stated Bethany Carl Kraft, senior director of coastal and marine resilience on the Nationwide Audubon Society.
“Via factoring within the significance of forage fish to the sea ecosystem, accounting for the affects of local weather exchange, and boosting crucial fish habitat protections, this invoice will make stronger the MSA for long run generations.”
Seabirds are in disaster. Threatened via oil spills, overfishing, habitat loss, and getting by chance addicted to fishing tools, seabird populations all over the world have declined via 70 % since 1950.
Seabirds depend on small, training fish referred to as forage fish to devour and to feed their chicks. Forage fish don’t seem to be but integrated in federal fisheries control, leaving them susceptible to overfishing.
Massive fish, whales, and dolphins additionally feed on forage fish, making them crucial for the industrial and leisure fishing industries in addition to ecotourism.
The Maintaining The usa’s Fisheries for the Long run Act provides new provisions to the MSA, like accounting for the desires of seabirds and different predators when deciding what number of forage fish will also be stuck.
The invoice additionally components local weather transform the fisheries control procedure, prevents seabirds and different natural world from changing into hooked or entangled via fishing tools, and gives higher protections for coastal habitats like seagrass beds that function nurseries and feeding grounds for each birds and fish.
This article via Rachel Guillory used to be first revealed via Audubon on 3 July 2024. Lead Symbol: Chic Terns. Foto: Sandrine Biziaux-Scherson/Audubon Images Awards.
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