The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), informally known as NOAA Fisheries, is a United States federal agency within the U.S. Department of Commerce's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) that is responsible for the stewardship of U.S. national marine resources. It conserves and manages fisheries to promote sustainability and prevent lost economic potential associated with overfishing, declining species, and degraded habitats.
History Founded in 1871 as the U.S. Commission of Fish and Fisheries, the National Marine Fisheries Service is the oldest federal conservation and environmental research agency in the United States. The commission was formed when President Ulysses S. Grant named zoologist Spencer Fullerton Baird, United States National Museum director and assistant secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, the first commissioner of the United States Fish Commission. The commission was divided into three research categories: the study of U.S. waters and fish and its biological problems, the study of past and present fishing methods and collection of fish catch and trade statistics, and the introduction and propagation of food fishes throughout the nation. This structure remained through the transition of the commission's placement within the U.S. Commerce Department's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), in 1970.
U.S. Fish Commission placement within NOAA Initially the commission investigated the reasons for an apparent decline in fish stocks along the shores of southern New England and recommended regulatory measures. The commission also conducted broad, scientific surveys and collections of marine species from scientific research vessels, initially in Northeast Atlantic coastal and deep-sea waters and then in the Mid-Atlantic and South Atlantic, the Gulf of Mexico, and off the coasts of Mexico, Texas, Florida, and Cuba. The commission's scientists collected marine invertebrate and fish species, made hydrographic surveys, and studied fish populations. In 1903, the U.S. Fish Commission was reorganized and named the Bureau of Fisheries. In 1939, the Bureau of Fisheries and its functions were transferred to the United States Department of the Interior. The Bureau of Fisheries merged with the Bureau of Biological Survey in 1940 to become the Fish and Wildlife Service, still under the U.S. Department of the Interior. In 1956, the Fish and Wildlife Service underwent a reorganization and became the United States Fish and Wildlife Service. The 1956 reorganization established two components of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service: The Bureau of Commercial Fisheries, which focused primarily on commercial fisheries, whales, seals, and sea lions; and the Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife, which focused on migratory birds, game management, wildlife refuges, sport fisheries, and sea mammals, excluding those managed under the Bureau of Commercial Fisheries. In 1970, President Richard Nixon transferred the Bureau of Commercial Fisheries and almost all its functions from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to the Department of Commerce. Simultaneous with its transfer, the office was renamed the National Marine Fisheries Service. It was placed under the control of NOAA, which was created as a component of the Department of Commerce on October 3, 1970, primarily through a reorganization of the Environmental Science Services Administration, which NOAA replaced.
Fisheries management NOAA Fisheries regulates commercial and recreational marine fishing in the United States under the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (MSA). Established in 1976, the MSA is the primary law governing marine fisheries conservation and management in U.S. federal waters. NOAA Fisheries is responsible for fisheries management of waters in the U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone, typically 3–200 miles from land. NOAA Fisheries manages 461 stocks or stock complexes in 46 fishery management plans, using stock assessments to determine their status. Under the MSA, fisheries management decisions in the United States are made primarily by eight regional fishery management councils. These councils may include representatives from state government agencies, academia, the fishing industry and environmental nonprofits, as well as representatives from NOAA Fisheries. These councils serve as regulatory advisors that make region-specific recommendations to NOAA Fisheries, who implements the regulations. The MSA was reauthorized and revised in 2007 to include annual catch limits to end overfishing. Overfishing, which NOAA Fisheries is tasked with preventing, is a major threat to biodiversity, global food security, and the fishing sector. The MSA also requires that overfished stocks be rebuilt within 10 years, except in cases where the life history characteristics of the stock, environmental conditions or management measures under an international agreement dictate otherwise. Fisheries managers use stock assessments to help determine if a stock is overfished, measuring the maximum sustainable yield. If a stock is designated as overfished, annual catch limits need to be low enough to allow stocks to rebuild. Worldwide, about one-third of fish stocks are being fished at biologically unsustainable levels. NOAA Fisheries has been successful at ending overfishing in U.S. waters, and science-based management has resulted in 47 once-overfished U.S. fish stocks being declared rebuilt. In July 2020, NOAA Fisheries published a report showing that the number of U.S. fish stocks subject to overfishing was at an all-time low in 2019—93 percent were not subject to overfishing.
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