FAQs

2.   How are members of the Council chosen?

3.   What are the considerations involved in a fishery management plan?

The Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act provides a guideline of National Standards to which the plans must conform. These National Standards for fishery conservation and management provide that all plans must:

  1. Prevent overfishing while achieving optimum yield.

  2. Be based on the best available scientific data.

  3. Manage individual stocks as a unit.

  4. Not discriminate between residents of different states.

  5. Promote efficiency in resource utilization.

  6. Take into account and allow for variations among fisheries.

  7. Minimize cost and avoid duplication.

  8. Provide for rebuilding overfished stocks, taking into account the impact on fishing communities.

  9. Minimize bycatch and the mortality of such bycatch.

  10. Promote the safety of human life at sea, to the extent practicable.

  4.    Who advises the Council on developing fishery management plans?

  5.    What does a Fishery Management Plan do?

  6.    Where may one review a proposed Fishery Management Plan for the Gulf of 

         Mexico?

  7.    May a fisherman on a vessel with a commercial Reef Fish permit retain the

         recreational bag limit of a reef fish species when the commercial season or

         quota is closed?

  8.    May a recreational fisherman possess more than the daily bag limit if away

         from the dock for more than one day?

  9.    May a commercial fisherman retain a bag limit of reef fish as well as the

         allowed commercial quantity (applies when there is a commercial trip limit

         such as for red snapper or grouper)?

10.    May a recreational fisherman possess both a federal and state bag limit of

         reef fish?

11.    How does the Fishery Management Plan (FMP) process work?

12.    What is the intercouncil boundary between the South Atlantic and the

          Gulf of Mexico?