By Megan V. Williams
Wilmington, NC – Eight out of the 36 fish species measured by North Carolina's Department of Marine Fisheries declined in this year's stock status report.
Monkfish, gag grouper, spot, and northern black sea bass were all downgraded to 'concerned' status because of declining populations, while weakfish dropped from 'concerned' to 'depleted.'
Several other species had their standing downgraded because new measurement criteria require Marine Fisheries to make more conservative estimates when there isn't enough information about a species population.
sharks, bay scallops, and scup all declined under those new guidelines. According to Trish Murphy with the Department of Marine Fisheries, "some of the benchmarks are unknown, there's some data lacking to be able to make some good management decisions."
The Marine Fisheries stock status report did find three species on the mend: Tautog improved from depleted to concern, spiny dogfish went from overfished to recovering, and bluefish moved from recovering to viable.
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See the full 2007 Stock Status Report here.
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