Responsible Fishing
Overview
Oceana’s advocacy for responsible fishing includes supporting policies that advance science-based catch limits to eliminate overfishing, reduce and avoid bycatch of non-target fish and marine wildlife, and protect habitat from destructive fishing practices.
Why Overfishing is Bad
According to the UN’s State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture (2026), 38% of the world’s ocean fisheries are overfished and the number of overfished fish populations has been steadily increasing. Overfishing reduces the availability of food, reduces biodiversity, and leads to ecosystem imbalance and vulnerability. Overfishing also affects the lives of people and coastal communities that rely on healthy oceans and fisheries for economic benefits, food security, and as part of their way of life.
Solutions to Overfishing
Campaign Victories
With over 350 victories globally, Oceana’s campaigns are delivering results. Explore the latest here.
Ending overfishing means ensuring that we are not taking out more fish from the ocean than any population can naturally recover. This requires a combination of legislation, regulations, and adaptating to new ways of fishing, including:
- Establishing science-based catch limits and accountability measures that prevent overfishing.
- Improving management of fisheries in international waters beyond 200 miles from shore.
- Ending harmful government subsidies of vessel construction and fuel, which encourage industrial-scale fishing.
- Implementing regulations that require all catch, both targeted and bycatch, to count against catch limits.
- Establishing marine protected areas that restrict or prohibit fishing and other extractive activities to protect marine ecosystems and help rebuild fish populations.
- Encouraging the use of selective fishing gears and new, innovative fishing practices that reduce and avoid bycatch.
What is Bycatch?
Bycatch — the incidental capture of non-targeted fish and ocean wildlife — is a major contributor to overfishing and the global decline of biodiversity and fish populations. This bycatch may be brought to port or discarded at sea depending on the rules of the fishery.
Fish, whales, dolphins, and other marine animals caught as bycatch are typically discarded (often dead or dying) because regulations prohibit them from being kept, they’re of poor quality, or the fish have little to no market value. In the U.S., some fisheries have historically discarded substantial amounts of their catch as bycatch, but advances in monitoring, gear innovation, and science-based management are helping reduce bycatch and improve fishing practices. Yet, while progress is being made, bycatch remains a serious challenge in many fisheries around the country.
How to Reduce Bycatch in Fisheries
Ways to reduce bycatch include accurately monitoring and accounting for all bycatch in total catch limits, providing fishermen with up-to-date information on bycatch hotspots, establishing science-based bycatch caps that trigger closing fisheries when caps are met, modifying fishing gear and practices, and adapting fishing activity when bycatch occurs.
Modifying fishing gear to minimize bycatch is an effective way to reduce fisheries impacts on marine wildlife and non-target fish. For example, a turtle excluder devices (TED) is a grid of bars in a fishing net that allows shrimp and fish to enter while preventing larger species from entering. They also act as an escape hatch for turtles. Since their introduction, TEDs have greatly reduced sea turtle bycatch in shrimp trawl fisheries while allowing fishermen to continue catching shrimp.
Changing Fishing Practices and Gear
Oceana works with policymakers, scientists, stakeholders, fishermen, and gear manufacturers to identify solutions like changes to fishing practices or adopting innovative gear that reduce bycatch, protect marine wildlife and habitats, and support sustainable, thriving fisheries, and coastal communities.
On-Demand Fishing Gear
Many fisheries that target crab, lobster, black sea bass, and other species use traps placed on the seafloor that are connected to a buoy on the surface by a vertical line or rope, allowing fishermen to locate and retrieve their gear. Unfortunately, those lines can entangle whales, sea turtles, and other wildlife. In some fisheries, management agencies close the fishery at times when whales or other protected species are present. In some of those same fisheries, innovative on-demand fishing gear could allow fishing to continue while reducing the risk to ocean wildlife. This on-demand fishing gear stores the line and buoy with the trap on the ocean floor until a fisherman sends a signal to the trap, releasing the line and buoy or float. Oceana works with fishermen, gear manufacturers, and managers to advance the development and implementation of on-demand gear to protect marine wildlife and support sustainable fisheries.
Oceana has a long history of advancing new and innovative ways of fishing such as on-demand gear that, when combined with regulations, can significantly reduce risks to wildlife and support vital fisheries. In California, Oceana successfully campaigned to phase out the use of large-mesh drift gillnets and to shift to deep set buoy gear, a more selective fishing method that dramatically reduces bycatch. Oceana also advances science-based management measures — including time and area closures — to reduce bycatch as well as habitat impacts from other fishing practices such as bottom trawling.
The Importance of Laws and Regulations
Before the mid-1970s, U.S. fisheries were largely unregulated beyond coastal waters, and foreign vessels competed with American fishermen in an intense race to catch valuable fish. The result was widespread overfishing and the depletion of many fish populations.
The Magnuson Stevens Act
In 1976, Congress passed the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, or MSA, establishing a 200-mile U.S. fishery conservation zone and creating a framework for managing federal fisheries. The MSA is the primary law that guides federal management of the nation’s fisheries in U.S. waters. This law and subsequent updates to it have played a pivotal role in establishing science-based fisheries management, creating meaningful catch limits and accountability measures like fishery limits or closures to stop fishing when quotas are reached and in response to fishing overages. The end result has been the rebuilding of more than 50 fish populations, and the MSA has gone a long way towards reducing overfishing throughout the U.S.
Cuts to NOAA Threaten Responsible Fisheries Management
Recent, excessive cuts to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) by the Trump administration and some in Congress have led to the loss of hundreds of biologists, data professionals, and other experts essential to sustainable fisheries management. The Trump administration’s fiscal year 2027 budget proposal would eliminate more than $1.1 billion from the NOAA budget — a 17% reduction overall.
A detailed description of that proposal includes cutting $77 million for fisheries management and science, which would be on top of 2026 reductions and the loss of more than 400 staff members last year that have already undermined NOAA Fisheries.
Unless NOAA is fully funded, U.S. fisheries remain under threat along with the animals, ecosystems, and communities that depend on them.
Reports and Fact Sheets
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: How can I support sustainable fishing?
A: Eating sustainably sourced fish — and avoiding species caught using harmful fishing practices — is a great way to support responsible fishing. We recommend checking out the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s sustainable seafood guides for advice on how to choose sustainable sushi, how to shop for responsibly caught and farmed fish, and more.
Q: What are the challenges to sustainable fishing?
A: Recent staff and funding cuts at NOAA undermine the ability of scientists and data professionals to implement measures required by the Magnuson–Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (MSA), such as assessing fisheries populations, issuing annual catch limits, monitoring take, and developing fishing gear that is less destructive to habitat and wildlife.
Q: How does overfishing affect climate change?
A: Our oceans are massive carbon sinks, meaning they trap carbon that would otherwise contribute to global warming. When we deplete or destroy a fishery or ocean habitat, there’s a ripple effect that compromises the entire ocean ecosystem, making it less effective in regulating our climate.
Q: What is the Magnuson–Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (MSA)?
A: The MSA was passed in 1976 to support a sustainable fishing industry and other ocean-based economies in the U.S. while maintaining healthy fish populations, habitats, and ocean ecosystems. The MSA charges regional councils by setting and enforcing catch limits and rebuilding struggling fisheries. Since the act’s passage, dozens of collapsed U.S. fish populations have rebounded.
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