According to NOAA’s Fisheries Service it has listed three populations of rockfish in Puget Sound and the Strait of Georgia for protection under the Endangered Species Act. A final decision on the three will be made a year from now. It is said that the Georgia Basin populations of two of the rockfish species – canary and yelloweye – are proposed for “threatened” status. A third rockfish species – bocaccio – is proposed as “endangered.”
NOAA also informed that populations of all three rockfish species in the Georgia Basin, which encompasses Puget Sound and the Strait of Georgia, have been harvested at high levels, depleting their numbers. Rockfish, which are bottom dwellers, typically live long lives, and mature and reproduce slowly, making them especially vulnerable to overfishing.
NOAA scientists told that rockfish population growth has also been hampered by other fisheries unintentionally catching the stock and by environmental factors, such as loss of eelgrass beds, pollution and abandoned fishing gear that continues to catch fish. If these rockfish are listed for Endangered Species Act protection next year, the agency’s initial focus would be on fishing practices in Puget Sound.
It is said that NOAA will take public comment through June 22 on the proposal and gather further scientific information on the species, the reasons for their decline, and possible efforts to restore their numbers before making its final decision within one year.
