NOAA Celebrates National Seafood Month

October is National Seafood Month, and Chris Oliver, recently appointed assistant administrator for NOAA Fisheries, is urging everyone to get out there and enjoy some seafood.

“Health experts, say people should double their intake of seafood and the good news is there is plenty to choose from,” said Olive.

The former executive director of the North Pacific Fishery Management Council, who spent 27 years in Alaska helping to manage some of the nation’s largest and most valuable fisheries, credits much of the success in the United States being a global leader in sustainability to the regional fishery management councils, interstate fishery commissions and stakeholders who work together to rebuild fisheries.

“This unique collaboration − driven by the Magnuson-Stevens Act − managed to effectively end overfishing and is steadily rebuilding domestic fish stocks,” Oliver said in a letter posted October 1 on NOAA’s website (www.nmfs.noaa.gov). “At the end of 2016, 91 percent of stocks for which we have assessments were not subject to overfishing and 84 percent were not overfished.”

NOAA Fisheries tracks 474 fish stocks managed under 46 fishery management plans. Since 2000, 43 stocks have rebuilt as a result of fishery management, and overfishing and overfished numbers remained near all-time lows in 2016.