Logbook and catch report data are also collected, and data collection and compilation assistance is provided to fisheries agencies in Hawaii, American Samoa, the Northern Mariana Islands, and Guam. This work contributes to basic fisheries science and supports the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council by providing biological and statistical information needed to manage the fisheries on a sustainable basis. Their work supports U.S. commitments to international management of tuna fisheries and regional management of fisheries for billfish and highly migratory species in the Pacific Ocean. The scientists assess stock condition and abundance, determine effects of fishing on stock condition and the impacts of management decisions on the resources, provide information on distribution and migration of sport-caught billfishes, monitor developments in U.S. Pacific and worldwide tuna fisheries, and develop analytical techniques to improve the precision of our estimates of the status and health of these resources. The work supports international fisheries conventions and agreements, including the South Pacific Tuna Treaty , the Convention on the Conservation and Management of Highly Migratory Fish Stocks in the Western and Central Pacific, and the United Nations Agreement on Straddling Fish Stocks and Highly Migratory Fish Stocks.
Biologists evaluate factors that affect their distribution, abundance, and survival.
The division also studies factors that affect the economics of fisheries for this group of fishes. The work is done primarily in support of the Pacific Fishery Management Council so that these resources and their fisheries can be regulated effectively. The staff also works with Mexico, the California Department of Fish and Game , and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography on cooperative assessments of coastal pelagic stocks such as anchovy and sardine. The CalCOFI program was originally established in 1949 to investigate factors relating to the collapse of the sardine fishery off California, but over the years its research has broadened to include other species as well. The Scripps Institution of Oceanography chiefly processes and analyzes oceanographic observations and studies the taxonomy and zoogeography of planktonic organisms other than fishes, while NMFS scientists are responsible for ichthyoplankton collections, studying species abundance and distribution, systematics, and application of fish early life history information to fish stock assessment.