The policy is to result in more consistent application and administration of the ESA between and within agencies and to reduce conflict between listed species recovery and traditional management of recreational fishery resources. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries Service are to aggressively promote compatibility and reduce conflict between administration of the Endangered Species Act and recreational fisheries. These findings came after negotiations between the NDOW and the Service to minimize impacts of this stocking program by adhering to stocking protocols designed to protect the listed species. Agency staff of the National Recreational Fisheries Coordination Council began work on the 5-year National Recreational Fisheries Conservation Plan even before Departmental representatives were appointed to the Council. Agencies will be required to develop their own action plans for contributing the overall goal.
Outputs are agency-specific and quantifiable.
Additional data collection requirements for agencies are not practical, given current federal budget constraints, therefore existing and regularly compiled data are to be used for measuring success. The purposes of the meeting were to reach consensus on desirable and measurable outcomes, and to develop strategies to accomplish these outcomes. Discussants agreed that no single agency would be able to accomplish all of the implementation strategies, and that outputs must complement other agency efforts to achieve the overall goal. Staff for both councils closely coordinated their efforts from the outset of this exercise by providing comments on this plan through various stages of development. Both Councils convened in March to provide final direction to staff for completing the document.