The National Marine Fisheries Service recently painted a rosy picture of the country’s ocean fisheries, noting that most fish species are not being over harvested. This assessment does not hold true, especially for New England, according to a soon-to-be-published study. The study finds that only three of 67 types of fish labeled by federal regulators as “overfished” in 1996 have seen their population increase to the level deemed acceptable by NMFS.

The study is further evidence that a bill in the U.S. House of Representatives to weaken existing federal fisheries regulations is misguided. Instead, the laws should be strengthened, as the Senate version of the Magnuson-Stevens Fisheries and Conservation and Management Act would do.

According to the fisheries service’s report on the status of U.S. fisheries for 2005, the majority of fish stocks are not overfished. However, the status of over half the species of fish in U.S. waters is not known. Of the 530 stocks monitored by NMFS, 206 have a known status, with 54 of these considered overfished by the agency.

The annual report lists 14 of the 35 stocks overseen by the New England Fisheries Management Council as overfished, with two species – yellowtail flounder and winter flounder – added to that list this year. Three lesser known species – barndoor skate, bluefish and golden tilefish – were removed from the overfished list this year.

New England has done the worst job of meeting federal population rebuilding targets, according to Andy Rosenberg, the lead author of the study that will be published next month in Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment. Mr. Rosenberg was NMFS regional administrator for New England from 1994 to 1998 before becoming deputy director of the agency. He is now a professor at the University of New Hampshire.

His study examined the nine years following the 1996 re-write of the Magnuson-Stevens Act, which governs the nation’s fisheries and requires that the population of depleted fish stocks be rebuilt within a 10-year limit.

Of the 18 New England fish stocks with rebuilding plans, only two – haddock and scallops – are no longer being overharvested, according to the study. This is because regulators have been slow to develop recovery plans and plans that are not working have not been revised. Worse, the New England Fisheries Management Council has allowed fishermen to continue to overfish stocks even when they have greatly exceeded fishing limits in previous years.

That is why strict catch limits, such as those included in the Senate’s re-write of the Magnuson-Stevens Act, are necessary. It is also why a bill, being promoted in the House by Rep. Richard Pombo, chair of the House Resources Committee, moves in the wrong direction by allowing even more time to rebuild depleted stocks and does not set a time requirement for ending overfishing.

Rep. Tom Allen, co-chair of the House Ocean Caucus, seeks to amend the Pombo bill with provisions to enforce catch limits and remove extensions of rebuilding timelines which would make the legislation more in line with the version already passed by the Senate.

This is a sensible approach that would benefit fishermen by working to boost fish populations so there will be more to catch in the future.