Have you got what it takes to be an Ocean Survivor?

Fish hooks are just one of the obstacles you will have to avoid to survive as a bluefin tuna in our Ocean Survivor game. After you make your comment to NMFS, play the game and challenge your friends to be the top scoring tuna!

New Booklet: Ocean Conservation and the End of Overfishing

Our new booklet provides background information about the state of U.S. and global fisheries, and the upcoming NMFS rulemakings on overfishing and environmental review. Read the booklet [PDF].

Our Oceans are in Peril

The future of our living oceans is increasingly under attack by industrialized fishing. America's ocean fish are being devastated by unsustainable fishing practices. Unlike polluted air or clearcut forests, the oceans' plight has gone undetected for years because it is distant from our lives on land. Today, bycatch, overfishing, and habitat destruction problems have depleted once bountiful fish populations and jeopardized the oceans' capacity for sustaining life.

Issues Facing Our Oceans

Bycatch
Fishing technology is tragically inefficient. Every year, commercial fishing fleets discard millions of pounds of "non-commercially valuable" marine life known as bycatch. These billions of creatures are the collateral damage of fishing technologies like hooks and nets that empty vast areas of the ocean. Every year, casualties include birds, turtles, seals, dolphins, and whales. Learn more...

Overfishing
Even if we only catch the species we eat, we need to stop killing more fish than can naturally be replaced. Unsustainable fishing has devastated global fish populations. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), in 2002 about 60% of the commercially important stocks in U.S. ocean territory were "overfished," yet fishing is allowed to continue. Learn more...

Habitat Destruction
Fish and other wildlife are losing their habitat. One example of this problem is the devastation created by bottom trawlers which drag nets the size of football fields across the ocean floor to capture bottom dwelling creatures like shrimp, cod, flounder, and rockfishes. A single pass from a bottom trawler can destroy miles of fish habitat. What's left behind is a dead zone, like a forest after being clearcut, except that it takes centuries rather than decades to grow back. Learn more...

Conserve Our Ocean Legacy (COOL) is a broad national effort to build support for increased protections for our ocean fish and ecosystems. COOL is educating citizens across the country about the problems in our oceans and solutions. Sign yourself (and your group) on to our campaign.

[Photos courtesy National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration]