Management Blamed For Depletion of Fish

"We are not just sitting here rubber-stamping what the councils have said," said Rebecca Lent, the fisheries service's deputy director.

According to the Pew study, however, the fisheries service overruled just 0.4 percent of the councils' actions between 1980 and 1993. Lent said her agency had become increasingly aggressive in recent years, citing its late April decision to toughen fishing restrictions the New England council had placed on cod.

Lent and other federal officials said they have had several success stories in the past few years, particularly since Congress amended the Magnuson-Stevens Act in 1996. The agency has been working on a rebuilding plan for the North Atlantic swordfish, for example, and six years into the 10-year plan, it has reached 94 percent of its goal. Last year, officials implemented a national plan to reduce bycatch -- inadvertently caught fish -- in each region of the country.

In 1999, environmentalists sued over the state of summer flounder in the mid-Atlantic after government scientists said the initial rebuilding plan had an 18 percent chance of success. The fisheries service modified the strategy in response to a court order, and flounder is now off the agency's overfished list.

Part of the government's problem stems from trying to meet the needs of the fishing industry at the same time it seeks to protect fish stocks. Hogarth noted the domestic fishing fleet generates $60 billion a year.

"This is an extremely valuable industry for this country," he said. "A lot of communities depend on these fisheries."

Federal officials reopened the swordfish fishery in Hawaii this spring after requiring technology that would better protect turtles from being caught, for example, though environmentalists and some biologists warn they may have moved too quickly.

The fisheries service also faces budget constraints, which have impeded data collection on how much fish is available. Last week, the House Appropriations Committee voted to cut its 2005 budget by about 16 percent from President Bush's request, from $623 million to $526 million.

Hogarth said he was "very concerned about" the funding levels. "It's costly to do fishing work."

In Alaska, for example, the fishing industry pays up to $12 million a year to have two federal observers at all times on pollock boats, and vessels shorter than 125 feet carry federal observers 30 percent of the time. At-Sea Processors Association spokesman Jim Gilmore, whose organization represents Alaska pollock fishermen, likes to tell other fishing groups, "If you had a program like this, maybe you'd have a lot of fish."

For the moment, federal fisheries like to point out that in 2003, they took more fish off the "overfished" list than they added. But Hogarth acknowledged it will take several more years before the agency can silence its critics.

"These stocks didn't get overfished overnight," he said. "It will take a while to bring them back."