Private company

National Marine Fisheries Service

Office of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), informally known as NOAA Fisheries, is a United States federal agency within the U.S. Department of Commerce's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) that is responsible for the stewardship of U.S. national marine resources. It conserves and manages fisheries to promote sustainability and prevent lost economic potential associated with overfishing, declining species, and degraded habitats.² From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0

Last updated Oct 18, 2026.

Overview

1970Founded¹

HeadquartersSilver Spring¹
Websitewww.fisheries.noaa.gov

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The story

Founded in 1871 as the U.S. Commission of Fish and Fisheries, the National Marine Fisheries Service is the oldest federal conservation and environmental research agency in the United States. The commission was formed when President Ulysses S. Grant named zoologist Spencer Fullerton Baird, United States National Museum director and assistant secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, the first commissioner of the United States Fish Commission.

The commission was divided into three research categories: the study of U.S. waters and fish and its biological problems, the study of past and present fishing methods and collection of fish catch and trade statistics, and the introduction and propagation of food fishes throughout the nation. This structure remained through the transition of the commission's placement within the U.S. Commerce Department's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), in 1970.

U.S. Fish Commission placement within NOAA

Initially the commission investigated the reasons for an apparent decline in fish stocks along the shores of southern New England and recommended regulatory measures. The commission also conducted broad, scientific surveys and collections of marine species from scientific research vessels, initially in Northeast Atlantic coastal and deep-sea waters and then in the Mid-Atlantic and South Atlantic, the Gulf of Mexico, and off the coasts of Mexico, Texas, Florida, and Cuba. The commission's scientists collected marine invertebrate and fish species, made hydrographic surveys, and studied fish populations.

In 1903, the U.S. Fish Commission was reorganized and named the Bureau of Fisheries. In 1939, the Bureau of Fisheries and its functions were transferred to the United States Department of the Interior. The Bureau of Fisheries merged with the Bureau of Biological Survey in 1940 to become the Fish and Wildlife Service, still under the U.S. Department of the Interior. In 1956, the Fish and Wildlife Service underwent a reorganization and became the United States Fish and Wildlife Service. The 1956 reorganization established two components of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service: The Bureau of Commercial Fisheries, which focused primarily on commercial fisheries, whales, seals, and sea lions; and the Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife, which focused on migratory birds, game management, wildlife refuges, sport fisheries, and sea mammals, excluding those managed under the Bureau of Commercial Fisheries.

In 1970, President Richard Nixon transferred the Bureau of Commercial Fisheries and almost all its functions from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to the Department of Commerce. Simultaneous with its transfer, the office was renamed the National Marine Fisheries Service. It was placed under the control of NOAA, which was created as a component of the Department of Commerce on October 3, 1970, primarily through a reorganization of the Environmental Science Services Administration, which NOAA replaced.

From Wikipedia’s article on National Marine Fisheries Service, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.³

Leadership

Who has led National Marine Fisheries Service, and when. Pick a name to see everywhere that person has worked.

Board members and other officers (1)

Board memberEvan A. Howell Aug 31, 2020 to now¹

Subsidiaries and ownership

Parent company

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

Subsidiaries

Alaska Fisheries Science Center
NOAA National Marine Fisheries Service Alaska Regional Office
NOAA Office of Habitat Conservation
National Marine Mammal Laboratory
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries Office of Law Enforcement
Northeast Fisheries Science Center
Northwest Fisheries Science Center
Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center
Southeast Fisheries Science Center
Southwest Fisheries Science Center

From Wikidata.¹

Acquisitions

Succeeded United States Fish Commission¹

Employees over time

20204,200¹

Controversies and legal

Regulations

The NMFS regulatory program is one of the most active in the federal government, with hundreds of regulations published annually in the Federal Register. Most regulations are published to conserve marine fisheries under the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act; other regulations are published under the Marine Mammal Protection Act and Endangered Species Act. The NMFS also regulates fisheries pursuant to decisions of "regional fishery management organizations" (RFMOs)(RFMOs) and other RFMOs to which the U.S. is a party, such as the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission, the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas, the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission, the Agreement on the International Dolphin Conservation Program, the International Pacific Halibut Commission, etc.

In 2007, the NMFS issued regulations to protect endangered whales from fatal fishing-gear entanglements after environmental groups sued to force action on the rules, which were proposed in early 2005. The rules were enacted to specifically protect the North Atlantic right whale, of which about only 350 remain. Marine-gear entanglements and ship strikes are the top human causes of right whale deaths. On July 1, the shipping lanes in and out of Boston Harbor were rotated to avoid an area with a high concentration of the right whales. In the fiscal year 2017, the Marine Mammal and Sea Turtle Program of NOAA's NMFS, Greater Atlantic Regional Fisheries Office, Protected Resources Division, carried out the mandates of the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA) and the Endangered Species Act (ESA), and was charged with protecting the whales, dolphins, porpoises, seals and sea turtles that occur within the greater Atlantic region. This program currently includes marine mammal health and stranding response, large whale disentanglement, and sea turtle stranding and disentanglement. To implement this program, NMFS established several networks of volunteer organizations that it authorizes to respond to stranded marine mammals and sea turtles and entangled large whales and sea turtles. NMFS seeks the submission of proposals addressing Marine Animal Entanglement Response in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

Regional fisheries management councils

The eight domestic regional fisheries management councils make binding regulations for federal waters off various parts of the U.S. coast:

North Pacific Fishery Management Council (Alaska)

Pacific Fishery Management Council (West Coast)

Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council (Hawaii and Pacific territories)

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Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council

Caribbean Fishery Management Council (Puerto Rico and U.S. Virgin Islands)

South Atlantic Fishery Management Council

Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council (Upper North Carolina to New York)

New England Fishery Management Council

Controversies

In 2016, the NMFS caused the death of the L95 killer whale of the critically endangered southern resident population. This population travels along the coast of both the United States and Canada, and Canada does not use barbed satellite tags to track them because the method is invasive, but the NMFS made the unilateral decision to tag southern resident orcas. The L95 whale died 5 weeks after being shot with a barbed satellite tag and the Canadian necropsy concluded the barb caused a lethal fungal infection. Prior to L95's tagging, Center for Whale Research Senior Scientist Ken Balcomb documented tag detachment issues and was assured by the NMFS that these issues were "fixed", but the tag on L95 broke off and pieces of the barb remained in L95 until death. Although Balcomb documented infections where barbs had failed to detach on killer whales and presented his findings to the NMFS, the NMFS denied responsibility, stating: "Our experience with previous occurrences of tag attachment failure has shown no impact to the whale's general health." Though ocean water could enter the wound and whale skin is not sterile, the NMFS stated the fungal infection may have occurred because the barbed tag was dropped in the ocean and was sterilized with only alcohol, rather than both alcohol and bleach, prior to being aimed again at the orca. Two other members of the southern resident orca population disappeared within weeks of being tagged by the NMFS and are presumed dead, although the cause of death, if dead, is uncertain as the bodies were not recovered. Wildlife biologist Brad Hanson supervised the NMFS's killer-whale tagging program. He was not removed from his position following the incident.