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Greetings everyone!
As you likely heard, Hurricane Beryl hammered the Houston area on July 8, including our Galveston Facility. Galveston experienced strong winds and considerable storm surge flooding. We are thankful that all of our staff are safe and unharmed. The facility remains closed to ensure staff safety while we conduct facility repairs. We do not anticipate any delays in our science.
In June, we celebrated Caribbean American Heritage Month, Ocean Month, and Pride Month simultaneously! For Caribbean American Heritage Month, we honored the achievements and contributions of Caribbean immigrants and their descendants living in the United States. The U.S. Caribbean is a significant part of the Center's portfolio. Having worked with the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico on fisheries issues for years, I can attest that there is no single Caribbean American identity. The mix of cultures, languages, and religions alive across the United States and the islands reflects the diversity of spirit that defines the American story.
National Fishing and Boating Week was a fitting way to kick off June’s Ocean Month! The Southeast has the largest concentration of saltwater recreational fishing in the U.S. with over 4.5 million anglers taking 36 million trips annually. Population growth, increased fishing effort, and incredible improvements in fishing technology add to the intricacy of studying and managing our fisheries. This celebration was an opportunity to encourage anglers and others to offer new, innovative ideas to help tackle these challenges as we look to the future of recreational fishing. If you have ideas, I encourage you to consider attending the upcoming workshop on improving recreational discard data.
NOAA Fisheries also celebrated Pride Month by highlighting the work of LGBTQ+ staff members across the country who help us achieve our mission of ensuring sustainable fisheries and conserving marine species for future generations.
Finally, our staff have been hard at work this summer—spending countless hours at sea collecting data on marine mammals, reef fish, deepwater corals, highly migratory species, sharks, and more. We’re excited to share some of these stories with you soon. In the meantime, you can check out our new web page about some of our fishery-independent surveys.
Keep reading!
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Thanks for your continued support and interest,
Clay Porch, Ph.D
Southeast Fisheries Science Center Director
clay.porch@noaa.gov
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