IGFA’s Latest Conservation Wins: Expanding Access, Protecting Fisheries, and Advancing Billfish Research
Alongside conservation and recreational fishing industry partners, the IGFA has made important progress on several crucial conservation topics, ranging from ensuring recreational access to the outdoors, funding for conservation initiatives, and reducing shark depredation in recreational fisheries. See below for an update on our recent conservation initiatives.
Expanding access to America’s public lands and waters
Supported by a broad coalition of outdoor-oriented organizations, including advocates for fishing, hunting, horseback riding, recreational boating, camping, and more, the Expanding Public Lands Outdoor Recreation Experiences (EXPLORE) Act was signed into law on January 4, 2025. The EXPLORE Act will modernize technology to improve visitor experiences, streamline the permitting process and reduce fees for small businesses that depend on public land access, and improve accessibility for military service members, veterans, individuals with disabilities, and kids. The IGFA joined over 300 outdoor organizations and businesses, conservation groups, and local, federal, and state officials to support this important legislation that will expand access to America’s public lands and waters.
Creating a task force to develop mitigation protocols for shark depredation
In January 2025, the IGFA joined a coalition of recreational fishing and fisheries conservation and science organizations to endorse the Supporting the Health of Aquatic systems through Research, Knowledge and Enhanced Dialogue (SHARKED) Act. This bill highlights the increasing challenge of shark depredation, which negatively impacts fishing experiences, risks the safety of sharks and humans, and threatens the sustainability of fish populations, especially in the southeastern U.S. We look forward to the passage of this bill to establish a task force for improved coordination and communication across the fisheries management community on shark depredation toward addressing shark depredation nationally and establishing foundational knowledge that can be used to improve future management, education, and research actions.
Closing tax loopholes that will ensure sportfishing and archery equipment manufacturers support conservation efforts
In February 2025, the IGFA joined a broad coalition representing millions of anglers, hunters, outdoor recreationists, and businesses to commend the leadership of U.S. Representatives Panetta (CA), Moore (UT), Thompson (CA), Murphy (NC), Carter (LA), and Pfluger (TX) in introducing legislation to address the critical issue of foreign manufactures avoiding the federal excise tax (FET) on sportfishing and archery equipment through online marketplace facilitators. The Sporting Goods Excise Tax Modernization Act seeks to close the current loophole that allows foreign manufacturers to avoid paying the FET and will end the unfair advantage that foreign manufacturers have over domestic competitors, ensuring they pay their fair share to the Wildlife and Sportfish Restoration Programs.
All Eyes on Amendment 59
As NOAA Fisheries proposes sweeping closures on bottom fishing for 55 species in the South Atlantic from December through February, the IGFA and our partners are submitting comments urging the Agency to drop this heavy-handed rule and instead focus on angler engagement and education to reduce dead discards for red snapper.
IGFA Great Marlin Race
Each year, the IGFA Great Marlin Race, in partnership with Stanford University, deploys between 30 and 50 satellite tags on billfish species around the world through the benevolence of the billfish angling community. Over the past few months, the program has received some truly remarkable data. Through annual tagging events and tournaments, the program is building one of the world’s largest satellite tracking databases on billfish across years and through seasons. This database can be used to explore migratory patterns and behavior based on environmental and oceanographic conditions as well as explore billfish vulnerability to commercial exploitation. Below we explore some of the most recent tag track results collected over the past few months.
White Marlin Results
Since 2021, the IGFA has received a grant from The Bass Pro Shops and Cabela’s Outdoor Fund to tag and study billfish off the east coast of the US including their migrations to and from the Bahamas and Dominican Republic. Last year, eight tags were deployed on white marlin with five reaching their full deployment duration of 180 days, popping up from September 2024 through the end of the year. Interestingly, three fish tagged (white, yellow, green tracks below) on the same day by Matias Raponi and his father Michael Raponi all took significantly different movements away from the tagging area off the Dominican Republic. The longest white marlin movement from this race (white line) is estimated to be 6,693 NM as the fish left the Dominican Republic and moved northeast on the eastern side of Bermuda toward the Grand Banks and beyond, while the other two fish took opposite paths south and southeast away from where they were tagged. Stay tuned to Marlin Magazine later this summer as Matias writes his second article on his experience participating in the IGFA Great Marlin Race along with a detailed examination of the results.
Three tags were deployed by Pete Cherasia on the Shark Byte captained by Rich Barrett with two providing full duration (180 day) data (blue and pink tracks below). Both of these white marlin, tagged in the Bahamas, took different paths, one west of Bermuda up the US east coast and the other to the east of Bermuda. Both fish halted their northward movement at around 40 degrees North latitude where they foraged before moving back toward the south.
With each white marlin track we learn more about the patterns, or lack of patterns, in their migratory behaviors. The IGFA would like to thank The Bass Pro Shops and Cabela’s Outdoor Fund for making this research possible and facilitating the expansion of our collective understanding of the seasonality and drivers of white marlin movement.
Recent Pop-ups
The first blue marlin tag of 2025 to pop up provided some incredible data that was highlighted in a recent article in Marlin Magazine which can be found here: https://www.marlinmag.com/advocacy/impressive-trans-atlantic-blue-marlin-migration/
Since the start of 2025, three striped marlin tags have popped up in recent weeks and are currently being analyzed by our partners at Stanford University. Satellite tags need at least two weeks to transmit data through the satellite system to the lab at Stanford where they run complex models to estimate locations and analyze diving behavior. We expect to have tracks and depth information in the coming weeks for these three fish. Part of the annual SoCal race, these tags were sponsored by a grant for southern California from Bass Pro Shops and Cabela’s Outdoor Fund, the Dana Angling Club, and Dave Langston.
In just the last week, two more tags popped up, another striped marlin tag sponsored by Costa Sunglasses and deployed by the crew of Los Locos Mag Bay including George Vandercook. The striped marlin tag was deployed for 90 days off the coast of Magdalena Bay, Mexico, popping up just 339 NM from where it was deployed.
The second recent tag to pop up on March 13th was a blue marlin tag deployed off Panama sponsored by Alfredo Lopez in collaboration with the Club de Yates y Pesca and Autoridad de Recursos Acuaticos de Panama (ARAP). This blue marlin tag was deployed near Tropic Star Lodge aboard the Day Tripper and remained on the fish for the full 180 day deployment duration, popping up 2,673 NM from where it was deployed.
Stay tuned for more information on the recent tag pop-ups as it becomes available.
The IGFA Great Marlin Race will be attending the below tournaments, if you are interested in sponsoring a satellite tag please reach out to IGFA Conservation Director Dr. Bruce Pohlot at [email protected] or find us at a tournament.
May 14-17, 2025 Custom Shootout (Abaco Bahamas)
June 10-19, 2025 Big Rock Blue Marlin Tournament (Morehead City, NC)
June 23-27, 2025 PBM Challenge (Kona, Hawaii)
July 3-23, 2025 Bermuda Triple Crown (Hamilton, Bermuda)
August 17-22, 2025 MidAtlantic Tournament (Cape May, NJ)