U.S Fish & Wildlife Service vs NMFS

Why do we have the U.S Fish & Wildlife Service in the Department of Interior and the NMFS in the Department of Commerce? Why can't these be combined and how does their jurisdiction overlap?

Please direct your question to the Department of Redundancy Department.

COMMERCial fishing is commerce, which explains why NMFS manages salmon like dollar signs with fins instead of like threatened wildlife.

Just a WAG.

National Marine Fisheries Service- species that live in or go to salt water (no birds)

USFWS- All birds, everything else that does not go to or live in salt water.

So what' difference does it make if it lives in salt or fresh water. Salmon live in both. Does having salt in the water make it necessary to have a completely different government agency in two separate operating units of the federal government?

Keta,

It's all about politics. The Interior Department used to house both the U.S. Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife, i.e., the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the U.S. Bureau of Commercial Fisheries. The story I've heard is that Nixon got pissed at his first Secretary of the Interior, Rogers Morton. Part of the shakeup included moving the Bureau of Commercial Fisheries over to the Department of Commerce and naming it the National Marine Fisheries Service, where it sits along with the Department of Oceans and others.

Their jurisdictions overlap mainly with anadromous fish, which are both freshwater and marine fish species. It's still weird though, USFWS has sea otters, but NMFS has seals, sea lions, and whales.

Politics and logic are not necessarily a good fit.

Sg

I said "live in or go to".

Think commercial harvest. Do you know of any commercial elk, deer, bear, etc. harvests. Commerce kinda makes more sense for most marine species, since we harvest a whole lot of them commercially.

Of course, if your original question was rhetorical and the only answer that will satisfy you is "Jeeze Keta, you are absolutely right, it makes no sense", I can't help you.

Not really. I would be satisfied with an answer that makes sense. I'm hoping someone involved with these government agencies that post here has an answer.

Thanks Salmo, just knowing the history of it clears up some of the question of "why".

He did.

That's the right answer, except.......

Nixon's first Interior Secretary was Wally Hickel, from Alaska. Nixon fired Wally because of his views on Vietnam. Wally was then replaced by Rogers Morton as Interior Sec.

A better question would be: " Why can't we combine these two Federal agencies?" The current Prez mentioned this a couple years back, in a State of the Union address. He included a quote on smoked salmon, as I recall. There was lots of activity for a couple months afterwards, and then complete silence. Have not heard anything since.

there's always somebody older than me around with an even better memory. thanks Coho!

The follow up on combining USFWS and NMFS trickled down to NMFS SW region and NW region merging to become the West Coast region, saving $3 million in middle management costs and increasing within region travel costs by $5 million. Go figure, that the federal gov't. at work, saving taxpayer dollars.

Was that a bit of sarcasm? A net $2MM annual increase in costs doesn't reflect the one-time costs incurred implementing the consolidation. Well, at least it is still all within one time zone.

Kind of like all of the savings which were projected for Joint Basing. Those projected savings justifying Joint Basing turned out to be little more than someone's fantasy. Didn't happen, isn't happening, and won't happen.

Nah, but it makes an appealing sound bite. Most Americans won't remember it after the next episode of American Idol anyway.

They'll remember it that long? I'd have thought it might stick in their mind through about half of the next commercial. Less if it has the Budweiser Clydsdales.