The National Marine Fisheries Service announced on Wednesday that it is studying endangered species status for three species of rockfish. They are looking at possible "threatened" status for yelloweye and canary rockfish and
"endangered" status for bocaccio, which has disappeared from Washington State fish surveys for the past 20 years. This story in the Seattle Times has some more details.
All three fish are long living (bocaccio can reach three feet long and live 50 years). They grow slowly and they are slow to reproduce. Their populations declined because of overfishing in previous decades. Many were caught as bycatch by salmon fishermen.
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