Given that U.S. fisheries operating under MSA are considered among the best managed in the world [6], it is worthwhile to
consider which conservation concerns prevent the majority of U.S. fisheries from being rated “Best Choice”. For both “Good Alter-native” fisheries and the few fisheries rated “Avoid”, by catch issues emerged as a major limiting factor. The majority of these fisheries scored below the red threshold for the by catch criterion,but above it for other criteria (Fig. 2).