alt Hacker NewsWhen a fishery crashes, it is dramatic and takes a long time to recover if ever. There's been plenty of fisheries like cod that one could not conceive being depleted but it has been now for decades.
Estimates of catches, mortality, existing stock are prone to error because we don't really know much about how fish live and their overall population. But once that crash happens it is known and too late. Cod crashed in 1992 and still hasn't recovered
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And that's with management. Here on the east coast of Canada cod was a big industry and was managed by Dept of Fisheries and Oceans aka DFO. The problem was foreign fishing freezer ships just over the maritime border. They took whatever they wanted to and were no restricted even by their own countries. Canada almost went to war with Spain and Portugal we even sent warships to the area.
That's the scary part. By the time the data is unambiguous enough for everyone to agree the stock has collapsed, you're already dealing with the collapse rather than preventing it
Not all fishery crashes are the same. Alaskan sockeye had a huge crash in 2014 which was immediately followed by huge gluts in 2015-2017. Same thing happened last year after a terribly weak run in 2024. Important to look at specific facts and context
Yes, seen this happen in Tasmania, Australia with crayfish, scallops and orange roughy. Each went from free-for-all to highly managed quotas within a few years. Roughy fishing stopped completely back then, don't know what the status is now.
> we don't really know much about how fish live and their overall population
Absolutely yes. Orange roughy is a good example - it was caught by trawlers when they were massed in huge balls near the surface. Easy to get a big catch quickly. Turns out this was when they were spawning, so breeding cycle was being interrupted, which led to catastrophic declines very quickly.