—We used an age-structured model to evaluate the impacts of recreational angling during spawning on populations of largemouth bass Micropterus salmoides and the potential benefits of seasonal fishing closures. We simulated fisheries with average and high capture rates (i.e., fractions of the stock caught by anglers). We manipulated mortality rates to mimic the effects of various regulations, in...

Many fishery management tools currently in use have conservation value. They are designed to maintain stocks of commercially important species above target levels. However, their limitations are evident from continuing declines in fish stocks throughout the world. We make the case that to reverse fishery declines, safeguard marine life and sustain ecosystem processes, extensive marine reserves ...

Models for marine reserve design have been developed primarily with 'reef fish' life histories in mind: sedentary adults in patches connected by larval dispersal. However, many fished species undertake ontogenetic migrations, such as from nursery grounds to adult spawning habitats, and current theory does not fully address the range of reserve options posed by that situation. I modelled a gener...

In June, 1999, a portion of the Georges Bank fishing grounds (Closed Area II) that had been closed to protect depleted groundfish stocks was opened to US commercial sea scallopers to harvest sea scallop beds that had grown substantially. Vessels that participated in the exemption fishery were each allowed a maximum of three trips in Closed Area II. A trip was limited to 10,000 pounds of scallop...

An ecosystem approach is widely seen as a desirable goal for fisheries management but there is little consensus on what strategies or measures are needed to achieve it. Management strategy evaluation (MSE) is a tool that has been widely used to develop and test single species fisheries management strategies and is now being extended to support ecosystem based fisheries management (EBFM). We des...

Japan is considered as one of the most successful marine fishery co-management or CBFM regimes. However, in 2001 the Japanese government was obliged to introduce new measures in order to recover several species under overexploitation. One example is the Resource Recovery Plans (RRP) that in all Japan accounts 51 fisheries. This paper attempts to clarify the level of sustainability of coastal fi...

Herein we argue that lack of a regular independent review process in U.S. federal fishery management is a serious shortcoming in policy and that such a system should be implemented. Although our arguments specifically refer to federal fishery management in the United States, we believe they may be applicable to other areas of ecological management here and in other countries. Fish-stock assessm...

Combining Stone Age and modern data provides unique insights for management, extending beyond contemporary problems and shifting baselines. Using fish chronometric parts, we compared demographic characteristics of exploited cod populations from the Neolithic Period (4500 BP) to the modern highly exploited fishery in the central Baltic Sea. We found that Neolithic cod were larger (mean 56.4 cm, ...

The current harvest policy for the Pacific halibut fishery uses a 32-inch minimum size limit in the directed commercial fishery, and total annual catches in each of the eight regulatory areas are based on area-specific exploitation rate targets. In nondirected fisheries retention of halibut is prohibited. Post-release survival rates are gear dependent and partially based on observer accounts of...

Seafood mislabeling distorts the true abundance of fish in the sea, defrauds consumers, and can also cause unwanted exposure to harmful pollutants. By combining genetic data with analyses of total mercury content, we have investigated how species substitutions and fishery-stock substitutions obscure mercury contamination in Patagonian toothfish (Dissostichus eleginoides), also known as "Chilean...