I've got to say - my first reaction when I read Zacs proposal was - "no way" - people don't keep blues anyway, blues taste like crap, there are too many anyhow, etc, etc, etc. But the more I read the posts that followed and the more I've thought about it - it starts to make sense.
People are fickle. What is todays nuisance catch could easily be tomorrows gourmet / angling fad. One day Jessica Simpson (or bart simpson for that matter) says that bluefish are yummy or bluefish oil keeps my skin silky soft and BAM - demand for blues goes up, prices go up, everyone's fishing for blues. (Menhaden oil became fashionable when Omega-3 fatty acids were ID'd as heart healthy and became the dietary supplement of choice) By the time the regs can get into place - the stocks are decimated.
Besides the argument that there's no overfishing now so don't put in regs is myopic. History is a great teacher - those of you who have read "Striper Wars" have read first hand accounts of what can happen. Why not manage the issue now. The guys who were taking boat loads of stripers back in the day thought the supply was endless. They really believed it. I know that the number of blues does seem infintie - but to my knowledge nobody has ever really tried to measure the stock of blues. We could be in the middle of a freefall and not know it.
Whoooh - just re-read this post - how the heck did I end up defending the vile bluefish
??? I don't know but it just seems to make sense to start to manage the issue BEFORE it becomes a problem.
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