Managers are required to err on the side of caution when formulating regs if there isn't enough conclusive info to go on. Dogfish reproduce very slowly -- 2 to 16 pups in a litter every 22 months. So I can understand where mg't is coming from.
That said, I can see where recs and comms are coming from as well. There's tons of dogs out there. They ball up gillnets and scavenge the catch from them. They steal bait. It's possible that they're filling the niches of recovering groundfish. I've heard that off NH, you can barely catch a gadid to save your life, but whether you want them or not, the dogs are there. They can keep 600 pounds a day, but that quota can be reached in a half hour.
I hope the dogfish numbers and locations are just some sort of anomaly from the weird weather this year and other factors and that the dogfish problem doesn't persist...though they're way easier to handle than monkfish.
In defense of "scientists", we're working on picking up the pieces from over 100 years of crappy or nonexistent fisheries management, and we're doing what we can. Everybody -- comms, recs, mgrs, scientists...we all want a balanced environment. It's just going to take a while, with lots of trial and error, to get it functioning again.
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