We’ve been rapacious in the way we’ve treated fish stocks around the world—90 percent of all the ocean’s fish are gone, and the World Wildlife Fund predicts that by 2050, all the fish that we currently know will be completely gone. Clearly, something needs to be done about overfishing. The best solution, however, remains a contentious debate.
Creating marine protected areas (MPAs) is one avenue; putting limits on fishermen as to which fish they can take and when is another; simply forcing fishermen out of business by not renewing licenses is still another.
Getting fishermen to voluntarily abide by catch quotas can be tricky. An abundance of rules and regulations, some state and local, some federal, now force fishermen to be more careful and selective in what they take—hence the growing books of rules and regulations policing what used to be a very Wild West industry of “take what you can get, whenever you can get it.” Some rules target certain species region by region; others have put in place size and gender restrictions; others have defined clear open and closed seasons in different parts of the sea.
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