Posted by John M. on February 19, 2004 at 19:51:38:
In Reply to: Re: Mr. Sonke if you please.... posted by Sonke on February 19, 2004 at 19:06:31:
You're right: no one knows what level of harvest market squid can take.
But there are some questions which aren't being addressed:
- why is the catch down so much in the past 2-3 seasons, without a decrease in effort and without an El Nino?
- why did the diver-observed squid runs cease just when they got really good at catching squid? (with the exception of small run in 2000)
And, for that matter, why does the landings curve look exactly like the landings curve of a species which has been fished out? In that case, another couple years will tell... does it bottom out or come back up? Given the real possibility of the former it seems irresponsible to continue to allow them to take as much as they possible can.
I would LOVE to be wrong about squid -- it's the single most exciting event (which used to happen) underwater in SoCal -- but I'm very afraid that we're standing by at the end.