Sounds like capitalism will be the MOST effective means of regulation. As fish become more scarce prises will rise, demand will drop and number of fishing vessels will drop accordingly.
That is not a solution. It is the Tragedy of the Commons. The situation stabilizes with a very small number of fish in the sea.
That's exactly what it is. Tragedy of the Commons and freepers should read up on it. The fishing grounds near the NorthEast coasts of America and up into Nova Scotia and Newfoundland are way over fished. Boats that land in New Bedford bring in a fraction of what they did 10 years ago. Gets worse each year and baits must stay out longer each fishing trip to get a catch worth marketing.
May 24, 2000 Advisory board: Cod limits should be cut
By MICHAEL MACDONALD -- Canadian Press
ST. JOHN'S, Nfld. (CP) -- Atlantic Canada's beleaguered cod fishery received more bad news today.
The Fisheries Resource Conservation Council, a federal advisory body, issued a bleak report saying catch limits for northern Newfoundland and the Georges Bank off Nova Scotia should be reduced this season.
The council, which recommends catch limits to the federal Fisheries minister, said the cod stocks in both areas are not recovering as quickly as expected.
Off the coasts of northern Newfoundland and southern Labrador, the council recommends the total allowable catch for northern cod be reduced to 7,000 tonnes from 9,000 tonnes.
"The northern cod stock was by far the largest cod stock in Atlantic Canada," said Fred Woodman, chairman of the fisheries council, which is made up of government and industry representatives.
"Today, it is only a dismal remnant of what we had."
In the mid-1980s, the northern cod fishery was hauling in 200,000 tonnes annually.
Atlantic Canada used to land about 500,000 tonnes of cod annually in the 1980s. The total cod catch now is about 10 per cent of what it used to be.
Federal scientists say the stocks remain fragile, especially farther offshore. Until the offshore stocks start to grow, the inshore stocks will remain small, scientists concluded in an earlier report.
On the Georges Bank, the total allowable catch for cod caught by U.S. and Canadian fishermen should be cut to 2,000 tonnes from 3,000 tonnes, the council said.
"The council continues to be very concerned with the lack of recruitment experienced in the stock," the council said.
Recruitment refers to the number of fish that survive long enough to be considered big enough for commercial harvest.
However, there was some good news for other groundfish stocks on George Bank, an area southwest of Nova Scotia that is frequented by U.S. fishermen.
Catch limits for haddock and yellowtail flounder will be increased this season.
"The haddock and yellowtail stocks are recovering from the lows of the 1990s," Woodman said in a letter to Fisheries Minister Herb Dhaliwal.
As for cod, the council said it was convinced hungry seals were taking a big chunk out of the northern cod stocks.
"The council agrees with fishermen that predation by seals is negatively impacting the stock," Woodman's letter says.
Last month, scientists with the federal Fisheries Department issued a bleak report saying the size of the cod population off northern Newfoundland was still 97 per cent smaller than in the early 1980s.
However, the scientists said they didn't have enough scientific data to determine what impact the seals were having on the stocks.
The once-thriving commercial cod fishery collapsed in the late 1980s, prompting a widespread moratorium in 1992 that wiped out 40,000 jobs in Atlantic Canada and eastern Quebec.
After seven years of rebuilding, a small commercial quota was established last year for inshore fishermen in northern Newfoundland and southern Labrador.
When asked what was causing the slow recovery of the cod, scientists have cited a number of factors, none of which have proved conclusive.
Overfishing by huge, foreign trawlers is a favoured theory on the East Coast. Rising water temperatures in the latter half of the 1980s has also been linked with big changes in the North Atlantic's ecosystem.
Earle McCurdy, head of the 23,000-member Fish, Food and Allied Workers union, blames seals for the high mortality rates among cod.
Earlier this year, the council recommended reducing catch limits for cod in the northern Gulf of St. Lawrence and southern Newfoundland.
Dhaliwal later approved those recommendations, which included cutting the limit in southern Newfoundland by one third to 20,000 tonnes. The south coast cod fishery is the only major cod fishery left in Newfoundland.
...and why is that a problem?