Critics of conservation often portray as a zero sum game, saying trying to conserve stocks of fish will diminish the catches of most fishermen.
Nevertheless as Bubba Cochrane said, depletion of red snapper fishing stocks just a few short years ago threatened the likelihood of all who relied on the snapper for a living.
A catch as catch can system with seasons made captains race to catch as much and as quick as possible as they could. This glutted the market and actually depressed prices. With a new quota system captains could plan their seasons and hopefully get their catch.
Just 15 years ago, over fishing threatened to wipe out red snapper in the Gulf of Mexico. This pained me personally because my mother's standard restaurant order was red snapper. You can find few things more delicious than broiled red snapper. They be damn good.
Conservation and common sense saved the fish for all of us.
Under the old management system, commercial fishermen raced to catch all the snapper they could during the government mandated seasons, which some years lasted only a few days. That resulted in a lot of dangerous fishing, wasted fish and huge market swings for customers. Sometimes fresh Gulf snapper was available only a few weeks a year.
The new approach allows commercial fishermen to pace themselves throughout the year, putting less stress on the stock and injecting some predictability into the market. Now, Gulf red snapper are more plentiful than ever, and customers can find fresh snapper at the seafood counter or on the menu nearly year-round.
https://www.sharethegulf.org/stories/77
Update: "Often, commercial fishermen are perceived to be a group of people focused on taking as many fish as possible as quickly as possible. This simply isn’t the case. We are business owners, we are problem solvers, but at heart, we are conservationists." (Emphasis added)
https://shareholdersalliance.org/who-we-are.php
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