Quote:
Originally Posted by ifsteve
My wife and I can only eat a couple.
I prefer eating them fresh versus frozen.
If I release a fish it may survive and reproduce more for the future. If I kill it then it won't for sure.
Ya'll do what you like within the limits.
The fishery may or may not be able to sustain the incredible good fishing LA has right now. I prefer to hedge my bets.
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Limits are not just about, or shouldn't be just about, how many you can eat. Limits are based on the estimated ability of a population to sustain a harvest and not crash. It is also to protect the population from outeating itself, so to speak. That's putting it in laymen's terms, but that is the jist of it. It is just as much about the health of the population. If you don't take enough individuals out of a population, it can crash just as easily as it can by taking too many out.
Further, when you are talking about species that are predators, i.e., specks and reds, the damage of leaving too many can spread to their prey species. If there are too many predators, prey populations could potentially crash.
That is why limits, and management decisions in general, should be set based on science, not politics. I believe there have been multiple studies, cited by our own MG here, that contradict CCA and it's reasoning for lowering the limit.
There is nothing wrong with being conservative, but you still have to draw a line. You can be too conservative and damage the resource just as much as being too liberal can.
Everyone is free to do what they want within a limit, but lowering it based on socioeconomic factors, and not science, is bad management.