Fish Population Responses to Sea Floor Habitat Alteration

Abstract

Attention to the role of sea floor habitat in the dynamics of fish populations has increased recently in both the management and scientific communities around the globe. For example, the U.S. Sustainable Fisheries Act of 1996 (the reauthorized Magnuson Fishery Conservation and Management Act) requires that the federal Fishery Management Councils identify essential fish habitat (EFH) for all the fish and shellfish species for which fishery management plans are enacted (50 CFR 600 et seq.). The effective designation and ultimate conservation and protection EFH requires data on fish population dynamics and the ecological influences of habitat on those dynamics for each life-history stage.

It is time to make the decision in a more deliberate, moral, and precautionary way. We cannot expect to prevent all anthropogenic extinctions, given the major influence our mere presence has upon life on Earth. However, we should try to prevent all those we can, recognizing that we will sometimes fail. Boyce Thorne-Miller, from The Living Ocean