🚀 go-pugleaf

I'm not sure if this is the place for academic questions, but I thought
I'd try here once and see what happens.  The question I'd like to pose
it this:  Is the U.S. Fisheries Council system flexible enough to adapt
to the decadal changes observed in some ecosystems?  Can the Councils
adapt their policies to changes in species composition or carrying
capacity of an ecosystem fast enough to avoid catastrophic results?

Let's take, for example, the North Pacific:  Suppose there was a change
in the Bering Sea ecosystem where it no longer supported the numbers of
pollock it currently does, but instead was dominated by herring, shrimp,
and  flatfish.  Could the NPFMC adapt its management policies to such a
change? Would the momentum of the pollock fishery and supporting
industry push the council to make poor management decisions, therefore
pushing the pollock fishery past a point where it could no longer easily
recover in future decades.  This supposition is purely academic, I'm
merely using the North Pacific as an example to illustrate my point.

I think there is evidence on the East Coast of the United States where
the Council was not able to adapt to ecological changes and continued
with policies that overexploited certain stocks.  Is this due to the
nature of the Council system or merely a reflection of that particular
council's management choices?  Does the council system need to be
modified?  If so, any suggestions?

I have some thoughts on the subject, just wondering what other people in
the field were thinking.

Steve Barbeaux
Masters of Marine Affairs Candidate
School of Marine Affairs
University of Washington