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Rockfish can reproduce many times. But just because lots of babies are born, it doesn’t mean that any of them will survive. Young rockfish need very specific conditions and a lot of luck to make it through their first year. For some species, there were only a few years in the last century when young rockfish survived in any great number.
Large females give birth to babies with the best chances of surviving. Unfortunately, the old, large fish are also the ones targeted by sports fisheries.
Some rockfish don’t move far from their home territories, making them sitting ducks for any fisher who knows where to fish.
Just as our lungs expand when we come up from a dive, rockfish swim bladders blow up if they’re brought up too quickly to the surface. By the time a fisher reels up a rockfish, it may be dead, with its eyeballs popped out of its sockets and its guts thrusting out of its mouth. If the rockfish was brought up accidentally, releasing it back into the water afterwards isn’t going to help.
Despite all these factors working against them, rockfish management doesn’t have to be a Greek tragedy. The situation isn’t hopeless; we just have to recognize that rockfish fisheries need to be managed in a way that is sustainable for them. If you want to help, check out our Get Involved section!
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