Rockfish Recovery - How are our Native Fish Doing?

[BillZ]

Interesting article in the Seattle Times today

http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/ ... rtxml.html

In short, Seafood Watch has removed Rockfish from the "AVOID" category and moved it to "GOOD or BEST" for sustainable consumption. The article does briefly say that "long lived" Rockfish should be avoided but doesn't go into detail about Puget Sound Rockfish (although they show a picture of a Quillback on the front pageof the ST). It could leave the impression that all Rockfish are out of the woods and are now safe to eat.

So how are our populations doing? From a strictly non-scientific standpoint I see many large schools of Blacks and more Quillbacks on dives than I did five years ago, although this could be because my diving tends to be at less popular divesites nowadays.

PS: My questions are not intended to drum up a spearfishing vs. conservation debate!!! Start a new topic if you want to rehash that subject.

[CaptnJack]

Canary's, Bocaccio, and Yelloweyes are still hammered compared to less fished areas to our north...

Blacks and browns in particular are like the rockfish version of cowbirds (or rats), they move in whenever habitat is available. So the declines in some species have actually boosted their populations.

As a front page article I thought it was very misleading. Besides the fact that the longer lived rockfish species are some of our most contaminated local fish.