It hasn't worked. The snapper population is bigger than it was at its lowest point, but scientists say it is decades away from complete recovery. The snapper's problems are not unusual. For the most part, marine fisheries are ruled by crisis management that kicks in only after a fish population has dropped dramatically and jobs are being lost. One of the founders of our field once said that fishery science is based on elegant post-mortems,'' said Bradford Brown, director of the National Marine Fisheries Service's Southeast Fisheries Science Center in Miami.
Science is at the base of the system.
But it was a rickety foundation from the start. Scientific data about fish populations is always sketchy, and that makes it vulnerable to political pressures. The management process has helped destroy this fish and it's doing a pretty good job on us too,'' said Anderson, who has been on several fishery management committees. Twenty years ago, the government barely paid attention to fishing. Overfishing began almost immediately, causing widespread damage before anyone could get a handle on the problem.