Molecular genetics applications in fisheries: snake oil or restorative? (original) (raw)

Life was once much simpler for Pacific salmon fishery managers. They could aggregate genetic stocks from a region for the convenience of spawning escapement goals and scheduling fisheries, and also designate some regions as hatchery management areas where wild stocks could be overfished to take full advantage of hatchery production capacities. These management tasks could be accomplished without facing an inquisition from a growing number of scientific peers and public constituents who, according to the embattled manager, just do not appreciation the complexities and historical genesis of the current management system. Those were the days when 'stocks were stocks' (the harvest kind; Carvalho and Hauser, 1994) and all else were museum pieces, because that would be the only place to appreciate them once fishery regulations began to protect an endless number of individual breeding populations.