Collapse and Recovery of Marine Fishes: Are Conservation Biology and Fisheries Science Criteria Really All That Different?

Overexploitation is recognized as one of the primary anthropogenic impacts in marine ecosystems, and yet the severity of the problem and the overall status of marine fishes continues to be debated. Assessing population status based on percent declines, for example, remains controversial because declines sufficient to trigger IUCN Red Listings of Vulnerable (50%) or Endangered (70%) often equate, in the short term, to those targeted by fisheries scientists to maximize fisheries productivity. Prospects for recovery of overexploited populations also are controversial, with debate about which metrics are appropriate for assessing recovery, and the extent to which sustained high fishing mortality impedes recovery. Using a new database of over 350 stock assessments from North and South America, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and the high seas, we conducted synthetic analyses examining these and other key questions about collapse and recovery, including: Are all exploited fish populations overexploited and/or threatened with extinction risk at some point? How long do overfished populations typically stay overfished?, For which stocks has there been management action to reduce fishing mortality, To what extent is fishing mortality typically reduced?, Do overfished stocks typically recover, and if so, at what rate? We examine each question from a fisheries perspective (using reference points) and a conservation perspective (using IUCN % decline criteria), and assess how comparable the outcomes are using  a ‘hits, misses, false alarms’ framework to better understand where the real discrepancies lie.