[bulletbob]

People went insane when chef Paul Prudhomme came up with "blackened redfish" years ago, and every available red was thrown into an extremely hot frying pan with a bunch of burnt to black spices and devoured.. Within a few short years the reds were about gone to satisfy the intense demand for an extremely popular dish... Sadly it was impose strict limits/shut down the fishery or simply lose the species pretty much...

Same thing happened up here, perhaps to a lesser extent.. Blackfish were super abundant decade after decade, until the live fish market in large cities went berserk and people started paying $50-$60 for a live Blackfish to take home and slice into thin pieces and dip into soy sauce or wasabi.. It doesn't really take that much these days to put intense pressure on a species, just a "fad" food item will do it sometimes. Then we get the government involved to "help" and it goes from bad to worse... I don't know why these things didn't happen years ago.. These fish were as good to eat then as they are now, but I dunno, eating fish was not as "fashionable" as it is today... I guess.... bob