NOAA is both right and wrong about Fluke

[reason162]

Originally Posted by dakota560

Recruitment numbers (BASED ON NMFS"S OWN DATA) show a steady and sharp decline over the last 25 years to the magnitude of an 80% decrease in strength. These are the facts presented by NMFS, not mine or third party.

Dakota, I also read your posts with great interest. I am not dismissing out of hand the sex ratio theory, but there is countering evidence which you do seem to dismiss, that fluke is indeed a particularly steep species and therefore resistant to sex ratio imbalance. I think the Rutgers study will shed light on squaring that circle, but the fact is there might not be a conflict to resolve within those parameters if there are larger forces at play. Climate change would most certainly have an impact on fluke migration/recruitment/abundance, as it does on every species on earth. My assumption is that even if true, whatever effect the sex ratio imbalance is on recruitment, the effects of climate change largely eclipses.

I know I don't need to point out to you the difference between causation and correlation, but for the benefit of the forum: the "perfect inverse relationship" you plot between size regulation and recruitment is firmly in the first camp, and could very well be irrelevant IF the causation lies elsewhere, ie global climate change. I wish you were correct, that fisheries management alone is to blame, or that regulations account for the majority of poor recruitment. If that is the case, the solution is relatively easy.