Fish need wilderness reserves in which they can grow old

Permanent marine protected areas and wilderness are critical to the effective protection of marine fish, according to a study conducted by the Wildlife Conservation Society, James Cook University, and Lancaster University. Unlike previous research that focused primarily on the weight of fish (biomass) as a measure of reef recovery, this study evaluated the life histories of fish, such as growth rates and length. The researchers found: Fish life history characteristics recovered at a much slower rate than biomass, which typically took 20 years to recover; The time needed to fully recover from overfishing can exceed 100 years; Young and small marine parks fall short of protecting ocean fish communities. The findings underline the importance of permanent marine protected areas and wilderness in the effective protection of marine fish. The study combined fish censuses from more than 300 coral reefs to examine how they changed in terms of fishing methods as well as how many years reef reserves had been closed to fishing. They also compared the reefs in marine reserves with the remote Chagos Archipelago, a relatively pristine marine ecosystem off limits to exploitation due to its status as a large military base in the Indian Ocean. The authors built on previous work that had largely concluded that recovery times for reefs can be reliably based on the biomass of the fish.