The Potential Collapse of Fish Stocks in a Developing Fishery

In developing a fishery on a stock whose surplus production is governed by a logistic or similar growth law, a policy of steadily increasing the fishing quota and watching the stock carefully is likely to lead to overfishing; at the time of greatest danger, there are no warning signs. Increasing the nominal effort for a schooling fish stock has similar problems. A policy of steadily increasing the fishing mortality, although more difficult to implement, runs less risk of overfishing. These points are illustrated by simulations.