Using Chaos Theory to Revitalize Fisheries | SciAm
The practical implications of Sugihara’s work are clear. Current fishing regulations usually have minimum size limits to protect smaller fish. That, Sugihara maintains, is exactly wrong. “It’s not the young ones that should be thrown back but the larger, older fish that should be spared,” he explains. They stabilize the population and provide “more and better quality offspring.” ...
Sugihara has also used his combined experience in ecology and finance to work on new kinds of fisheries management schemes. One is the notion of tradable “bycatch” credits. Bycatch refers to the turtles, sharks and other animals that fishing fleets do not seek but catch accidentally. In the tradable bycatch credits plan, fishing boats could be allocated a certain number of credits. As they used those credits, they would need to stop fishing or buy more credits on the open market. As the bycatch increased, the number of outstanding credits would fall, and their price would increase. Fishing boats would thus have financial incentive to minimize their bycatch—because by doing so, they could keep fishing longer.
