"What is known is that the mandatory release of wild fish did not protect those wild stocks when challenged by adverse circumstance."

This is most emphatically NOT known.

Who knows how bad it might be now if the parent years of the now existing dwindling stocks had been subject to harvest and whatever environmental stresses they are subject to now?

Again, as noted above, the more fish there when the "bomb" drops, the more likely the fish are to recover.

Fish on...

Todd