First, I don't see fishing as recreational or commercial. I see dead fish. Dead fish, by definition, don't spawn. Somehow, being killed by an angler is not somehow nobler than being killed in gillnet or seine or taken in the aquarium trade.
My understanding of the literature is that, on a worldwide basis, MPAs have been and are successful in putting more fish in the water.
When one considers rockfish, I think that their life history needs to be understood. A fish that lives 100-200 years, spawning every year or so after maturity, likely is not often successful. Maybe once a decade, once every 20 years are the environmental conditions conducive to a "good spawn". It's like the folks who want to see salmon fishing closed for a year or 4 and expect that would bring recovery. Or, the folks who see one good return and "Eureka, recovery".
We have dug a hole in our natural resources for over a century. Looking at a couple of years for solutions is not, to my mind, logical.
Let us agree that life histories need to be understood and that "one size does not fit all" applies here.
It is my understanding that even those rockfish with the potential for living long lives (just how many would make 100? let alone 200?? w/o a human fisher's involvement???) become sexually mature much earlier; as in teens for fish like yelloweye and become more productive as they grow.
And, yes, repopulation isn't instantaneous. It will take time. I never said that it wouldn't. What I did say is that an MPA established for recovery of a species or several species using the same habitat and with similar life cycles should have a recovery plan and a Sunset provision that will dissolve the MPA (1) when the goal is met (e.g. delisting), periodic stock assessment in the MPA as well as similar adjacent habitats indicate lack of progress, or the responsible agency abandons it periodic assessment responsibility.
Failure to accept inclusion of a Sunset provision is, in my assessment, an indication of little confidence in the plan and/or that the plan is in reality a Trojan horse with the primary but unstated goal being the establishment of a permanent MPA.
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