You know, the thing that really frustrates me is how they continually paint escapement goal reductions as science-driven. What a crock of $hit. Anyone with a shred of common sense can see that lower escapement goals are established to create fishing opportunity that, according to the rules, shouldn't be allowed, and now we're surprised to learn that the stock is experiencing overfishing? Either these people are hopelessly stupid , or else they're convinced we are.
As long as maximum profit for the commercials is NMFS's operating goal, the slide toward extinction can only continue. The beautiful thing about MSY management (from their perspective) is that as long as we continue to kill every last fish we imagine we can, nobody will ever know if the "science" behind their decisions has been flawed.