The decline and recovery of four predatory fishes from the Southern California Bight

What to do about fisheries collapse and the decline of large fishes in marine ecosystems is a critical debate on a global scale. To address one aspect of this debate, a major fisheries management action, the removal of gill nets in 1994 from the nearshore arena in the Southern California Bight (34°26′30″N, 120°27′09″W to 33°32′03″N, 117°07′28″W) was analyzed. First, the impetus for the gill net ban was the crash of the commercial fishery for white seabass ( Atractoscion nobilis ; Sciaenidae) in the early 1980s. From 1982 to 1997 catch remained at a historically low level (47.8 ± 3.0 mt) when compared to landings from 1936–1981, but increased significantly from 1995–2004 ( r = 0.89, P