"Two popular Southern California fisheries have collapsed right under the noses of management agencies that had inadequate data, a new study suggests."

"In an article in the Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences, the authors say the population of barred sand bass and kelp bass began to shrink in the early 1980s amid regional changes in ocean conditions, including warmer temperatures.

But since then, a combination of environmental factors and fishing in seasonal spawning areas appears to have 'pushed the species over the edge,' said the study’s lead author, Brad Erisman, a postdoctoral researcher with the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego."

Josie Garthwaite reports for the New York Times' Green blog October 24, 2011. [2]