Fish Stew: Species interplay makes fisheries management tricky in the long run

Twice in the past 20 years, the capelin population in the Barents Sea north of Norway and Russia abruptly crashed and then took years to recover. It has again fallen sharply since 2001, in spite of restrictions on how many fish may be harvested there.

According to a new statistical analysis, the varying fortunes of capelin can be best understood and managed by accounting for not only fishing of that plankton-consuming species but also factors that affect cod and herring.