A good argument could be made that this is harming more than just local fisheries. I believe all of the fish stocks in the Gulf of Mexico will be adversly impacted. There are plenty of studies to back that up - marine reserves can dramatically increase fish stocks in large areas of ocean surrounding them. However, a lower supply may off set this loss by increasing fish prices, which may, unfortunatly, hide the losses (a common theme in fisheries is "if we're still making money right now, everything is fine").
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