I work very closely with fisheries scientists, specifically the snapper/grouper complex in Florida. With a number of significant closures, we have returned the population of grouper in the far western Keys and Pulley Ridge to the levels they were pre-fish trapping. Those closures are the Red grouper spawning areas of Madison-Swanson and Steamboat Lumps, the all use closure of Riley's hump, the Florida fish trap ban, The black grouper spawning season ban, and the habitat closure of the Dry Tortugas Ecological Reserve and Dry Tortugas National Park Research Natural Area. This system of closures ensured that black and red grouper and mutton snapper would have no fishing pressure during the spawn, when they aggregate in a single area, and that they would have protected habitat to live in the rest of the year.
You should have heard the fishermen squeal like little pleasure piggies.
But today is a far different story. The fishermen fish around the edge of the closures for healthy fish, healthy populations, and bigger fish. The closures allow the fish a chance to rest and spawn, and if you're trying to increase the populations, allowing them to spawn unmolested is kind of key to the whole process. Now, in the fisheries meetings, the fishermen say things like "Why didn't you do this 10 years ago". Well, they did do it 10 years ago, over the fisherman's strenuous objections. It's taken 10 years for the populations to start to recover.
Just like the article says.