Complete Reef Fishing Bans Can Spur Rapid Regeneration Of Species, Ecosystems - NatGeo

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Four years ago the Australian government rezoned the park, placing nearly one-third of it into the world's largest network of no-take marine reserves. They cover more than 62,000 square miles (100,000 square kilometers).

To monitor the new reserves, researchers used underwater imaging techniques to survey coral reefs inside and outside protected areas, where fishing was still allowed. The scientists found that coral trout numbers were significantly higher in no-take reserves than in sites that remained open to fishing.

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Enric Sala, a marine biologist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California in San Diego, said it's intuitive that a fishing ban would help fish survive. "This rebound is great news, but it is not 'new' news," he said. "When you truly protect a species from fishing or create a no-take marine reserve, large fishes come back."

Sala notes that Florida jewfish and Mediterranean dusky grouper rebounded under similar conditions.

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http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/06/080624-coral-trout.html