My own opinion is yes and no..I am not sure about the rest of the world but fishing is continuing here as an essential service.
Normally fishing "quotas" or Total Allowable Catches are spread between commercial, subsistence and recreational anglers, sure there are no recrommercials on the water so Im sure around us the juvenile red steenbras are getting a break from the local spearos who have bills to pay
:cens but after lockdown everything will continue I am sure.. Normally the recreationals are the ones driving conservation anyway and balancing how much the commercial harvesters are allowed to remove, but the recreationals are removed from the equation right now. Right now all recreational boats are off the deep and shallow marks, fishermen are off the rocks and I have heard of fish right off the rocklines, all over the place, chasing bait with no traffic to put them down or chase them away they are busting on baitballs right in front of everyone, right infront of slipways and harbours, teasing everyone who can't fish, all day long! That said there are now no eyes on the water except for random commercial vessels working about, so if the chinese poaching fleets or local poaching fleets would want to take the pi$$, now is a good time! I am pretty sure perlie poachers are not under lock down LOL!! It is not like their harvest is allowed anyway and it is not like local law enforcement and politicians are not complicit in that trace so who is going to stop it unless the army are watching the roads around the perlie hotspots in the overberg, and I am sure that they are not and deployed to townships and places where hunger and unrest are rising.
I am sure the commercial licensed line boats that work my waters are at it full speed, some of the boats I am referring to have been bust for poaching so many times they don't give a flying #%& , a few times even in our marine reserves from cape town to east coast, kreef and perlie, red reef fish and shark, but yet still they are out there, still with licence to rape the sea (someone must have been paid off), filling those hatches and lockdown does not affect them except taking the eyes off what they are up to and inspection staff at harbours ARE probably locked down so it is probably a free for all at the moment.
So yeah I am sure the chinese fleets every corner of the world over, as the tend to be with government covered fuel bills and sponsored vessels, are emptying the sea as per usual, and even more so in areas where the local fleets and coast guards are now locked down. On land the animals are running riot, penguins walking down the street in Simonstown and cougars and coyotes in California, but in the sea its just less traffic in general and also less eyes on the water, and for the main culprits, it is business as usual and even more so.
I do hope the trekkers are locked down, but doubt it, anyone know?
edit. local recromercials now have some sort of "research permit" so ja stocks been getting hammered under lockdown, commercial linefleet has been on the reefs at every opportunity sometimes multiple trips a day... There are no recreational eyes on the water right now so who knows what is happened off the agulhas banks and other places? One of our subs was spotted making its way back to simonstown down the southern cape..but wonder if they care about poaching, apparently the perlie guys have been having a lockdown field day up and down the coast, operating in plain sight!
