However, there’s another level of protection called a Marine Protection Area. EO supports recreational fishing in MPAs.

Obviously, because the first three are not inherently extractive. They cause disturbance, which has an unknown effect on feeding and reproduction, but do not kill fauna outright. Fishing directly removes fauna from the system, and hence is inherently different. You could argue there is some level of extraction which does not affect the longterm viability of a population inside the designated area, but the point of a reserve is not just to keep numbers of fish and associated fauna up IN THE RESERVE, but to serve as a source of surplus to repopulate adjoining areas.

Extractive activities are generally precluded from true reserves for this reason. If you allow fishing, even limited fishing, you don’t have a reserve … you have a marine protected area. Different animal altogether.

Meanwhile, the rules are still being worked out over what exactly will be allowed in Oregon’s two approved reserves. As usual with this kind of issue, there’s no easy answer. Draft rules by ODFW call for prohibiting recreational fishing at both marine reserves at Otter Rock and Redfish Rocks. But… it would allow recreational crabbing in an area known as the Redfish Rocks Marine Protected Area. The MPA is much larger than the reserve.

You can read ODFW’s draft rules at this link: (Opens a PDF file)
http://www.oregonmarinereserves.net/images/mr_odfw_draft_rules_10-2-09.pdf

The environmental community has a habit of failing to distinguish recreational fishing from commercial fishing. This is a shame. With a slight change of policy the recreational fishing community would fight side by side with the environmental community. Instead we are treated as adversaries and destroyers of the resource.