Dr. Ellen Pikitch:

It is hard to count fish because one cannot see them and they do not stay still. It is not like counting trees in the forest. It has always been a difficult thing to do. I am not sure it is any more difficult to count the number of forage fish as it is to count the number of any other kind of fish in the sea. It is a similar problem with which fisheries scientists and managers deal all the time. There are many ways to do it and we have techniques. I do not know if that is a very satisfactory answer, but I do not think it is an extra special problem in the case of forage fish. Fisheries management requires that one knows something about how many fish are in the sea. Is that fair?