No one is saying "all the popular fish species are being fished to extinction." No one. However, the recreational catch of striped bass is down something like 60% over the last few years.

As a trustee, I have run into mindlessness on the part of Fish and Game and EPA authorities on a number of occasions.

I'd guess you were involved in fresh water issues. Saltwater is another story, mainly because the money involved is immense, from both a recreational and commercial standpoint.

As for scallops, I know little. However, I am extremely doubtful of those who make money off fisheries resources saying killing things makes more of those things. With regard to striped bass, I assure you that killing them does not result in larger populations. Populations are largely the result of spawning success in the upper Chesapeake Bay beginning as early as February, and measured each year as the Young-of-Year Index sometime in late spring or summer.

I follow this stuff fairly closely. Back in the 80s I sued the State of Maryland using Maryland's own Endangered Species Act to have all fishing for shad stopped based on the catastrophic decline in the population as evidenced by the state's own surveys. I won, despite the State initially saying the Act did not allow fisheries managers to close the season. As a result, the fishery was closed. It remains totally closed TODAY, some 30 years or so later. I should say the species won. In my case the bureaucrats were in the pocket of the commercial fishing lobby; they certainly were not protecting the species, and protecting the species is the primary charge of any fish and wildlife agency.

Not long afterwards, the state used the same Endangered Species Act, the act they initially told me they could not use on shad, to close the striped bass season. They called it a moratorium for political purposes, and no recreational or commercial striped bass fishing was allowed for five years. The species rebounded.

I'm a strong believer in a simple conservation method -- if a species is in trouble you stop killing them.

From the Boston Globe:

Opinions differ as to why, but by every measure the population of striped bass is in sharp decline. In just five years between 2006 and 2011 the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration reports that the recreational catch of striped bass in Massachusetts plummeted by 85 percent!

Then there is disease. Lesions on striped bass.  The Maryland Department of Natural Resources (DNR) and Maryland Department of  Agriculture's Animal Health Laboratory at College Park first diagnosed  mycobacteriosis in the Chesapeake Bay in 1997. This prompted a Bay-wide striped  bass health assessment survey that continues today.

The state says this about the lesions,"Fish handler's disease is the human form of mycobacteriosis. It is contracted  through direct contact with infected fish or water. Infections in human are generally limited to the extremities such as fingertips  and feet, but may involve the joints, bones and lymph nodes. Individuals with  cuts or scrapes are at higher risk for infection. The most frequent symptom is  the formation of a persistent bump or nodule under the skin. Additional symptoms  may include the formation of ulcers, swelling of lymph nodes and joint pain.  This disease can be treated with antibiotics. " 60% of striped bass are infected.

This from the Chesapeake Bay Foundation on Feb 19, 2015:

HEALTH OF STRIPED BASS IN THE CHESAPEAKE QUESTIONED

The Chesapeake Bay Ecological Foundation, Inc. has requested assistance from the United States Fish and Wildlife Service to help investigate the diseased striped bass problem in the Chesapeake Bay region.

Two conferences have been held, one at the USFWS Office in Annapolis MD, and the other at the Maryland Department of Natural Resources Cooperative Laboratory, Oxford MD. Following the conferences, CBEF presented data compiled on striped bass lesions and the declining forage base in the Chesapeake Bay to the Living Resources Subcommittee Work Group for the Chesapeake Bay Program. MD-DNR has classified the external lesions on striped bass as Ulcerative Dermatitis Syndrome. According to published scientific literature, some of the causes of ulcerative dermatitis are environmental stressors, such as high temperature, and nutrient loading of inshore waters, coupled with fish that are in poor nutritional condition.

Due to the high percentage of adult striped bass that are in poor nutritional condition in the Chesapeake Bay, there is a growing concern about the declining forage base, primarily Atlantic menhaden. MD-DNR Juvenile Finfish Survey data shows the average geometric mean from 1993 to 1997 for Age-0 Atlantic menhaden has declined 84% since 1990. Also, the catch-per-unit effort for Atlantic menhaden in Maryland pound nets has decreased 90% since 1981 and Virginia’s pound net landings have declined 86% since 1977. During the 1997 summer and fall season, approximately 10% of the striped bass over 18" were exhibiting visual external lesions in Maryland’s portion of the Chesapeake Bay. Over 70% of the striped bass that were examined in one survey had very little fat in the body cavity and were in poor nutritional condition.

The stomach contents of the striped bass that were examined also indicated a change in their diet from Atlantic menhaden to grass shrimp, sand shrimp, white perch, blue crab, bay anchovy, and spot, during the fall of 1997 when Atlantic menhaden should have dominated their diet, based on the latest scientific study on striped bass conducted by Kyle J. Hartman and Stephen B. Brandt in the Chesapeake Bay from 1990 to 1992. We need to determine if the decline in Atlantic menhaden utilizing the Chesapeake Bay has contributed to the poor health of the adult striped bass population in the bay.

Striped bass with lesions and bacterial infections exhibiting signs of being undernourished have been observed as far north as Rhode Island. Research is needed to determine if we have reached the point where the declining menhaden stock is inadequate to supply the growing numbers of striped bass in the Chesapeake Bay and along the Atlantic coast and what impact the diseased striped bass migrating out of the Chesapeake Bay are having on the entire Atlantic coastal population of striped bass.

Poor recruitment of Atlantic menhaden in recent years, coupled with increased exploitation rates, have dramatically reduced the Atlantic menhaden population. The 1997 estimated Atlantic menhaden population has continued to decline and is currently near it’s historically lowest level on record, according to data obtained from the National Marine Fisheries Service.

A workshop to investigate living resources and water quality monitoring data, that are showing declining or degrading trends in the Chesapeake Bay, is being sponsored by the Science and Technical Advisory Committee of the Chesapeake Bay Program on July 8 & 9, 1998. CBEF has requested that striped bass be given special attention, and be considered as a target species to be studied under the current USFWS National Wildfish Health Survey.