Apparently it made sense to the lobster fishermen. If the price of bait went up enough, then it wouldn't anymore. Or if using mackerel and herring as bait became illegal, it definitely wouldn't make sense.
Each poacher who kills an african elephant for the ivory is paid handsomely, and individually it perhaps makes sense to them, but it's illegal because the externality is that the african elephant would go extinct if we treated this purely as a market where "if someone will pay for ivory, that justifies it".
The health of the planet is usually not able to be factored into market economics.
Laws intervene, but ideally we would recognize the externalities and adjust our behavior _before_ laws come into play. We shouldn't have to wait on the law to limit carbon emissions to recognize that destroying the planet, even if it gives us more dollars in our lifetime, is a move that does not make sense for humanity as a whole.
I think the framing of the article is that this inefficient use of resources makes less sense from an externalities perspective, and you're saying that it makes perfect sense from an economic perspective.
I explicitly said regulations might be appropriate, and since fishing is already heavily regulated, it needn't require a revolution in consciousness to extend it to baitfish.
This is unlike the ivory example, where the externality is an entire species going extinct.
Because [1] says that mackerel are of "least concern."
> Despite its highly commercial status, the Atlantic mackerel is listed as Least Concern by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and global catch has remained sustainable.
Now, for herring: [2]'s most recent date was 2010. However, Google says:
"Is herring being overfished? Image result for are herring going extinct Population Status. According to the 2022 stock assessment, Atlantic herring is overfished, but not subject to overfishing. Summary stock assessment information can be found on Stock SMART. Herring populations are naturally highly variable."
[3] says "U.S. wild-caught Atlantic herring is a smart seafood choice because it is sustainably managed and responsibly harvested under U.S. regulations."
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_mackerel
But OK, I went back and reread it. I found one unsupported statement:
"But Atlantic mackerel and some populations of Atlantic herring have dropped to a fraction of their former levels. Many stocks are now in the critical zone—meaning that serious harm is likely occurring to the stock—and in some cases, have been that way for decades."
And yet, I cited some authoritative data from agencies that are in a position to know. Those agencies say the species are not endangered.
So I think it's your move.
Raise the prices of the baitfish, or outlaw using them. Do you have another method?
Turning less tasty food into tastier food at a 2:1 ratio honestly does not seem all that terrible in the big picture.
They’re expensive largely because of the infrastructure required to keep them from going bad.
That bait (herring) is food to a whole lot of people. It has been overfished to support lobster farming, it was taken at cost from the commons to develop a food that few can consume.