Will seafood nets be empty? Grim outlook draws skeptics

[Barrett808]

Will seafood nets be empty? Grim outlook draws skeptics
By Hal Bernton
Seattle Times staff reporter

Global fishing trends point to a collapse of most wild seafood harvests by midcentury, according to a team of international researchers who pored through historical data, catch records and studies to document the decline of marine species all over the world.

The researchers found that harvests of nearly 30 percent of commercial seafood species already have collapsed. Without major changes in fisheries management, they say, the trend will accelerate.

"It looks grim, and the projections into the future are even grimmer," said Boris Worm, a marine biologist and a lead author in the peer-reviewed study, which was published today in the journal Science.

But other scientists question that forecast.

"It's just mind-boggling stupid," said Ray Hilborn, a University of Washington professor of aquatic and fishery sciences.

"I'm worried about some areas of the world — like Africa — but other areas of the world have figured out how to do effective fishery management."

(more)

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003340489_seafood03m.html

[jobycom]

1. Seems like this points to bigger problems than a loss of shrimp cocktails

Same reporters might ask "Will Earth's destruction by asteroid affect the next episode of Survivor?"

[jpak]

2. Gee...what happened to Newfoundland's cod fishery????

and what's happening to the North Sea Cod fishery???

and Atlantic Basin Blue Fin Tuna stocks???

and wild Atlantic Salmon stocks???

and Orange Roughy stocks???

and Antarctic Toothfish ("Chilean Sea Bass") stocks???

and eastern (North American) Pacific salmon????

and Gulf of Maine alewife and herring stocks???

nevermind...

[brentspeak]

4. They've all dwindled

Thanks for mentioning those. Over-fishing is a genuine issue.

[Vogon_Glory]

6. The Bushies Would Call You UnAmerican For

The Bushies and the rest of the Rethuglican Party would call you unAmerican for questioning their wise stewardship of America's fisheries. :sarcasm:

[One_Life_To_Give]

11. They call me unamerican for

not gleefully accepting the collapse of what remains of the fishing industry. While the big factory ships proceed unchecked.

[modrepub]

8. don't forget

the american shad

the american sturgeon

atlantic salmon

and another species the passenger pigeon (4 in 10 North American birds picked at random would have been this species, now gone and all but forgotten)

[MrPrax]

3. effective fishery management?

Right...like salmon fish farms in the Pacific Northwest...



'No debate' that fish farms kill wild salmon, says B.C. scientist

There's no question that sea lice from salmon farms kill wild salmon, says one of B.C.'s leading critics of open-net fish farming.

Marine ecologist Dr. John Volpe of the University of Victoria told the legislature's sustainable aquaculture committee on Thursday that the science is clear, the results have been vetted and the conclusions are not in doubt.

"The independent scientific community speaks with a single voice with regards to sea lice and their impact on wild salmon. Salmon farms kill wild salmon. There's no debate around that. It's been known and acknowledged in Europe for more than a decade."

Volpe and a team of other researchers published a paper a couple of weeks ago that says sea lice from fish farms kill up to 95 per cent of juvenile salmon that pass by.

CBC

[Parche]

5. fishy

Oh my cod,
Holy Mackarel, this sounds really bad, so the fisherman in the US cannot use their
nets just for the halibut, but they have to do it on porpoise?
I dont want to be a crab about this subject, but this would peeve most people off, what if
they flounder and cant catch anything in 5years?
I really hate to carp on this but we need to stop overfishing the oceans, some of those
that do that are hard of herring, and dont get it.
So we need to put them back in their plaice......
All this talk about fish is giving me a haddock......

[ldf]

7. cute.

:sarcasm:

it seems that our choices are either eat wild fish, that have grown in the polluted garbage dumps that are our oceans, or eat farm fish, which are rapidly becoming the equivalent of genetically modified crops.

or eat no fish at all.

or eat no meat at all, since it is all full of hormones and steroids.

i suppose that we could hunt our own meat, meat that has lived by drinking polluted waters, eating foliage covered with chemical rains, or by eating other animals that eat the same.

or eat no vegetables at since it has all been modified at a genetic level.

what is left???

edit for spelling

[Judi Lynn]

9. Trash is killing other sea life which somehow escapes the nets .........

Plastic trash vortex menaces Pacific sealife: study
Sun Nov 5, 2006 11:56am ET

By Deborah Zabarenko, Environment Correspondent

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Old toothbrushes, beach toys and used condoms are part of a vast vortex of plastic trash in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, threatening sea creatures that get tangled in it, eat it or ride on it, a new report says.

Because plastic doesn't break down the way organic material does, ocean currents and tides have carried it thousands of miles (kms) to an area between Hawaii and the U.S. West Coast, according to the study by the international environmental group Greenpeace.

This swirling vortex, which can grow to be about the size of Texas, is not far from the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, designated as a protected U.S. national monument in June by President George W. Bush.

The Greenpeace report, "Plastic Debris in the World's Oceans" said at least 267 species -- including seabirds, turtles, seals, sea lions, whales and fish -- are known to have suffered from entanglement or ingestion of marine debris.
(snip/...)

http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=scienceNews&storyID=2006-11-05T165618Z_01_N05174536_RTRUKOC_0_US-ENVIRONMENT-PLASTIC.xml&WTmodLoc=NewsHome-C3-scienceNews-2

[Barrett808]

10. And ocean acidification, and anoxic eutrophication zones...

...and increasing temperatures...