I have heard that the world will be completely out of fish in the 2040’s. How likely is this to happen? Is it just scaremongering, or will we really see the day where we can’t get seafood anywhere?
All seafood? No, it doesn’t work that way. The oceans are too big for mankind to kill off every species of fish and crustacean in 30 years. Many of the most popular types of seafood are also farmed so their supply is limited only by current economics and the price. There are many species that are currently threatened by overfishing at unsustainable levels but that doesn’t mean that they will ever be gone completely. The most likely scenario for popular seafoods like shrimp is that the price will rise to keep the demand in control enough so that they aren’t ever taken completely off the menu. This isn’t to say that some species won’t be overfished to the point of near extinction. Mankind is perfectly capable of that too especially with rising global wealth and a predicted world population about 50% higher than it is now this century but there are feedback processes that help to keep these things in check overall.
For example, lobsters are one of the more desirable seafoods and they are abundant supply with a huge oversupply in some recent years. Salmon, trout, catfish, oysters, crawfish (freshwater I know but still generally considered ‘seafood’) and even shrimp are already farmed so the supply will increase if the wild caught price goes higher.
Having seen how reckless people can be with highly desired resources like food and medicine components, I’m a bit less sanguine than Shagnasty.
Overfishing has done localized damage to fish stocks for centuries. But rising human populations raise demand enough to make fishing still worth it all the way to extinction.
It could be very rough.
Wild fish in 2040 may well be as rare as a food source as are wild deer in Europe or the US today. Yes, some hunters eat a few deer every year. But compared to the farmed animals, the total current consumption of deer is a rounding error in the statistics. And it’s pretty clear that if tomorrow the US decided to eat only wild-caught deer instead of farmed beef cattle, the entire deer population would be eaten in a week at most.
And unless something changes, we’re heading that way for wild fish & seafood.
So as **Shag **said, as a wild fish species become less available, the price will go up. Waaaay up. And in response, we’ll switch to wild-catching something else. Until there is no something else to pick from. And species which can be farmed will be farmed. And sold for some price.
If the process happens slowly enough there will be disruptions and lots of whining but the economic systems will cope. If it happens very abruptly it could mean starvation for fishing populations, and $30/lb. cod for us comfy First World types.
Global warming is helping out for some species of fish. The Arctic Ocean already has increasing numbers of some cold water fish. It will take regulation of many species to supply the world with the desired amount of seafood. Prices have been on the rise for a while in general, and there’s no reason to think that will change as the demand continues to increase and supply diminishes.
The problem is not just over-fishing, there’s also pollution, and while some species will benefit from warming polar waters others may lose their environment altogether.
We may very well drive the species we eat regularly to extinction but there will still be shitloads of fish in the oceans. The oceans are a huge place.
“Seafood” in the sense of affordable and desirable fish for most people to eat is in danger, but the idea that we could strip the oceans bare of fish is highly unlikely.
No.
If seafood becomes more scarce, seafood will get more expensive. As seafood gets more expensive, people will eat less and turn to alternatives.
That assumes a static population, which we don’t have.
ETA: And the freedom to choose as a rational actor to starve, which is where idealistic market economics breaks down.
Yes, that worked out so well for the New England Sea Mink and the Passenger Pigeon, both of which are now extinct.
Works as a “just-so” story, less in real life. No, not ALL species of edible seafood will go extinct, but we could (and have) drive many of the preferred edible species to extinction through a combination of overfishing and environment (pollution, warming, etc).
Example (though not even of seafood) is the American Bison, which didn’t go all the way extinct but came pretty darned close. It didn’t make a resurgence due to rising cost driving people to alternatives but due to heavy handed preservation efforts, initially by private citizens who worried they’d go entirely extinct.
It is almost impossible to show that any given fish species has gone extinct. What happens is that the population drops low enough that it suddenly crashes, that is there are too few remaining fish to find each other or to create schools which protect the fish from predators. The population then bumps along at a very low level for many years. A particularly good year allows the population to start to grow again, if that happens the population stands a chance of recovering. Of course if a bad year follows too soon, or if the fishermen follow too soon, back to the bottom again.
Modern fishing techniques mean that large-scale fishing can (and probably will) do this to just about every fishery stock in the ocean. The fast breeders near the surface have mostly been wiped out. The deeper stocks (think rat fish), are attracting attention, but they breed so slowly that it will only take a few years to wipe them out.
Of course we will always have fish. Farm raised fish is 2/3s of the fish I see at the local supermarket now. The “wild caught” fish are $15-20/lb and up. Soon the catfish and farm raised salmon will be the only fish one can find on a regular basis.
Where did you hear this. Link to a cite/site?
Before we run out of fish they would become very rare and very expensive, cutting way down on the market that can afford them. They will survive.
Yes! This worked extremely well for the Steller’s sea cow, which was hunted to extinction in the 18th century.
Ridiculous. I understand there’s a new type of algae (technically ‘seafood’) that can be grown at little cost. In fact warming oceans will probably drive down the price of this algae.
Can’t remember the name…soylent…something…
You’re talking about a single species with a limited environment.
Making the comparison to fish, which are 10’s of thousands of species with vast and widely varied habitats, many almost unapproachable by people is just pointless.
For instance, the Irish could survive by eating potatoes.
- What I’m pointing out is that this sort of econ 101 statement of how markets work is wrong. You cannot claim that a species will be safe from extinction simply because the cost will go up as the numbers dwindle. That’s simply not true.
Now, if these posters want to actually point to some economic papers or theories of how the fish market works specifically, I’m all ears. But it’s pretty clear that they haven’t really delved into the issue.
- The OP has indicated he’s asking about 2 different things: seafood and fish. Those have overlap, but they aren’t the same thing. So, if we are talking about seafood, then we’re talking about food that humans currently consume. Not fish swimming 10,000 feet below sea level. If we’re talking about all fish everywhere, then okay, feel free to point out that there’s a bunch of fish we can’t reach (like that’s some big revelation). But then there’s no point in making these econ 101 arguments, because there’s no market for fish we can’t reach.
The only one making pointless arguments are the people I responded to.
I’m getting tired of these econ lectures by people who don’t know anything about economics.
BrightNShiny, If Morgenstern has said “Trout” or “Salmon” you might have a point. We could certainly exterminate a species.
But He didn’t. He said “fish” and he’s correct, as fishing becomes less productive the price will rise drastically and will eventually not be viable on any kind of commercial scale and people will turn elsewhere.
Meanwhile the oceans will have plenty of fish.
Nope, and it’s clear you don’t understand the argument I was making. You’ve decided to argue against something else. I have pointed out that you cannot simply state that extinction will be avoided because demand will drop as prices will rise, and that is a correct statement, and I have given examples of how it is correct. If you or he want to make an argument in non-economic terms or more generalized terms, be my guest, but stop misinforming people about how supply-demand curves work. You’ll notice I didn’t take exception to the arguments about commercial fish farming.
But, fine. Let’s do this.
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Morgensteen is positing that fish follow a very specific supply-demand curve. Now, it is true that most goods and services do follow this type of curve, but plenty don’t. What is your basis for believing that consumable fish generally follow this type of curve? I suspect that the supply-demand curve is not quite this simplistic, because fish are probably prone to substitution effects (which is a point in his argument’s favor). On the other hand, since many fishing operations catch multiple species of fish together, I suspect that fish don’t quite follow this type of S-D curve. So, Zoid, please tell us what type of S-D curve fish follow, how you arrived at this conclusion, and what sort of data you have to back it up.
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What we are concerned about here when we are talking about something like fisheries collapse or species extinction is whether the demand is still high enough to cause collapse or extinction. Simply stating that the price will go up does nothing to answer the issue. What we’re concerned about is whether or not the price will become so high or demand will become so low that collapse or extinction is avoided. Demand might still be high enough to cause extinction even with high prices. So, tell me Zoid, the methodology you have used to calculate the price at various points on the S-D curve, and how you have determined that the price will be high enough and demand will be low enough so that this sort of collapse doesn’t occur. Please point me to the data you are looking at to ensure that this is the case. You have simply stated by fiat that the price will definitely be high enough and demand will definitely be low enough without providing any evidence of it. Now, while I can be convinced that this is probably true, I’m going to need more than just your say-so.
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Obviously, species don’t go extinct solely because of direct human consumption. They sometimes go extinct because of loss of environment, pollution, disease, introduction of non-native species, etc. And many of those things may not show up directly in the market’s S-D curve. So, please tell me how you took into account all of these other factors when examining the S-D curve for consumable fish.