New York Times
Scientific American
I know you’re out there, maybe not so many on these boards, but you’re out there.
We’re too busy celebrating the impending demise of anchovies on pizza.
ComeToTheDarkSideWeHaveCookies: I could not agree more. We desperately need to not only curtail fishing to sustainable levels but also actively use Navy/Coast Guard Forces to guard against foreign violations of our fisheries. Of course, the First step is to work out a joint protection act with Canada that satisfies both equal partners. This is one of a dozen environmental problems that should not be continually ignored by the powers that be.
Jim
I was reading a disturbing article yesterday on the BBC website. Like Newfoundland 14 years ago, the North Sea cod population is on the verge of collapse. What researchers found was that when cod stocks are threatened, the remaining cod tend to congregate together. It gives the false impression that there are still lots of them around. In 1992, just before the Newfoundland collapse they had their largest catch of cod on record.
“Hey! Fishing has been our way of life for generations in these parts*. And there are still plenty of fish out there. Just look at the haul from my last trip.”
*State of Denial
Well, I do my part by pretty much refusing to eat seafood…cause it’s nasty.
Actually, I’m one of those who you are pitting. I’m very skeptical of the assumptions being made by the study when they refer to the extrapolated trend.
To paraphrase someone I saw on another board, “If my weight gain trend continues, when I’m 65 I’ll weigh 2 tons!”
Yes, overfishing is a serious problem, and I am a staunch dyed-in-the-hemp environmentalist, but the claims that this study is making seem more like an abuse of statistical methods, instead of an abuse of the oceans.
The fish thank you. Expect many to take up residence in your home, hiding from me. I eat lots of seafood…cause it’s yummy.
It’s a problem, certainly, but not the most important environmental problem we face by a long shot.
It seems that the worst thing that will happen from depleted fisheries is the extinction of a few species of fish and the disruption of local economies dedicated to fishing. Food supplies in general are not threatened, and even if certain fish are all killed in the wild (which I think is unlikely. Most of them will just fall below the point where it’s economical to fish for them), many of them are kept around in aquaria, and can be reintroduced in the future, once we get some fishing protection mechanism in place.
Compare the impact of depleted fisheries to global climate change, aquifer depletion, or persistent environmental pollutants, all of which can potentially seriously impact the global food supply and render areas largely uninhabitable.
That pretty much absolves you from my ire. 
It was indeed a minimalist drive-by pitting OP hastily thrown out in the last few minutes at a hotspot before running to catch a train. My use of the “?” was intended to communicate that I was somewhate dubious about the extrapolated date.
There’s plenty included in the articles that I interperet as dire that was not extrapolated.
I just don’t have much faith in the timely appearance of a “big chunk of political will” or a timely paradigm shift of the general public when it comes to the world’s oceans.
Well, we might as well eat 'em all before they die from the effects of Global Warming on ocean temperatures.
So I should sell my stock in Long John Silver’s?
I think it is the ocean ecosystem, not fisheries, that is in danger of collapsing. Not the same thing.
I read the story as well-I see aquaculture as the solution. We should be able to raise fish, just like cattle. Are there any big players in the business?
Ironically, those are called fisheries.
Pssst. Someone. Anyone. Is it just me?
From Dictionary.com…
Bolding mine.
Aquaculture is already extremely big in the business. One third of all the fish and seafood consumed worldwide are farmed, i.e., produced by aquaculture.
One trouble with many forms of aquaculture, as in the cases of shrimp and salmon farming, is that the frenzy to provide a cheaper and more abundant product is having some very negative effects on the environment. The intensively farmed critters, being kept in close quarters in coastal or freshwater ponds that rapidly accumulate waste, are vulnerable to large-scale infections with bacteria and viruses. So lots of aquafarmers douse them with antibiotics, pesticides, and other chemicals that aren’t good for the surrounding wildlife or the people who eat the fish.
Unfortunately, aquaculture isn’t some miracle cure that’s just waiting for some clever entrepreneurs to implement it to rescue us from the consequences of our overfishing. Aquaculture is already being practiced on a large scale, and although it does produce a lot of fish, not only has it not eliminated the dangerous stress on wild fish stocks, it’s causing some additional problems of its own via pollution and habitat destruction.
When the United States was just a scattered set of towns, not even colonies yet, ships from France and other places in Europe used to come fish the Atlantic near the shores of North America. Sometimes the fish were so thick that ships literally could not pass through them, and were impeded. They scooped fish out by the tons, salted them down, and took them back to Europe.
Of course it’s not like that now. I can’t imagine it ever will be, again.
I’m not sure what’s to be done about it, unfortunately. You can’t tell every fisherman in the world “You can’t fish anymore, I’m sorry if your family will starve, if you can’t find another job because fishing is all you know, if you can’t even sell your family fishing boat because there’s no market for fishing boats.” In theory, if you did that…in a hundred years, or maybe even fifty, you could have a very great recovery of many if not most species. But it can’t happen.
What if it were made illegal to fish for…fish for fertilizer? That would hurt a subset of commercial fishermen, but by no means most of them. Would that help a little?
What percentage of fish sent to grocery stores is eventually discarded due to non-purchase and non-consumption? What if the price of fish were raised by that percentage, and that many fewer fish caught, killed?
Thanks, that makes a bit more sense. Definition one is exactly what I was referring to. Definition two makes a little more sense in your OP, though I would still stress that the article is about the entire ecosystem not just the areas where fish are caught.
Not all of the experts agree with that study’s findings:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003340489_seafood03m.html