Study: Edible Fish Gone by 2048

The Grim Squeaker · Post by **The Grim Squeaker** » 2006-11-04 06:27am

Study: Edible Fish Gone by 2048

A new study claims fish populations are dwindling at an abysmal rate

A study published recently by the National Center of Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS), at University California and UC Santa Barbara, indicates an accelerating loss of biodiversity in the world's oceans with largely unknown consequences.
Possible outcomes include an inability of the oceans to produce enough seafood to feed a growing human population, a decrease in the pollution-filtering ability of the oceans, which would result in poor water quality, and an increase in exposure to diseases, i.e. from poisonous algae species.

The study, published November 3 in Science, is the result of a comprehensive four-year research investigation.
Scientists utilized a variety of research methods and data archives to see how the loss of biodiversity affects marine ecosystems. Analyzed data include four-decades of fishery information from the United Nations, observational studies of protected marine areas and core samples spanning 1000 years.
In addition, over thirty controlled experiments were conducted. Scientists found that a decrease in oceanic biodiversity exponentially decreased water quality, rates of resource collapse, and potential for ecological recovery.

Furthermore, the scientists project a collapse, or 90-percent depletion, of all seafood types currently harvested by the year 2050.
Fortunately, scientists believe the oceans might still be able to recover. They found that in areas where biodiversity was restored, productivity was increased fourfold. Behaviors associated with a loss of biodiversity include over-fishing, damage to coastal and aquatic habitats and warmer temperatures associated with global warming.

linky

Interesting if not too surprising (I've heard and seen a lot of evidence as to the massive overfishing, especially in Europe's vicinity in a number of articles and I've talked about it with a few sailors in Turkey [We were told why there were such tiny fishes when we asked about fishing from our boat])

Shroom Man 777 · Post by **Shroom Man 777** » 2006-11-04 11:09am

Just looking at the vast quantities of fish in my local grocery store and realizing that the world of chock full of grocery stores just as full of fish, or even more so, makes it no surprise that we can't sustain our fish consumption.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2006-11-04 11:10am

People have to pay the price for overusing a natural resource before they recognize that the price is real. It took us thousands of years to figure out that you can't just abuse agricultural land and expect agro-yields to stay high. People are just stubborn in their short-sightedness.

Shroom Man 777 · Post by **Shroom Man 777** » 2006-11-04 11:15am

You know what this means? We gotta eat all the fish we can before it runs out!

aerius · Post by **aerius** » 2006-11-04 11:21am

There's always fish farming.

Lord Zentei · Post by **Lord Zentei** » 2006-11-04 11:21am

Shroom Man 777 wrote:Just looking at the vast quantities of fish in my local grocery store and realizing that the world of chock full of grocery stores just as full of fish, or even more so, makes it no surprise that we can't sustain our fish consumption.

Er, that's not much of an argument, you know. Would you argue that we cannot sustain our wheat consumption for that same reason?

The real news is in the retarded management of fishing resources of the leading economic powers.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2006-11-04 11:24am

This is an area where the Europeans are totally irresponsible; not only do they overfish their own stocks, but they come all the way to our side of the Atlantic and try to take our fish stocks too.

Lord Zentei · Post by **Lord Zentei** » 2006-11-04 11:31am

Darth Wong wrote:This is an area where the Europeans are totally irresponsible; not only do they overfish their own stocks, but they come all the way to our side of the Atlantic and try to take our fish stocks too.

Yeah, tell me about it. They keep bitching about Iceland not wanting to "share" its fish after they devastated their own stocks. They then point to the fact that we get to trade with them via the EEA agreement whereas those who join the EU outright have to hand over their fishing management to the morons in Brussels and that this is "not fair".

They even go as far as saying that we benefit from gaining trade with eastern European countries since they joined the EU, while in truth we had negociated trade agreements with them before that ourselves.

The Grim Squeaker · Post by **The Grim Squeaker** » 2006-11-04 12:55pm

Lord Zentei wrote:
Shroom Man 777 wrote:Just looking at the vast quantities of fish in my local grocery store and realizing that the world of chock full of grocery stores just as full of fish, or even more so, makes it no surprise that we can't sustain our fish consumption.
Er, that's not much of an argument, you know. Would you argue that we cannot sustain our wheat consumption for that same reason?

The real news is in the retarded management of fishing resources of the leading economic powers.

Yup, just look at how Australia handled it -
Licenses for the lobster farming, so that the farming levels remain sustainable and the licenses have massively increased in value over the years.

Aerius wrote:There's always fish farming.

Fish farming is an option (I know 2 people investing in it and 2 who have one) but it requires a good location (Not that much of a problem, though pools vs free flowing water have a variety of pro and cons that would be OP

)) but theres the large chance of the fish getting wiped out in a disease, and theres the issue of licenses/legalities (That can be dealt with since as far as I know the fishermen lack a powerful oil lobby

).
One of the secondary main issues is that not all fish are suited for fish farming due to long lifespans, or low breeding rates, so that we'd see far less variety.

In addition theres the problem of quantity, the sea is BIG and the fish in the quantites the world devours today take up a lot of space and food (supplying the sustenance needed for the fish artificially will be costly, and some need kelp/algea which requires space to grow, you can't just throw some of the "foods" into the tank)

Stofsk · Post by **Stofsk** » 2006-11-04 01:04pm

The whole notion of overfishing is bizarre to me, because the oceans are so vast.

Fiji_Fury · Post by **Fiji_Fury** » 2006-11-04 01:15pm

Stofsk: I agree with you. It seems beyond comprehension. I think that's part of the problem though. Humans are just consuming so much, that even the vast reserves of the oceans are being devoured, and we have a hard time believing it.

The most damnable part of the situation is that national efforts to protect fisheries are of limited usefulness. Take Canada for example: in Canadian waters there are some limits in place (needs to be more I would venture a guess), but fish don't look at the map and stay within man-made boundaries. They swim into international waters and then are fair game for everyone (Europeans, North Americans etc).

Lord Zentei · Post by **Lord Zentei** » 2006-11-04 01:18pm

Fun fact: most of the fish cluster around the continental shelves.

IIRC.

salm · Post by **salm** » 2006-11-04 01:22pm

Does anybody know why there aren´t more fish farms? Are they so expensive that fishing in the ocean is simply more reasonable on a financial basis?

Wyrm · Post by **Wyrm** » 2006-11-04 01:38pm

salm wrote:Does anybody know why there aren´t more fish farms? Are they so expensive that fishing in the ocean is simply more reasonable on a financial basis?

Eventually, it'll get to the point where fish farms give you more fish per buck, in operational cost. Remember, if fish gets rarer, you have to put on more miles to get them. More miles on your trawler means burning more diesel, and remember which direction the cost of petrolium products is going.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2006-11-04 01:53pm

Fish-farm fish have higher levels of certain heavy metals for some reason, and they're generally considered less healthy and tasty. Probably because of the way they breed them (if you've ever been to one, you'll understand; they're trapped in overcrowded tanks full of cloudy water filled with their own waste products). There's a reason why people tend to prefer ocean fish. Just ask yourself how appetizing it is to think that the fish you're eating has probably ingested a considerable amount of its own feces.

ThatGuyFromThatPlace · Post by **ThatGuyFromThatPlace** » 2006-11-04 02:07pm

couldn't they circulate/otherwise refresh the water to prevent that? seems like it would be easy enough to do.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2006-11-04 02:14pm

ThatGuyFromThatPlace wrote:couldn't they circulate/otherwise refresh the water to prevent that? seems like it would be easy enough to do.

And how would that make their operation more profitable, when the vast majority of the population isn't even aware of the problem? Did anybody here point that out before I did? The only reason I know about it is because I've been to a fish farm; how many people can say that?

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2006-11-04 02:17pm

What Canada needs is those two aircraft carriers Harper promised and a huge coast guard. Then we could zoom them around, one on the west cost and one on the east cost. Fuck the UN Law of the Sea, we will protect our water whenever we want, 1 km away from the boundary doesn't make you eurotrash safe from our marines if you're taking our fish. And of course we need submarines that can go under arctic ice, so we can torpedo US and Russian subs violating our sovereignty.

Sigh, one can only hope

.

If deep sea trawling is banned and strict controls are placed on fishing recovery happens in three to five years, at most ten years according to the scientists, so that's good news. But unfortunately, likely the public will not get riled up about it until the last minute and fish might hit a point of no return.

salm · Post by **salm** » 2006-11-04 02:22pm

ThatGuyFromThatPlace wrote:couldn't they circulate/otherwise refresh the water to prevent that? seems like it would be easy enough to do.

They actually do that. At least for some fish. Other fish don´t like flowing water.

Aaron · Post by **Aaron** » 2006-11-04 02:23pm

brianeyci wrote:What Canada needs is those two aircraft carriers Harper promised and a huge coast guard. Then we could zoom them around, one on the west cost and one on the east cost. Fuck the UN Law of the Sea, we will protect our water whenever we want, 1 km away from the boundary doesn't make you eurotrash safe from our marines if you're taking our fish. And of course we need submarines that can go under arctic ice, so we can torpedo US and Russian subs violating our sovereignty.

Sigh, one can only hope .

Yeah the aircraft carriers, fuck was he ever talking out his ass on that one. The last time we had a carrier, the Bonaventure. She consumed 75% of the Navy's budget. We can't afford that kind of shit without a massive increase in funding. I'm talking like another 10 billion dollars just for the navy. That might buy us one carrier and operate her and her air wing for a year.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2006-11-04 02:25pm

salm wrote:
ThatGuyFromThatPlace wrote:couldn't they circulate/otherwise refresh the water to prevent that? seems like it would be easy enough to do.
They actually do that. At least for some fish. Other fish don´t like flowing water.

The place I saw had water circulation and filtering. It's a question of how much you do; in their case, it clearly wasn't enough to remove the shit from the water. And you would not believe the stench. It was simply unreal.

Aaron · Post by **Aaron** » 2006-11-04 02:28pm

Darth Wong wrote: And how would that make their operation more profitable, when the vast majority of the population isn't even aware of the problem? Did anybody here point that out before I did? The only reason I know about it is because I've been to a fish farm; how many people can say that?

I've seen fish farms on the West Coast where they raise salmon in fenced offed areas just into the ocean. But the fish are literally packed into the pens like sardines and I seem to remember reading that they are really prone to disease.

Frank Hipper · Post by **Frank Hipper** » 2006-11-04 02:29pm

This is the first time I've ever seen a date placed on near-total depletion, but I've been hearing about this potential catastrophe for some time.

Europe is hardly the worst offender, either; Asian seine net fleets are literally sweeping the Pacific clean, and throwing a majority of what they catch away. Not everything is edible, or preferable.

Spin Echo · Post by **Spin Echo** » 2006-11-04 02:34pm

ThatGuyFromThatPlace wrote:couldn't they circulate/otherwise refresh the water to prevent that? seems like it would be easy enough to do.

They've opened up a salmon farm in the fjord where the other half grew up. The tides and ocean currents should help circulate water through the pens. However, I did not get close enough to tell how tightly packed the fish were. Part of the reason the wild fish tastes better is because they can swim around and thus are leaner; farmed fish tends to be fattier because they can't move as much.

Majin Gojira · Post by **Majin Gojira** » 2006-11-04 02:39pm

I while back I remember reading about an experminetal process of fish farming in the open ocean--where the currents and dept take care of all the waste--and create little colonies of fun stuff deep underwater.