Posted on 02/19/2002 8:48:58 AM PST by cogitator
High Tech Methods Decimating Fish Populations
BOSTON, Massachusetts, February 18, 2002 (ENS) - New fishing methods based on military technology are accelerating the decline of commercial fish populations, a new study suggests. Despite increased fishing efforts, catches continue to decline in the North Atlantic and other prime U.S. fishing grounds, shows research detailed this week at a scientific conference in Boston.
Faced with dwindling stocks and rising demand for seafood, fishers are employing new technologies that leave no safe haven for fish, including the application of military technologies, spotter planes and round the clock exploitation.
At the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Boston on Sunday, an international group of leading marine scientists presented examples of overfishing from around the world, arguing that new technologies and increasing fishing efforts make the need for marine reserves imperative.
"New technologies and fishing effort have peeled the lid off the oceans," said University of York scientist Callum Roberts. "If we want to keep seafood on our plates, we need to put back refuges so some fish survive long enough to reproduce."
For most of human history, fish and other marine species had naturally protected areas: places inaccessible to fishing because they were too remote, too deep or too dangerous to fish.
But civilian applications of military technologies, such as those developed for submarine warfare and espionage, have grown by leaps and bounds since the end of the cold war. These transferred technologies include sonar mapping systems that reveal every crack and contour of the seabed in exquisite detail.
The U.S. Geological Survey is now publishing maps that are enabling fishers to penetrate deep into regions once considered too difficult to fish. Private companies are also weighing in, selling the secrets of the seabed for short term profit.
Guided by precision satellite navigation systems, fishers can now drop nets into previously unseen canyons, or land hooks on formerly uncharted seamounts.
"Such places may be the last refuges of vulnerable species like skates or rockfish," warned Roberts.
Fishers are also looking to the skies for better catches. Off the U.S. East coast, the Atlantic swordfish fleet receives daily faxes from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, showing satellite images of sea surface temperatures on the fishing grounds. These maps, along with temperature and depth sensors carried by boats, allow the fleet to target the places where swordfish are most vulnerable.
The same technology guides the bluefin tuna fleet to the best fishing areas, and spotter planes help boats pursue schools to the last fish.
"The modern fishing armory has vastly expanded," said Yvonne Sadovy of the University of Hong Kong. "The boats of today are larger, faster, stronger and can fish in conditions that would have been impossibly dangerous 100 years ago."
They fish deeper, for longer and employ nets that can penetrate areas of rough seabed, moving rocks up to three meters (10 feet) in diameter and weighing up to 16 metric tons.
"Not all new fishing technologies are hi-tech," said University of Hawaii researcher Charles Birkeland. "Modern improvements can be just as devastating to fish stocks."
In islands throughout the Pacific, for example, fishers have long valued the huge and docile bumphead parrotfish. By day, these wary fish would keep their distance from spearfishers, so the take was never very high.
But in recent years, spearfishers equipped with scuba equipment have begun targeting the parrotfish at night when they sleep in shoals in shallow reef lagoons.
"Spearguns and nightlights are as lethal to bumphead parrotfish today as rifles and railroads were for American Plains bison in the 19th Century," Birkeland said.
The unsustainable pursuit of larger and more desirable coral reef species is also being fueled by the growth of international markets.
"Greater prosperity and demand for live food fish in South-East Asia has driven prices so high that it is profitable to pursue fish to the farthest corners of the world," noted Sadovy. "Because so many species are targeted, fishing operations can remain economically viable far beyond the point where the most vulnerable species have been eliminated."
As fishers expand their reach, the importance of creating natural refuges for sustaining breeding stocks increases, the researchers argue.
"When there is no place for fish to hide, we can devastate entire populations. There is evidence that severely overexploited species may not recover, even decades after depletion," said University of Dalhousie scientist Jeff Hutchings.
For example, more than 100 tons of black-lipped pearl oyster were taken from Pearl and Hermes Reefs in the Northwest Hawaiian Islands in 1927. Just six individuals were found during an intensive survey late in the year 2000, 63 years after the harvest.
In Canada, northern cod were depleted to a few percent of their former abundance in the early 1990s, and there is still little sign of recovery.
"We are realizing, too late in some cases, that severe depletion can undermine population resilience by impairing reproduction, reducing recruitment of young animals, degrading habitat integrity, and altering behavior and interactions with other species," said Howard Choat of James Cook University. "This further points to the need to be proactive so that populations don't reach this point of no return."
"We are pushing fisheries off the edge of viability, and species to the edge of extinction," added Birkeland. "We must recreate the refuges of old by establishing networks of marine reserves."
New evidence indicates that fully protected refuges can help protect stocks from reaching the point of no return by providing safe havens, protecting habitats and by exporting fish and their offspring to surrounding fishing grounds.
"Without such marine reserves, the ocean's future looks bleak," Roberts concluded.
Their work found support Saturday when scientists presented a new portrait of the state of fisheries in the North Atlantic, showing that over the last 50 years, the catch of preferred food fish species such as cod, tuna, haddock, flounder and hake has decreased by more than half, despite a tripling in fishing effort.
The study shows that large scale fishing in the North Atlantic has undermined the ocean's ability to sustain further catches.
"The only way we are maintaining yield is by increasing effort," said Dr. Daniel Pauly of the University of British Columbia Fisheries Centre, and the head of the large international project behind Saturday's presentation at the AAAS meeting. "But you need fish to make fish, and so we have created a massive reduction in productivity."
Serial depletion of large predatory fishes at the top of all marine food webs means the major fisheries are now invertebrates. "We are fishing for bait and headed for jellyfish," warned Pauly.
Today, the large fish found in North American markets are being imported from developing regions of the world such as West Africa, South East Asia and other areas masking the crisis in local waters, added Reg Watson of the University of British Columbia.
"We are paying fishers in other oceans to grind down their marine ecosystems for our consumption," Watson said. "This is a serious concern for global food security."
Pauly explained that the next steps are a substantial reduction of fishing fleets, eventual abolition of subsidies to industrial fisheries, and restoration of the oceans' depleted resources through the establishment of networks of no take marine reserves.
"In order to restore productivity to a fishery, the broader ecosystem with its many parts needs to be conserved," Pauly concluded.
An international coalition of conservation groups recently sponsored a poll that interviewed 750 residents of New England and Atlantic Canada regarding their support for marine reserves. The poll found that 74 percent of New England respondents and 73 percent of Canadian participants support establishing fully protected no take ocean areas that bar all fishing, mining, and other potentially damaging activities.
"This new poll shows that there is strong support among those who live in New England and Atlantic Canada for establishing fully protected areas in the ocean that prohibit all extractive activities, including commercial and recreational fishing," said Priscilla Brooks, director of the marine resources project at the Conservation Law Foundation.
"Both the United States and Canadian governments need to create public processes that will create fully protected areas in the ocean, which are science based, participatory and also give full consideration to fishing industries," added Robert Rangeley, Atlantic marine program director of World Wildlife Fund - Canada. More information on declining fish catches in the North Atlantic is available at: http://www.seaweb.org/AAAS2002/
They have value for many men, yes.
"These species support human life, and for that reason should be preserved for human use."
That is one opinion, yes. Their value is, for many, in the eating. Like money, the eating has a time value. What value one should place on the eating of them today relative to the eating of them tomorrow is a matter of opinion.
"I recommend the thread I linked above for a discussion of what to do about it."
Been there, done that.
If you were talking about petroleum or copper ore, then I'd agree with you. Fish, however, reproduce, and if you refrain from eating the last of them, there will be more fish at a later date. Therefore, I can state objectively that the value of keeping some of them exceeds the value of eating all of them.
Really, you seem to look at fish in the ocean the same way that liberals look at the dollars in a taxpayer's pocket.
Good for you.
Thankfully, there are a lot of people who do care, if only for economic reasons.
Sorry, you can't.
"Really, you seem to look at fish in the ocean the same way that liberals look at the dollars in a taxpayer's pocket."
Liberals might be completely honest and accurate were they to say that more tax dollars today are more valuable to them than an even larger amount later.
Liberals however, are willing to use the state to enforce their values. On the other hand, in a free market where fishing rights or fish in the sea are transferrable property, there is alas no guarantee against exinctions as a result of consumption, although extinctions would indeed be less likely.
And good for them. The market has room for all.
Then there shouldn't be a problem as 90 percent of the fish survive...
I think he does not, so long as it it done according to the Free Market principles. Free Market is sacred and divine and needs some sacrifices. His enemy the Government Regulation is evil and has to be opposed even if we all were to become extinct.
Look, the main argument in favor of capitalism, once you get outside of objectivist moral theorists (of which I am one, don't get me wrong) is that capitalism delivers abundance. Leonard Peikoff might denounce that as pragmatism, but people from the shanty towns to the boards of directors look only at the bottom line. Whatever it is, be it widgets or fish, capitalism is supposed to deliver more of it at a lower price. If capitalism can't make good on that promise, most people will ditch it in a heartbeat.
For that reason, the ecofreaks would love for everyone to believe that capitalism is all about expoiting resources until they are no good to anyone. I say they're wrong, but you seem to be agreeing with them, except that you tack the words "so what" on the end. I doubt you'll change many minds in favor of a free market approach.
As soon as people realized that the let-the-chips-fall approach results in fewer fish, they started crying to Leviathan to step in and make it all better. A capitalist solution has to do better than that (and it can!), or it won't happen. We'll be stuck with U.N. fish rations before long.
I've set sword gear off the Yucatan and the Mississippi Canyons and Grouper gear south in the Gulf to the edge of the world and even further down to the "hump" off Nicaragua. Snuck around to the SW side of Cuba once. Sticky bottom...worse than the "Middle Grounds". I've had gear become entangled in submarines and lost 40 miles of gear off Port Canaveral...sunk to the bottom by too many Great Hammerheads caught on one section of line. Never caught or entangled one mammal in all those years.
We(S.O.F.A.) busted them in Federal Court in Tampa for outright lying about the shark science.
In that case we nearly saw the Sect. of Commerce held in comtempt of court.
THIS is the latest lie the've been caught in. The sports fishing industry has allied with the greenies to try to outlaw longlining in the Gulf of Mexico.
If they manage to do it they can look forward to being joined by a 1000 bandit boats operating inside the 20 fathom curve where they are now banned.
Anyone with any fishing experience at all could have picked the lies out of the commercials they ran in Fla. to get the voters to ban nets. Bogus science abounds.
I'll be happy to answer any questions.
January 30, 2002.
On January 28, 2002, the Ocean Conservancy and the National Audubon Society filed yet another lawsuit against the National Marine Fisheries Service regarding Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico large coastal shark fishing regulations. These two groups have long advocated the total elimination of Atlantic and Gulf commercial shark fishing.
David Frulla, of Washington, D.C.'s Brand & Frulla, P.C., long-time counsel for the shark fishermen, observed, "It's time to stop burning up resources in litigation that ought to be used to develop better shark science, regulatory outreach, and programs to assist those shark fishermen and fishing communities that have already made tremendous sacrifices in the name of shark rebuilding and obtaining a level scientific playing field."
The Atlantic and Gulf shark fishing fleet is one of the most economically marginal in the country. The fleet uses small (generally about 45' in length) vessels home-ported in small fishing communities, such as Madeira Beach, Florida, and Wanchese, North Carolina. These commercial shark fishermen have already sacrificed under Government shark fishing reductions of over 80% from early 1990's fishing levels, and the fleet has been reduced by more than one-half.
These litigation groups are, unfortunately, using a scorched earth plan to stop commercial shark fishing, no matter what the law and objective science say. This latest lawsuit is the fourth in which these environmental organizations have been involved regarding sharks.
Significantly, though, their new case comes in the wake and face of objective, independent scientific analyses - commissioned by the Federal Government -- showing that the additional fishing reductions these organizations seek through litigation are not based on "scientifically reasonable uses of appropriate fisheries stock assessment techniques and the best available biological and fishery information relating to large coastal sharks."
Robert Spaeth, Executive Director of the Southern Offshore Fishing Association, a leading organization representing shark fishermen, stated in response to the news of the latest court filing, "We're disappointed that these foundation-funded litigation machines keep running to court to try to stop what the law requires - use of the best scientific and economic information available."
More specifically, commercial shark fishermen and the United States Government settled a long standing court case in November 2000 in which the federal court in Tampa, Florida held the Government had repeatedly violated the law in putting draconian commercial shark fishing reductions (including a 50% quota cut) in place in 1997. As part of the settlement, the parties agreed to an independent scientific review of subsequent scientific data and analyses developed in 1998, that the Government decided to use in 1999 to eliminate commercial shark fishing. (With the legal violations outstanding, the court in Tampa had refused to let the Government eliminate commercial shark fishing in 1999 based on these 1998 analyses.)
The Ocean Conservancy and National Audubon Society objected strenuously to independent scientific review of the Government's 1998 scientific data and analyses. And no wonder -- these same environmental groups had paid for and provided these analyses to the Government!
The independent scientific review was completed in December 2001, with a majority of the reviewers soundly rejecting the scientific analyses that these plaintiff groups had spoon-fed to the Government in 1998 to justify shutting down shark fishing. Indeed, one of the independent reviewers went beyond the science to "question the objectivity" of the Government's 1998 shark scientific analysis process that the National Audubon Society and the Ocean Conservancy seek to revive through this latest litigation.
Roger Koske, Commissioner for Madeira Beach, Florida, stated, "We appreciate the efforts the Federal Government is finally undertaking to better understand economic, social, and scientific matters regarding commercial shark fishing. My community suffers when well-funded outside organizations go to court to prevent the use of new and better information that helps to provide for both sustainable sharks and sustainable shark fishing communities."
The only thing I would ask someone to sacrifice is the righteous pleasure of waving a gun in someone else's face.
The market is not an institution like the government. All it is is a set of options. All government does is restrict options. Since things like murder, theft, and fraud are almost universally detested, these are suitable things for government to prohibit.
"His enemy the Government Regulation is evil and has to be opposed even if we all were to become extinct."
Now, now, don't be melodramatic. We're talking about fish, after all.
No it is that it delivers more of what more people want which, at any moment in time, necessarily means that some things will be scarce -- e.g. fish. Capitalism delivers more of more things because it gives a different answer to the most fundamental, and typically ignored question.
"As soon as people realized that the let-the-chips-fall approach
Interesting characterization
"results in fewer fish, they started crying to Leviathan to step in and make it all better."
Some people have. Even many. But not all.
"A capitalist solution has to do better than that"
Why? For example, I bet we would could have a lot more of product X if the government simply gave price supports and subsidies -- at a steep price in other things.
We could have more fish at a later date through government controls also -- at a price in current and, possibly, future goods.
"(and it can!),"
In general it does, but it really doesn't have to for any particular thing, e.g. fish.
In this case I agree though. The problem (if we want to call it a problem) is one of too few property rights, not too much.
I have no doubt that fish farming will aid in feeding the human population, even as it approaches 8,10 maybe 12 billion. I spent 25 years cooking various seafood creatures. First the high quality animals disappeared!! Then the popular cold water cod. Unless you were, are, high level Enron execs, Don't even mention Australian Rock Lobster. What the hell, keep breeding.
P.S. PETA and their ilk would not consider me a friend.
You are exactly correct. As I was involved, as a wholesale buyer, it was a shock. We were lucky to have other, substitute, fish to fill the void. although not as good, the Haddock and others filled in well. I fear that option is ending. By the way, are they farming Australian Rock Lobster?
WHAT?
to reduce drastically especially in number [cholera decimated the population] b : to destroy a large part of [firebombs decimated large sections of the city]
(from the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary)
Good article. Twice it mentions this independent scientific review, yet neither time does it say who performed it and where it was published. Can you supply that information as well?
Since they only mentioned a few species (i. e. Cod), its hard to call them on the carpet. However, here on the east coast (NJ) the Striper population has exploded, bluefish are almost limitless, weakfish are abundant and the Fluke are doing so well, they'll be raising the minimum length to something like 17" (years ago, when the first minimum length was imposed it was 11", and basically increases 1/2" each year) in order to keep the catch DOWN!!!
Blowfish are back and this past year the kingfish were bigger than I ever remember seeing. Even Croakers have been all over the place in August/September to the point of being a nuisance while trying to catch other fish. Croakers around here were averaging around 17".
The mackeral run is on NOW (February) and the herring are already infiltrating the manasquan river. I could go on and on, but my cabin fever would only get worse.
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