The Catch (excellent article on the decline of worldwide fisheries)

New York Times Magazine ^ | 10/23/2005 | Paul Greenberg

[cogitator]

Please read note in first comment.

"It may seem strange that so much effort* is being focused on an animal that 25 years ago was known to only a handful of Antarctic scientists and that went by the ungainly name of Patagonian toothfish. But Chilean sea bass today have become the signature species in a battle of global proportions. Put in very blunt terms, the world is running out of fish. According to a study published in July in Science, marine species diversity has declined by 10 to 50 percent in the last half-century, and a 2003 report found that up to 90 percent of the populations of the ocean's major predators are gone. It is the thick-fleshed "major predators" - cod, tuna and Chilean sea bass, to name a few - that humans crave most. And though these collapsed fish stocks are increasingly being replaced on the market by aquacultured product, fish farming is still highly problematic and so far cannot come close to matching what the ocean produces on its own. What we are seeing now are the last desperate calculations over the undomesticated fish that remain. On one side of the equation, fisheries managers in places like the Falklands are trying to wall in their piece of the ocean, building ramparts of regulations to keep enough fish in the water to maintain a sustainable harvest. On the other side, "illegal, unreported and unregulated" - or "I.U.U." - fishing boats like the Elqui are laying siege to those same waters and stealing the fish out from under their protectors."

* "effort" refers to attempts to manage the fishery and catch/prosecute pirate fishing vessels.

[cogitator]

Normally I wouldn't bother to post or link to a NY Times article, but this one covers all the bases about the current state of ocean fisheries and ocean fishing (and has a bit to say about grilling a good seafood meal to boot). Even if you consider the source bias, if you're interested in the subject and if you like to eat fish (either at home or in a restaurant), you might want to read it.

[cogitator]

** ping **

[GreenFreeper]

ECO-PING

FReepmail me to be added or removed to the ECO-PING list!

Must be a fish theme today or something?

[American_Centurion]

What exactly does the idiot writer mean by the "last truly wild food on earth"?

I would like to invite the moron over for some nice Mississippi catfish filets(caught in the Mississippi river), Some wild duck stew (shot same location), and some vennison tenderloin harvested on my 14 acres last winter.

Then ask him to explain to me why "marine life" is the last truly wild food on the planet.

Written by an IDIOT.

[cogitator]

What exactly does the idiot writer mean by the "last truly wild food on earth"?

This was a poorly-turned phrase due to lack of qualifiers. He should have said "the last truly wild food on earth that is available for large-scale consumption" or something similar. When I read that phrase, I thought of venison or pheasant as two examples of "wild food" and of course there are many other kinds. But there is a distinct difference between individuals acquiring wild food* and organized acquisition of wild food (even though fishermen operate individually, the marketing and sale of commercial fishing operations is organized).

* and I note that there is a current penchant for "bush meat" in Africa which is seriously endangering a large variety of animals, including primates like chimpanzees. Most of the consumption of bush meat is enabled by poaching.

[glorgau]

It wouldn't have been published by the Times if it didn't have Pinochet to blame. There always has to be some sort of right wing slam in a Times article.

[Little Ray]

Isn't it funny that we gave up hunting animals for food centuries ago (and are now overpopulated by game animals!) but we still pursue what amounts to a stone age methodolgy of obtaining food when gathering seafood?

Its time we started ranching and herding seafood and give the fish stocks time to recuperate.

[Felicity Fahrquar]

Commercial fishing ping. (And it IS an interesting piece, in spite of coming from the Times.)

[Ramius]

Yah... it's not very well put. But it is true that the overwhelming amount of fish in the market is caught in the wild rather than farmed. Something that ought to be changed, IMHO. The sheer volume of production seems to call for more efficient and productive high-volume methods.

Compare to the meat industries, if it were to try to satisfy the market by commercially hunting wild game. It just wouldn't be able to keep up.

[PhilipFreneau]

>>>Its time we started ranching and herding seafood and give the fish stocks time to recuperate.<<<

I agree 100%. Seafood farming is slowly catching on; but it could use more government and institutional support.

[American_Centurion]

Oh..I never looked at it like that.

When 15-20% of your annual meat/fish supply comes from personally harvesting it, it's easy to forget that most people buy 100% of their food at a store.

So in terms of wide availability, I suppose the term is correct.

I agree there should be much more effort put into farming/ranching sea food. I don't know what I'd eat for lunch if Tuna ever went extinct.

[hedgetrimmer]

This article is a precursor to the Doha round where the WTO will negotiate away the right of soveriegn nations to regulate their own fisheries.

Most fisheries are claimed to have collapsed since internaional and regional NGOs took over their management. Maybe the WTO and the EU and the rest of the regional bodies of the world should get out of the natural resource management business since they are by their own accounts, failing miserably.

[freeplancer]

With repsect, but half my family are commercial fishermen on the Oregon Coast and you are ignorant on the fish farming subject. Properly managed, fish are renewable resources, like timber. Most of the fam's boats are under 40 feet long and they actually harvest Salmon with hooks and not giant nets, like the ones used for rock and bottom fishing.

[GreenFreeper]

agree 100%. Seafood farming is slowly catching on; but it could use more government and institutional support.

Well the problem is in feeding the fish/seafood farms. It really is a zero net gain in terms of production efficiency when you factor in the production, transportation, and environmental impacts of feed (not to mention keeping the farms parasite and pest free). If its not more profitable and practical I'm all for it but I do not think the government should do any endorsing (especially with any monetary incentives). .

[2banana]

To sum up - Those EVIL western cultures are trying to save the fish for future generations and all those diverse third world cultures, which we must embrace as good as our own, would fish the oceans bare without a thought...

[Finny]

I know that in certain parts of the world -- California's Central Coast, for example! -- a "shortage" of some kinds of fish has more to do with a massive increase in sea lion, otter, and seal populations, than it does with over-fishing. The whole area is CRAWLING with sea lions these days -- now a protected species, and they're being seen further out than they ever were 25, 30 years ago. Are there any official figures calculating how much fish it takes to support those huge sea lion populations?

And it's not just fish. In the late 60s early 70s, I watched an entire, very healthy commercial abalone industry wither up and die, after sea otters had been reintroduced into the area. It took about five years -- this, after abalone had been supporting whole families for generations. Everybody blamed it on overfishing and the big, bad, greedy ab divers for as long as they could, but after awhile it became painfully obvious, even to the fish & game guys, that the otters were behind it.

The otters also decimated the once extraordinarily plentiful Pismo clam populations. A Fish & Game guy explained that the otters go where people do not, in deeper water, and dig out the baby clams. After at least 100 years of farmers literally plowing Pismo beach for clams to feed to their pigs -- my mom remembers those days -- the whole clam population shrunk dramatically in a few years coincidentally timed to the reappearance of sea otters on the coast, and environmentalists want us to believe that greedy, bad, fishermen were the cause? Yeah. Right.

Heya, Experiment, you ever have any delectable Skipjack sashimi there in Pago Pago? I think it's skipjack, anyway ... the meat is as red as beef when raw, and so incredibly delicious. Mmmmmm.

[cogitator]

Its time we started ranching and herding seafood and give the fish stocks time to recuperate.

To the extent that is possible, it sure does seem like it.

[hedgetrimmer]

a "shortage" of some kinds of fish has more to do with a massive increase in sea lion, otter, and seal populations, than it does with over-fishing

You can thank Julie Packard for this. She stabbed everyone in the back working with Al Gore and Sam Farr to steal the Monterey bay from the people of California and give control of it in a most unconstitutional way, to the federal government. All the while they were doing this, they promised that fishing would not be affected (the liars).

The California state constitution says California citizens have the RIGHT to fish. Yet internationalist like Julie Packard, global sellout politicians like Al Gore and Sam Farr, sell the people of California out without compunction.

[expatpat]

the overwhelming amount of fish in the market is caught in the wild

While that's true in general, most of the salmon in the market is farmed, not wild.

[Final Authority]

Shrimp tastes good. The USA catches wild shrimp. There are shrimp farms all around the world willing to sell us shrimp at relatively cheap prices compared to wild caught shrimp. The USA applies a tariff on foreign farmed shrimp. Our shrimp aquaculture is not developed because of the USA cost structure. Hence, the USA catches more wild shrimp than necessary and that industry is subsidized every time we buy shrimp, when we could be buying cheaper, farmed fish.

In reality, the fisheries, in USA at least, are self regulating. As the fish stocks decrease, the cost to produce a pound of fish increases and that pound at market is more expensive. At some point, the demand decreases and the supply does as well.

The New England on shore ground fishery has bounced back, both due to fishing crews scuttling their boats (insurance claims) and other crews seeking other species while allowing the stocks to come back. It is still not like 50 years ago as cod and haddock were cheap and were the major source of protein for poor people where now a good fresh fillet of haddock will sell for $7.00 a pound, but it is coming back nevertheless and will continue now that we keep foreign fishing ships off our shores beyond 200 miles where before we observed a 3 mile limit.