No more fish in 40 years.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article...435290,00.html

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No more fish to eat in 40 years
By Lewis Smith
Study warns that all seafood stocks will have collapsed by 2048

Fish stocks are declining so rapidly that scientists have predicted that they will disappear by the middle of the century unless radical measures are taken to protect them.

A study of more than 100 fishing regions, published in the journal Science, suggests that if current trends are maintained every seafood species will have collapsed below commercially viable levels by 2048.

Its authors also found, however, that fish stocks and diversity recover quickly when marine ecosystems are managed to prevent overfishing.

Concerns have been raised for several decades over stocks of such fish as cod in the North Sea — but the extent to which species have declined worldwide and mankind’s effects on the Earth’s ecosystem shocked scientists.

“Whether we looked at tide pools or studies over the entire world’s ocean, we saw the same picture emerging,” said Professor Boris Worm, of Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada.

“In losing species we lose the productivity and stability of entire ecosystems. I was shocked and disturbed by how consistent these trends are . . . [It is] beyond anything we suspected.”

Researchers found that 29 per cent of fish species have collapsed to, or below, 10 per cent of their original levels over the past 1,000 years. There has been a steep decline since the Industrial Revolution.

Overfishing, pollution and habitat destruction — mostly on coastlines and in coral regions — have been blamed. Researchers assessed catch numbers recorded by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation and the Sea Around Us Project, at the University of Columbia, before concluding that fish stocks will collapse by 2048.

They also analysed human impact on 12 regions, including the North Sea, the Baltic Sea and the Adriatic Sea, examined archives and sediment cores over a thousand-year period and looked at initiatives designed to promote species recovery. The researchers found that once marine ecosystems receive protection, they quickly recover. Increases in biodiversity were associated with large increases in fisheries production and with increased and lucrative, tourism, they reported.

Profesor Worm added: “It is not too late to turn things around . . . diversity of species recover dramatically and with it the ecosystem’s productivity and stability.”

FISHING, GONE
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Global cod catch down from 3.1 million tonnes in 1970 to 950,000 in 2000
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Bluefin tuna catches in the Mediterranean thought to be 60 per cent above the 32,000 tonnes quota
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Russian trawlers are said to catch 100,000 tonnes of cod illegally in the Barents Sea

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Over-exploitation said to have increased 150 per cent since 1970
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Global fishing fleet estimated to be 2.5 times sustainable levels
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Fish stocks in North Atlantic are one sixth of levels 100 years ago

My other profession is a SCUBA instructor and I can personally testify to the reduction in sealife over the past 10 years at dive sites I've visited all over the world. This study is extremely worrying as millions of people who live at a subsistance level will have their primary source of food removed.

You Japanese and your sushi. ~;)

Seriously, though; the most crucial problems would be overfishing and the massive destruction of vital coastline ecosystems. I doubt "radical measures" won't be taken by 2048, since the pressure of less fish population would force someone to do something before that. And hopefully the developing countries with such ecosystems within their borders would develop far enough to stop crushing everything environmental like they do right now.

Unlike the rainforests. :undecided:

I don't even know if I'll live to see 2048, but I'd like to eat dead sea creatures if I do. This sucks.

The study doesn't account for the area between Washington and Alaska where controlled fisheries have kept the populations at status quo for quite sometime. That obviously shows a sign of hope, but then if they talked about that then the UN couldn't wave around a study telling the west to stop eating and wasting so damned much.

From now on when I'm leaving TGI Fridays I'm going to yell at people who don't finish their meal.

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Originally Posted by Major Robert Dump

The study doesn't account for the area between Washington and Alaska where controlled fisheries have kept the populations at status quo for quite sometime. That obviously shows a sign of hope, but then if they talked about that then the UN couldn't wave around a study telling the west to stop eating and wasting so damned much.

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I don't know, the real problems are actually much less about the West than in the developing countries of, say, Asia. Those are the places where crucial ecosystems are being destroyed en-mass.

I could say "I was there, I know it" in a sense, I guess.

Though if you mean that won't allow rabid environmentalists to call out at the USA for being such an evil fish-eating people...

It's quite sad. I know down here in the gulf of Mexico there is a massive area called the "Dead Zone". Quite literally everything has been fished so heavily that not even plants grow there. The problem is very few people these days care or know about how badly their destroying the oceans by eating all that sushis and fish. Out of site and out of mind IMO.

I would hope by 2048 though that company's that fish comercially would learn from the lobster and crab industry and begin to harshly impose regulations. But with so many 3rd world countries nearly surviving on fish alone it would be difficult.

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Bluefin tuna catches in the Mediterranean thought to be 60 per cent above the 32,000 tonnes quota

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Not that it matters, by 2048 bluefin wont be able to survive in the Mediterranean. Not completely up to date on this but isnt the nocious toxofolia going to turn the remainder of the Mediteranean to a green turf by 2020 or so? Or has France finally decided to unleash the hordes of snails?

“I don't even know if I'll live to see 2048, but I'd like to eat dead sea creatures if I do. This sucks”: What? You don’t eat them alive?

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Originally Posted by Brenus

“I don't even know if I'll live to see 2048, but I'd like to eat dead sea creatures if I do. This sucks”: What? You don’t eat them alive?

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I do. It's an aquired taste and somewhat barbaric to Western standards but it's difficult to get your sashimi much fresher. :2thumbsup:

I have to say that Japan is a shocker for sweeping the oceans clean of marine life. A visit to the Tsujiki fish market in Tokyo blows most peoples mind. You'd think the oceans would be empty after you see the sheer volume of every kind of marine creature that gets moved through there on a single morning!

As many of you have mentioned I think with proper management and more focus on fish farming, wild fisheries can be made sustainable. The problem is that we tend to do nothing about things like this until the last possible moment. We'll probably end up fine but poor folks in the 3rd world will suffer greatly unless global action is taken on this looming disaster soon. I think this is the kind of area world bodies such as the UN should be focusing on.

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Originally Posted by IRONxMortlock

I have to say that Japan is a shocker for sweeping the oceans clean of marine life. A visit to the Tsujiki fish market in Tokyo blows most peoples mind. You'd think the oceans would be empty after you see the sheer volume of every kind of marine creature that gets moved through there on a single morning!

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Most western fishing vessels drag up the same stuff, pick out the 10% they want and dump the remaining dead and unsaleable (in the west) creatures back in the water.

Quotas increase the amount of this 'by catch' - which is utterly wasteful and a scandal quite frankly.

Major Robert Dump, the UN couldn't do anything, they couldn't even do that.

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Originally Posted by Brenus

“I don't even know if I'll live to see 2048, but I'd like to eat dead sea creatures if I do. This sucks”: What? You don’t eat them alive?

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They suffocate by the time I bring them back to fry.

I found it really ironic that the only group in Britain who were saying this was rubbish and we definately shouldn't cut back on fishing, were in fact the only group who actually need fish. The fishermen. Idiots. Going the way of the coal miners.

I think aquaculture is the only way to go here, really. We may not like the taste of farm-raised salmon as much as wild salmon, etcetera, but we are eating ourselves into oblivion. Every medical study I've seen says essentially the healthiest diet you can eat is fish and vegetables. Maybe a little starch and a little chicken. But not much. We should be eating beef and pork no more than once every few weeks. Obviously, as more people start switching over to fish as opposed to beef, we're going to put a terrible strain on the sealife population that exists wildly.

We domesticated cows, pigs and the lot thousands of years ago. It's time our husbandry catches up to our dietary science. That being said, as a big seafood fan, I really hope they can learn to start breeding for taste. Wild seafood really does taste better.

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Originally Posted by Don Corleone

I think aquaculture is the only way to go here, really. We may not like the taste of farm-raised salmon as much as wild salmon, etcetera, but we are eating ourselves into oblivion. Every medical study I've seen says essentially the healthiest diet you can eat is fish and vegetables. Maybe a little starch and a little chicken. But not much. We should be eating beef and pork no more than once every few weeks. Obviously, as more people start switching over to fish as opposed to beef, we're going to put a terrible strain on the sealife population that exists wildly.

We domesticated cows, pigs and the lot thousands of years ago. It's time our husbandry catches up to our dietary science. That being said, as a big seafood fan, I really hope they can learn to start breeding for taste. Wild seafood really does taste better.

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You can have my pork chop when you pry it from my cold, dead hands... :skull:

Anyway farmed fish use even more resources than wild ones. Where do you think a farmed fish's food comes from?

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Originally Posted by Spino

You can have my pork chop when you pry it from my cold, dead hands... :skull:

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You keep eating them and that day might come sooner than you'd like.

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No more fish in 40 years.

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Well if I live that long good. I hate fish. :laugh4:

But really does anyone here believe that there will be no more fish in 40 years? Heck we know less about the oceans than we do of the moon.

Last time I was out on a reef in the South Pacific it was pretty grim. Don't think that was due to overfishing though, as the reef I was on had recently (5 years) suffered from massive bleaching due to increases in water temperature.

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Originally Posted by Gawain of Orkeny

But really does anyone here believe that there will be no more fish in 40 years? Heck we know less about the oceans than we do of the moon.

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Yes, I do believe we will devastate our oceans if we continue to abuse them in the way we currently are. Things are not going to fix themselves and there's no hidding from this, we need to take responsibility for the kind of world our children are going to inherit. I'd like them to live in a healthy one and hopefully a world in better condition than the state I found this one in.

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Last time I was out on a reef in the South Pacific it was pretty grim. Don't think that was due to overfishing though, as the reef I was on had recently (5 years) suffered from massive bleaching due to increases in water temperature.

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I've also seen plenty of evidence of this first hand. Coral reefs are rapidly disappearing due to increasing water temperature and poisoning. Although reefs occupy only one tenth of a percent of the ocean they contain more than 25% of the marine species and are a vital breeding ground for all kinds of animals. It certainly wouldn't surprise me if the loss of these habitats will also greatly contribute to the loss of wild fish as a commercially viable food source.

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Originally Posted by Gawain of Orkeny

Well if I live that long good. I hate fish. :laugh4:

But really does anyone here believe that there will be no more fish in 40 years? Heck we know less about the oceans than we do of the moon.

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Let me put it this way. If we scapped domestic animals and farming and sustained ourself on hunting and gathering of wild plants, how long would we survive?
And somehow it's surpricing when the sea cannot give unlimited fishing, when we are doing the exact same thing there? Fish-farms is they way to go (although I agree that fish doesn't taste good).

That is just dumb, more sea less fish, intelligent design my derriere.