Overfishing

[a_unique_person]

http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/science/05/14/coolsc.disappearingfish/index.html



Study: Only 10 percent of big ocean fish remain

Industrial fishing can reduce a particular fish population to one-tenth its original size in only 10 or 15 years, according to scientists.
(CNN) -- A new global study concludes that 90 percent of all large fishes have disappeared from the world's oceans in the past half century, the devastating result of industrial fishing.

The study, which took 10 years to complete and was published in the international journal Nature this week, paints a grim picture of the Earth's current populations of such species as sharks, swordfish, tuna and marlin.

The authors used data going back 47 years from nine oceanic and four continental shelf systems, ranging from the tropics to the Antarctic. Whether off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada, or in the Gulf of Thailand, the findings were dire, according to the authors.

"I think the point is there is nowhere left in the ocean not overfished," said Ransom Myers, a fisheries biologist at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia and lead author of the study.



Perhaps the Skeptical Environmentalist can understand these statistics.

[PixyMisa]

Fishing is the only major source of food that is not managed from beginning to end. Expect this to change; if we want to keep eating fish we'll have to farm them.

[Houngan]

Originally posted by a_unique_person
http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/science/05/14/coolsc.disappearingfish/index.html



Perhaps the Skeptical Environmentalist can understand these statistics.

It's most likely true. With the exception of stocked lakes that are managed for sportsmen, fishing has altered the population structure of nearly every species.

While ecological studies have shown that most fishes can be sustainably harvested at or near 40% for optimum growth, fisheries can't accept that they have to fish less to catch more. It's a semi-law that any shared resource will be overexploited by its very nature. The same can be seen with trees, in that other than protected areas, there isn't a single tree standing in the US that wasn't harvested at some point. You can look back at the late 1800's photographs of the monster trees that existed then.

H.

[GrapeJ713]

Since no one owns any land under the ocean it's the last place where the tragedy of the commons can happen on a large scale. I guess international law would have to be changed to allow companies, organizations and governments to buy ocean real estate so it can be better managed. Fishing companies could buy large plots of land (ocean) and manage it so there will still be fish for years to come. Governments and environmental orgs could buy plots and ban fishing there, of course, who would they buy it from since no one owns it yet. I'm sure the fishing companies don't want to fish themselves out of business.

[Mercutio]

It was just on local news. In an atlantic-coast state, the response is predictable: "local fishermen dispute the study..."

I agree with Grape--it's a big tragedy of the commons.

[Bearguin]

Originally posted by PixyMisa
Fishing is the only major source of food that is not managed from beginning to end. Expect this to change; if we want to keep eating fish we'll have to farm them.

In BC there is a major controversy over fish farming. The short story seems to be that the method for farming Atlantic Salmon is detremental to the native Pacific Salmon.

See http://www.cknw.com/FishFile/ for a detailed look at Fish Farming in BC.

It seems that the methds used are the issue and that commercial farming is viable when the environmental factors are carefully watched. An example is in-land fish farming, but the cost is prohibitive.

[fishbob]

if we want to keep eating fish we'll have to farm them. Some of the problems with fish farming in the ocean are that the fish no longer grow on their normal diet, the close confines allow rapid spread of disease, the concentration of waste damages the local environment, and the escapees compete with native fish.

My understanding is that some farmed salmon are fed corn based salmon chow, and the meat has to be dyed to look like wild salmon. Yum Yum.

[fishbob]

A problem that could be fixed relatively easily is the fishing permit process. In Alaska, a commercial fisherman can have a permit for salmon or halibut or cod for example. The fisherman with the cod permit has to throw overboard any fish caught that is not allowed on his permit. Those fish are called " by catch ". The great majority of the by catch fish are dead or die shortly after going back overboard. A statistic that was tossed around quite a bit last year is that the tonnage of by catch halibut each year is more than the total for sport caught halibut.

This permit process wastes a huge amount of fish, and the permit process is mostly intended to protect the turfs of the various commercial fishing groups. If the cod fisherman could legally sell his by catch, he could take fewer fish from the ocean, and deplete the resource less - or he could catch the current number of fish, waste less, and make more money.

[Dancing David]

Industrial fishing had led to the decline of fish the same way that the pioneers killed the buffalo.

I don't think that farming is a solution yet, the profit in fishing is that basicaly you just go and pick them up , it is a natural resource, cultivation rquires an investment strategy.

The other problem is the 'getting everyone to do it", right now there are countries that have a large economic incentive to keep fishing, they don't care, they want money. They fish illegally wherever they want , and as of yet no one is sinking thier vessels.

The easiest solution would be to set minimum mesh sizes on nets, this way you could garuntee that a certain percentage of immature fish would survive.( I know mature anchovies are very small.)

Peace

[garys_2k]

Originally posted by GrapeJ713
Since no one owns any land under the ocean it's the last place where the tragedy of the commons can happen on a large scale. I guess international law would have to be changed to allow companies, organizations and governments to buy ocean real estate so it can be better managed. Fishing companies could buy large plots of land (ocean) and manage it so there will still be fish for years to come. Governments and environmental orgs could buy plots and ban fishing there, of course, who would they buy it from since no one owns it yet. I'm sure the fishing companies don't want to fish themselves out of business.
EXACTLY RIGHT! Without property rights there is NO incentive to manage the resource! Those seabeds should be sold to the highest bidders, and the sooner the better.

Small fishermen (fisherpeople?) could form a cooperative to own some seabed as a partnership and other areas could be left in the public domain, off limits for commercial fishing but open for the public and sport fishing.

This works in every other application, it could work for fishing, too. Time to get it done.

[richardm]

Originally posted by GrapeJ713
I'm sure the fishing companies don't want to fish themselves out of business.

No, not as such. However, in my experience the fishing companies (some as small as individual boats) want to continue fishing their areas, and for everyone else to go out of business. It's a difficult one to solve - there is very little "give" in any of them, and we've now reached the point where the only way to proceed is literally to stop everybody fishing for white fish. Cue collapse of the fishing fleets - but only because everyone's been so intransigent in the past.

[davefoc]

Discover ran this article back in September of 2001.
http://www.discover.com/search/index.html

The point of the article was that a small fish, the menhaden, was being dangerously over exploited without consideration for its effect on the populations of larger fish.

The notion of mining the ocean for vast quantities of small fish to be used for fertilizer strikes me as one of the most wasteful (ecologically) practices that we humans engage in. The primary beneficiary of the results of this exploitation is a single company.

The costs to various third parties of this exploitation could be huge. Some of the impacted third parties might include commerical fisherman, sports fisherman, the sports fishing industry and sea food consumers. Can't these groups develop sufficient political power to prevent this kind of thing?

[GrapeJ713]

Originally posted by richardm
No, not as such. However, in my experience the fishing companies (some as small as individual boats) want to continue fishing their areas, and for everyone else to go out of business. It's a difficult one to solve - there is very little "give" in any of them, and we've now reached the point where the only way to proceed is literally to stop everybody fishing for white fish. Cue collapse of the fishing fleets - but only because everyone's been so intransigent in the past.

Hence the tragedy of the commons, since dry land is tangible and can be owned by people, it can be managed to support farming, hunting, timber, fishing or whatever. I guess extending current boundries out until they touch each other (example if US coast is 1000 miles to British coast each country could go out 500 miles from coast and own that for fishing purposes) and parceling them out to fishing companies and environmental groups would be a way to do it. It would drastically change international law though would take a while I suppose.

[a_unique_person]

Originally posted by garys_2k

EXACTLY RIGHT! Without property rights there is NO incentive to manage the resource! Those seabeds should be sold to the highest bidders, and the sooner the better.

Small fishermen (fisherpeople?) could form a cooperative to own some seabed as a partnership and other areas could be left in the public domain, off limits for commercial fishing but open for the public and sport fishing.

This works in every other application, it could work for fishing, too. Time to get it done.

Countries already do this, to an extent, assigning fishing leases. All countries have asserted a 200 mile territorial limit.

Enforcement is one of the major problems. A few fishing boats can be hard to spot on a large ocean, and they can be fishing for orange roughy, which has only recently been exploited and is already on the verge of extinction.

Also, poor countries sign over leases for a pittance, because they are not in a strong negotiating position, or are getting getting a bribe.

I was watching a TV show on this. If the French catch you fishing illegally, they just take the crew off the ship and sink it. No questions asked.

There are illegal fishing companies that get an old rustbucket, crew a ship with cheap labour from the phillipines or similar country, deck out the bridge with the latest fishing gear while leaving the crew to live in a stink hole, and send it off. The ship will have paid for itself after only one or two trips, so the owner doesn't care if it is caught fishing illegally and impounded after a few trips.

The fact is, there is a fortune to be made in illegal fishing.

[garys_2k]

Originally posted by a_unique_person


Countries already do this, to an extent, assigning fishing leases. All countries have asserted a 200 mile territorial limit.

Enforcement is one of the major problems. A few fishing boats can be hard to spot on a large ocean, and they can be fishing for orange roughy, which has only recently been exploited and is already on the verge of extinction.

Also, poor countries sign over leases for a pittance, because they are not in a strong negotiating position, or are getting getting a bribe.

I was watching a TV show on this. If the French catch you fishing illegally, they just take the crew off the ship and sink it. No questions asked.

There are illegal fishing companies that get an old rustbucket, crew a ship with cheap labour from the phillipines or similar country, deck out the bridge with the latest fishing gear while leaving the crew to live in a stink hole, and send it off. The ship will have paid for itself after only one or two trips, so the owner doesn't care if it is caught fishing illegally and impounded after a few trips.

The fact is, there is a fortune to be made in illegal fishing.
Poaching will be a problem, perhaps with satellites better enforcement can take place. But the seabeds themselves should be up for bid to the private fishing companies.

There will never be a foolproof solution, I'm sure. But if companies had to limit the areas they could use (and enforcement would be critical, maybe including the executives of the companies) they'd be more likely to conserve their resources.

Of course, I agree that someone ONLY in it for a quick buck, that could care less about retaining either a long term source of income or preserving the value of their seabed, could just catch every fish in it and go out of business. I guess we could only hope that the rights to the seabeds were so expensive that that behavior would be self limiting.

[Jon_in_london]

Originally posted by Houngan

The same can be seen with trees, in that other than protected areas, there isn't a single tree standing in the US that wasn't harvested at some point.

Huh!?!?! :confused:

[PixyMisa]

:D Looks like a candidate for Bill Hoyt's logic award :p