Sayonara, sushi... Time could be running out for seafood.

news@nature.com ^ | 2 November 2006 | Heidi Ledford

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Published online: 2 November 2006; | doi:10.1038/news061030-10

Sayonara, sushi...

Time could be running out for seafood.

Heidi Ledford

Salmon, like all seafood: predicted to collapse by 2048.Alamy

What's your favourite seafood dish? Seared scallops? Salmon sashimi? Grilled shrimp?

Enjoy it while you can, because by 2048 it could all be gone. A recent survey of global fisheries data says that seafood stocks around the world will collapse within 50 years — if we don't change the way we treat the world's oceans¹.

"That's the end of the line," says Boris Worm, a marine conservation biologist at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and lead author on the study. "Whatever your favourite seafood is, you will most likely not be able to eat it anymore."

Worm and his colleagues reached this conclusion by analysing more than 50 years worth of data from the Sea Around Us Project — a database containing almost 500 million records of catch rates from fisheries around the world and based at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. The international team of researchers used this data to model the ocean's bounty over time.

Their calculations showed a precipitous drop in coastal biodiversity over the past 200 years, along with a concomitant decline in water quality and a surge in harmful algal blooms, coastal flooding and fish kills. Analysis of data from large marine ecosystems indicated that 29% of the seafood stocks available in 1950 had already collapsed as of 2003, and the remainder would follow by 2048.

Fortunately Worm's analyses also showed that current conservation efforts have succeeded in reversing fishery decline in some regions. Worm hopes that conservation plans and fishing management will prevent us from ever reaching the point of total collapse. "I'm optimistically convinced that we will not hit 100% at 2048 because we will turn things around before that," he says.

Saving seafood

To prevent the collapse of the seafood industry, Worm says, fishing should focus on stocks such as herring and mackerel, which are less sensitive to heavy fishing. Habitat restoration, pollution reduction and a slowdown in climate change will also be key factors in reversing current trends, he adds.

Efforts like these can restore biodiversity to marine ecosystems, which will make them more productive and so more resistant to disturbing factors such as storms and fishing.

Whatever your favourite seafood is, you will most likely not be able to eat it anymore.  Boris Worm, Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia

In addition, a recent report from George Sugihara of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California, suggests that preserving the larger, older fish within a population would make it more resistant to collapse².

Point of collapse

Steve Murawski, chief scientist at the US National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration's Fisheries Service, agrees that seafood supply needs to be actively protected. But, he says, Worm's models rely on a definition of 'collapse' - the point at which a fishery's yield dips below 10% of its historic maximum - that may not truly reflect fishery conditions.

"That's not a good metric of what a healthy stock would be," says Murawski. "In many cases that high catch occurred because you were dramatically overfishing the stock." Evaluating stocks relative to an overfishing event sets the bar artificially high, Murawski argues, leading researchers to conclude that a fishery has collapsed even if it is being stably maintained.

Worm concedes Murawski's point, but points out that catch data is the only global data available. Meanwhile, he adds, the trend in his data is clear even if a precise date for worldwide seafood collapse may vary.

"It's like a lemon," says Worm. "We have to press harder and harder to get juice out of it. At some point we just can't force more out — we're going to start running out of species."

Visit our newsblog to read and post comments about this story.

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References

1. WormB., et al. Science, 314 . 787 - 790 (2006).
2. HsiehC., et al. Nature, 443 . 859 - 862 (2006). | Article |

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[hosepipe]

[ Enjoy it while you can, because by 2048 it could all be gone. ]

Bull..

[RayChuang88]

One thing a few people have bandied about is a total ban on fishing worldwide for maybe two to three decades for fish stocks to be replenished. And it may just happen, too.

[indianrightwinger]

Another environmental nut case applying doom and gloom scare tactics to get some undeserved attention.....Yawn!

[JennysCool]

Apparently "global warming" just isn't pulling in the big bucks the "ecology industry" was hoping for, so they're going for "seafood depletion."

[seasoned traditionalist]

Ah yes, a "PEAK" Seafood Alert.

Okay, I'll file it right next to the PEAK Oil predictions--in the ROUND FILE!!!

[Notwithstanding]

The only bad thing about the end of sushi would be the presumptive increased demand and cost for beef/pork/chicken that would follow (though perhaps dogs and cats might begin disappearing - which in urban areas would be a wonderful development).

[Lucius Cornelius Sulla]

If cattle, pigs, and sheep only lived running around loose, and meat obtained by hunting, meat would be running out also. Until law and technology allow seafood farming on a larger scale, we will continue to see a 'Tragedy of the Commons' in the oceans.

[rawcatslyentist]

>"Their calculations showed a precipitous drop in coastal biodiversity over the past 200 years>"

Not taking into account the previously thought extinct species found in the past 200 years.

Obviously the people doing these studies need to spend a few years of research submerged at the bottom of several oceans, of course they also would need gills.

[over3Owithabrain]

Could we still get those "sea legs" that pass for cheap crab meat at the grocery?

[Otho]

Tuesdays is Soylent Green Day!! Come get your Soylent Green!! While it lasts!!

[Roy Tucker]

Privatize the oceans, end of shortages. The private sector will do a far better job of protecting ocean life than the current statist solution because it is in their interest to do so.

[endthematrix]

Soylent Corporation?

[airborne]

Fishing in the seas will be replaced by 'farming'.

[Roy Tucker]

More like these methods being practiced in New Zealand and Iceland Fencing the Ocean

[Alia]

Boyo, is this gonna po the Fishing Unionized Industry or what?

[chilepepper]

anyone who believes this is stupid.

here's what will *REALLY* happen: as stocks get scarcer and scarcer, it will be harder to make a profit "hunting" for fish.

the companies that develop aquaculture (fish farming that the Japanese and Chinese have been doing for thousands of years) will be able to greatly undercut the price the dinosaur style fish industry will have to charge just to stay afloat...

in the meantime, there will *always* be enough fish left to help the stocks recover, if the loathsome factory ships are prevented from destroying the sea bottom...

[chilepepper]

this article from the left wing Nature is not just wrong, it is Gore style global warming campaign 2006 political propaganda and the author is just plain *STUPID* (or lying on purpose).

the article starts out talking about SCALLOPS, SHRIMP and SALMON... the author is an idiot since those three are in fact the three seafood items most likely to be available in 2050, since right now they are raised on a massive scale. Scallop and shrimp are raised on a huge scale here and Chile raised Salmon is first rate, and perhaps even better than the wild Salmon from the Pacific northwest.

Government subsidies is the *ONLY* reason the Salmon industry still exists in the US, and the big losers are the sports fisherman - if Salmon were raised commercially, there would be a *lot* of Salmon available for Anglers...

[Gabz]

Both of your posts (17 and 18) are right on the money. Oysters, clams, crabs, crawfish, and trout are also being farm raised on larger and larger scales each year.

I have many friends in the commercial fishing industry, not the factory ships you mention, but more on the level of individual small businessmen, and I have heard the horror stories of those factory ships.......they operate with impunity just outside the limits of "controlled" waters worldwide, and do not face landing regs when they finally return to their home port.

[Lou L]

Nearly 20 posts, and no one has blamed Bush for this?

Just another attempt by the MSM to plant seeds of doubt in would-be voters' minds.

"...and now, I can't eat at Red Lobster anymore...I just don't like the direction this country is headed!"