Complete collapse of North Atlantic fishing predicted

New Scientist ^ | 10:30 18 February 02 | Kurt Kleiner, Boston

[semper_libertas]

Complete collapse of North Atlantic fishing predicted

The entire North Atlantic is being so severely overfished that it may completely collapse by 2010, reveals the first comprehensive survey of the entire ocean's fishery.

"We'll all be eating jellyfish sandwiches," says Reg Watson, a fisheries scientist at the University of British Columbia. Putting new ocean-wide management plans into place is the only way to reverse the trend, Watson and his colleagues say.

Concentrations of biomass of "table" fish have disappeared

North Atlantic catches have fallen by half since 1950, despite a tripling of the effort put into catching them. The total number of fish in the ocean has fallen even further, they say, with just one sixth as many high-quality "table fish" like cod and tuna as there were in 1900. Fish prices have risen six fold in real terms in 50 years.

The shortage of table fish has forced a switch to other species. "The jellyfish sandwich is not a metaphor - jellyfish is being exported from the US," says Daniel Pauly, also at the University of British Columbia. "In the Gulf of Maine people were catching cod a few decades ago. Now they're catching sea cucumber. By earlier standards, these things are repulsive," he says.

Off limits

The only hope for the fishery is to drastically limit fishing, for instance by declaring large portions of the ocean off-limits and at the same time reducing the number of fishing ships. Piecemeal efforts to protect certain fisheries have only caused the fishing fleet to overfish somewhere else, such as west Africa.

"It's like shuffling the deckchairs on the Titanic," says Andrew Rosenberg, at the University of New Hampshire. He says the number of boats must be reduced: "Less is actually more with fisheries. If you fish less you get more fish."

Normally, falling catches would drive some fishers out of business. But government subsidies actually encourage overfishing, Watson says, with subsidies totalling about $2.5 billion a year in the North Atlantic.

However, Rosenberg was sceptical that any international fishing agreements currently on the table will turn the tide in a short enough timescale. The UN's Food and Agriculture Organization and the OECD have initiatives but these are voluntary, he says. A UN-backed monitoring and enforcement plan of action is being discussed but could take 10 years to come into force.

Pauly says only a public reaction like that against whaling in the 1970s would be enough to bring about sufficient change in the way the fish stocks are managed.

The new survey was presented at the American Association for the Advancement of Science's 2002 annual meeting in Boston.

Kurt Kleiner, Boston

10:30 18 February 02

[Key]

All you do is put a few dots of butter (or margarine), lemon juice, onion, salt and pepper on it... wrap it in tin foil and put it in a baking in dish in the oven @ 350 for an hour - (depending on it's size) It's done when touching it with a fork makes it fall apart. (Don't let it get dried out, though) Man, is it good!

Yes, fish prices are high...If you ever have an excess of money... buy some salmon and cook it as above!

[Iwentsouth]

Hehe McDonalds does not sell real fish filets. I worked on boat that was one of there suppliers. Is a Polluk and Cod mixture. They just make it look like a filet...kinda like imitation crab. They use the second best pieces of fish. Cod filets worth more then what there sold for at McD's.

[Colosis]

Here, on the west coast of Ireland, our fishing stocks have been decimated by the signing of a European treaty about 15 years ago which not only gave other european countries access to Irish waters, but also restricted the Irish fishing fleet. European super-boats now hoover up our waters and regularly ram small Irish vessels (in some cases sinking and killing crew-members) that are in ‘their’ territory.

[elfman2]

" Yet, the sport fisherman dosen't destroy anything."

No, I think that's wrong. I'm new to the fishing sciene and to the Keys, but I've been listening to a conservative fishing show every afternoon as I work. From what I can understand, unlimited sport fishing in the Keys would reduce many populations drastically. Say what you will about whether they should just be allowed to dwindle and them come up again when the Fishermen are gone, but there are enough sport fishermen here now to do some real damage.

[LS]

Obviously fish prices have not gone up nearly enough. When they do, that will be the end of the "overfishing" problem.

[elfman2]

Thanks, I'll give it a shot.

[Tribune7]

This very well might be true. On the other hand, I don't believe it. Chicken Little and The Boy who Cried Wolf should be made mandatory reading in the science departments of all our universities.

[VaMarVet]

Yet, the sport fisherman dosen't destroy anything. His problem is not sending enough money to people like the Clintons. So, he's not allowed to take the King's deer. Meanwhile the commercial crowd is hitting it with cables and nets that can go 3,000 ft down.

The sport fishing creates employment and good healthy recreation time. I say, the smaller the fisherman is, the more support he should get.

You hit the nail on the head. Well said.

[SkyPilot]

Normally, falling catches would drive some fishers out of business. But government subsidies actually encourage overfishing,

Ah, there it is again.

[semper_libertas]

Wouldn't do any good. The scientists actually know better. they are not motivated by the "search ofr truth" they are motivated by money ("search for grants") and power ("search for socialist power", which is led by academia),

[Physicist]

Sounds like capitalism will be the MOST effective means of regulation. As fish become more scarce prises will rise, demand will drop and number of fishing vessels will drop accordingly.

That is not a solution. It is the Tragedy of the Commons. The situation stabilizes with a very small number of fish in the sea.

The goal should be to maximize the catch over a very long time period. That can be done by making sure that individuals own the fish that are being caught, just as the solution to the Tragedy of the Commons was to partition the land and sell it to individual farmers.

I would do it like the selling of the state industries in Russia. Every person in the countries that border the North Atlantic would get a share of the fish. The shares could then be sold to companies. Anyone could fish in the North Atlantic, but they'd have to pay the companies that own the fish, in proportion to their take. If a certain fish stock, say, cod, became depleted, the owners would naturally raise the price of cod.

The way it stands now, the price mechanism is actually working against the fish. The price changes with the scarcity of the fish, but the difficulty in catching the fish doesn't change in proportion (owing to the fact that they travel in schools). (The passenger pigeon went extinct largely because of its penchant for forming the largest flock possible; even the last remnant of the species was hard to miss.) Because the price goes up faster than the difficulty in catching the fish, there is actually an incentive to overfish.

Capitalism can indeed overcome this, but the fish need owners first.

[GailA]

Kroger's in Memphis has tuna in the can 3 for a buck...can't be to much of a shortage. Those little sardines can still be had for under a buck.

[Rebelbase]

bump, back in a few.

[freebilly]

Chicken, The Tuna O' The Land.

[Capt.YankeeMike]

Nothing will be accomplished by penalizing US fishermen until you get the JAPS with their "factory" boats to comply. When Loran came out, it made the guess work of finding fish a repetitive motion, once found, you could go back to a piece of bottom over and over again, until you killed the spot. The japs have always been great fisherman, and now with GPS and the sensitve sonars available, its not a matter of "if" the oceans will be depleted, but "when". From one who, unfortunately, did a small part to deplete the gulf of mexico snapper and grouper populations during the 1980's. The Captain.

[Capt.YankeeMike]

Arrrgh, they be nothing to catch that deep down matey, even a blasted tile fish hardly ever go past 150 fathoms, now swab the deck, ye land lubber. Arrgh....

[saminfl]

Don't know where your from, but until a few years ago I lived in FL and never had a problem with getting sea food or the price.

I still live in Florida and things are not so rosy now thanks to the "net-ban" constitutional amendment passed in 1994.

We used to have plenty of fresh sea food markets and plenty of reasonably priced seafood restaurants here. We don't anymore thanks to the efforts of one magazine, radical environmenatlists and idiot voters.

[katykelly]

Simmer gently with honey and water. Put under broiler with lemon butter. Poor mans lobster.

[The Turbanator]

"In the Gulf of Maine people were catching cod a few decades ago. Now they're catching sea cucumber. By earlier standards, these things are repulsive," he says.
Lobster were repulsive years ago. They were so plentiful they were used by the ton for fertilizing farms.It was also possible to catch them with a spear on rocky beaches.Now try and catch one, even the commercial guys have a though go at it.

Stop fishing for one species and target another for a decade.The rebound is amazing.
We do this on the Great South Bay,everyone goes clamming they dry up, switch to crabbing, now thier gone, gill net weakfish, no more weakfish, its back to the clams because they had a break for a few years. And so it goes.
NO SUBSIDIES JUST SUPPLY AND DEMAND AND GOOD HONEST HARD WORK. THE AMERICAN WAY.

[John H K]

Actually, most of the net ban support in Florida was from recreational fishermen, who are overwhelmingly Republicans.

And it saved your recreational fishery which generates billions of dollars more income for Florida than your commercial fishery.

It's interesting how people who don't fish or who don't know jack squat about the ocean on FR always question commercial overfishing articles.

It's not invented environmentalist BS. It's real. Commercial fishermen have a history of destroying fishery after fishery.