Has the Sea Given Up Its Bounty?

NY Times ^ | July 29, 2003 | WILLIAM J. BROAD and ANDREW C. REVKIN

[presidio9]

ost of the earth's surface is covered by oceans, and their vastness and biological bounty were long thought to be immune to human influence. But no more. Scientists and marine experts say decades of industrial-scale assaults are taking a heavy toll.

More than 70 percent of commercial fish stocks are now considered fully exploited, overfished or collapsed. Sea birds and mammals are endangered. And a growing number of marine species are reaching the precariously low levels where extinction is considered a real possibility.

"It's an incipient disaster," said Richard Ellis, author of "The Empty Ocean."

A rush of recent studies, reports, books and conferences have described the situation as a crisis and urged governments and the industry to enact substantial changes.

Behind the assault, experts say, are steady advances in technology, national subsidies to fishing fleets and booming markets for seafood. Demand is up partly because fish is considered healthier to eat than chicken and red meat.

Directed by precise sonar and navigation gear, more than 23,000 fishing vessels of over 100 tons and several million small ones are scouring the sea with trawls that sweep up bottom fish and shrimp; setting miles of lines and hooks baited for tuna, swordfish and other big predators; and deploying other gear in a hunt for seafood in ever deeper, more distant waters.

Flash freezers allow them to preserve their catch so they can sweep waters right to the fringes of Antarctica. The trade is so global that an 80-year-old Patagonian toothfish hooked south of Australia can end up served by its more market-friendly name, Chilean sea bass, in a San Francisco bistro.

Seafood industry officials say overfishing and disregard for environmental harm peaked a decade ago. They point to the spreading adoption of gear that avoids unintended catches, acceptance of quotas and other limits, and agreements to conserve ocean-roaming fishes like tunas.

"We now have a better understanding of the limitations of the resources," said Linda Candler of the National Fisheries Institute, an industry lobbying group.

Federal fisheries officials note that although 80 American fish stocks have serious problems, restoration plans are in the works, and other stocks are rebounding. The North Atlantic swordfish is often cited as a sign of success. After limits were imposed four years ago, it has now largely recovered.

Pietro Parravano, who trolls for salmon out of Half Moon Bay, Calif., said fishery critics tended to overlook damage done by pollution and destruction of coastal wetlands. "It's not just our activity that's leading to this decline," he said. "If fishermen are doing something wrong, they're willing to adapt."

The Problems Experts Worry About Extinctions

Marine scientists have recently reported that improvements in fish stocks, where seen, are from depleted base lines that are a dim hint of the ocean's former bounty.

In the early 20th century, harpooned swordfish were routinely 300 pounds apiece. Swordfish caught on long-line hooks by the mid-1990's averaged less than 90 pounds, barely big enough to reproduce. Improvements since then, biologists say, hardly represent a resurgence.

Cod, which once could reach six feet in length, have essentially vanished off eastern Canada. Despite closures of fishing grounds, they may never come back, biologists say, because overfishing has so profoundly changed the ecosystem.

One consolation to biologists measuring such changes is knowing that commercial extinction — the point when a fishery is abandoned because of plummeting yields — generally comes before outright extinction.

Regional extinction appears to be possible, though. In 2000, the American Fisheries Society, representing fishery scientists and managers, reported that populations of 22 species, including various skates, sturgeons and groupers, had almost vanished.

As industrial fleets push into new waters, experts say, the danger and damage spread. The laws and international pacts that do exist can be circumvented, producing persistent illegal markets in coveted species.

[discostu]

Scientists worry about extinction because they're jobs tend to get tied to one species, if that species goes away they'll need to find real work.

[r9etb]

But the problem is first, that you need some international body to allocate the oceans to various countries, and then those countries would allocate the fisheries to somebody.

Presumably the allocations are not perpetual -- the treaties would probably call for a reallocation every (say) 15 years or so, and it would again fall to the UN-like body to control the bidding.

There's no "property" in that case -- at least, not in the generally accepted sense of the term.

[dark_lord]

Luckily this kind of thing tends to be self correcting, when there aren't enough fish to catch profitably we cut down on the catches (already are with many breeds we're now farming) this gives that fish time to recover population, which will eventually result in them being profitable for massive fishing again.

There is truth to what you say, but you are oversimplifying. What happens when you have government subsidized fishing? Then the fishing fleet fishes even in depleted waters, which can drive some species to extinction. Japan, for example, which does not tolerate unemployment well, may happily keep their fleet going using drift nets until vast areas of the ocean are turned into deserts. And they are not the only country that would prefer to keep their fishing fleets employed regardless of the catch. The PRC, for example, uses some (many) of its fishing vessals for intelligence gathering.

[discostu]

Well the initial drop in the catch is what spurred major growth in farming. Now farming is having a major impact on catching because farmed fish are so much cheaper. Like always the environmentalists are stuck with their heads in the past, they know at one point we were catching less because we were running out of fish to catch, and are assuming (incorrectly) that's still the cause.

[RightWhale]

Jacques Cousteau complained about the quality of his favorite diving spots going from neat to trash during his career. Can't imagine that the reefs and estuaries have improved any since his death.

[Rodney King]

But the problem is first, that you need some international body to allocate the oceans to various countries, and then those countries would allocate the fisheries to somebody.

Well, you don't neccessarily need a body. Most of the nations that exist today weren't given their land by some body. Ideally, a body could help out such that war would be averted. Then, the countries allocating the fisheries is simply an industry privatisation that is really no different then Poland selling off its state owned property.

Presumably the allocations are not perpetual -- the treaties would probably call for a reallocation every (say) 15 years or so, and it would again fall to the UN-like body to control the bidding.

They should be perpetual. That's the whole point of it if you want people to take care of their property. If they are not, then that's not what I am reccomending.

There's no "property" in that case -- at least, not in the generally accepted sense of the term.

Well, right. But what I am proposing is in essence an extension of national borders to cover the oceans.

[discostu]

My understanding is the spy-trawlers don't catch much fish. What'll happen from Japan's activity is that they'll make the area unable to support fish and the fish will stop coming. The ocean's big, the Pacific is almost an entire hemisphere, lots of place for fish to hide. Subsidizing might tilt the scale but eventually even that becomes too expensive. We might lose a couple of species but that too is the natural course of things, extinction happens.

[biblewonk]

Well the initial drop in the catch is what spurred major growth in farming. Now farming is having a major impact on catching because farmed fish are so much cheaper. Like always the environmentalists are stuck with their heads in the past, they know at one point we were catching less because we were running out of fish to catch, and are assuming (incorrectly) that's still the cause.

It's like pointing out that the harvest of wild turkey has declined horribly since the pilgrams. This can only mean that wild turkeys have become near extinct. This is how they push global warming also. They report on one data point without bothering to show the whole picture.

[presidio9]

But the point is, Rodney, if I already own exclusive fishing rights in my own territorial waters, what incentive would I have for selling them to some international body? And as far as individuals go, this is already accomplished through licensing fees.

[Itzlzha]

Which is more likely...

1) The Sea has "given up it's bounty"...

or

2) The NYSlimes and it's biased anti-business/anti America view just are trying to change the story from their own perfidity...

You choose, but choose wisely.

[discostu]

Exactly. My favorite was a couple of years ago when everybody first started noticing declining breeding in the human population. First instinct of all the environmentalists was that it was polution affecting our fertility, it took months before anybody pointed out that it might just be the result of 30 years of panic about over population. Never occured to these guys that the propoganda they'd been spreading for decades might actually have worked. Fill in your own joke about the relationship between their ZPG propoganda and polution.

[Dane]

I choose your choice #2 in your reply #30.

[Rodney King]

But the point is, Rodney, if I already own exclusive fishing rights in my own territorial waters, what incentive would I have for selling them to some international body?

None. I'm talking about the waters that are not already exclusive to one country.

And as far as individuals go, this is already accomplished through licensing fees.

No, licensing is far different. The license holder has no long term incentive.

When you think about it, what I am proposing is no different then the way that land is allocated, except that it is extremely difficult to administer. We all agree that people treat their own land better than they treat someone elses land. Their is a reason why most superfund sites are on government and not private land. I am proposing that the same incentive structure be used on the waters. That is, real, exclusive, trading rights to large sections of the ocean that are permenant, and saleable.

[The Electrician]

There is indeed a property rights parable hidden in this story. It's a classic example of what is known as the "tragedy of the commons". Since nobody owns the resource, nobody has enough of a stake to protect the resource. If the source of the article weren't the NY Times, it might have used this reality to illustrate the built-in failings of Socialism and Communism... If everybody owns it, then nobody owns it, hence disaster. The same disaster that is in our future as we drift towards (or, should I say, "slouch towards", to borrow a phrase) more and more Socialism and less and less regard for property rights.

[biblewonk]

I'm actually glad for the posts about ocean production because it caused me to do the research which has left me feeling very upbeat. My daughter's getting her first job at Red Lobster also caused some of the curiosity.

I remember the doom and gloom stuff in 1973 when I was 9. My nick name was Harley boy because getting a Harley was all I talked about. I became depressed knowing that in 10 years there wouldn't be enough gas left to run Harleys.

[adam_az]

lobster farming:

http://www.norwegian-lobster-farm.com/about.htm
http://articles.uwphoto.no/articles_folder/lobster_farming_in_Norway.htm

"Cowboys" raise cows... what would you call a lobster farmer? "Lobsterboy?" That sounds more like a Weekly World News cover story.

[discostu]

Which is why I make fun of the doom-and-gloomers today. You hear a lot of the same predictions now as back then, still haven't come true. Everything has been destined to fall apart in 5 to 10 years for 30 or 40 years, you'd figure somebody could do the math.

[biblewonk]

Way to go! Can you imagine movies like Soilent Green where they envisioned such an over crowded planet that we'd be eating plankton, soy and human. What a joke.

[biblewonk]

Today's afterwork beer is to fish farming and the worlds productivity, per God's creation plan.

[-YYZ-]

Y'know, just because the enviro-wackos are usually doing the chicken little thing, doesn't mean they aren't sometimes correct. The ocean is not a limitless resource, and we have had for some time now the technology to largely wipe out many fish stocks. The collapse of the northen cod stocks is not a figment of someone's imagination. The gov't of Canada was not at all keen to stop the harvest of cod, as they had used that fishery for years to help prop up the economy and employment stats of the east coast of Canada (which contributed to the cod stocks' demise), but they felt they had to.

Also, fish farming is no substitute for the natural productivity of the ocean - farmed fish have to be fed, while the ocean produces food at the bottom of the food chain. And much of the farmed fish food comes from scooping up vast quantities of small fish from the ocean, fish that also feed the larger fish and marine mammals. The oceans are productive and can continue to produce a vast amount of food with no man-made inputs required, but only if properly managed. Else shrimp and tiny fish like capelin will be all that's left in the ocean, and that's not good for anyone.