Overfishing Responsible For Declining Fish Population (theguardian.com)

iONiUM send word of a new study into fishing practices around the world that found official reports have dramatically underestimated the number of fish caught over the past several decades. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization, global catches peaked at 86 million tons in 1996, and began a slow decline after that. This study suggests the peak was much higher — around 130 million tons — and subsequent catch rates are falling three times faster. Significantly, they believe the decline is not due to less fishing activity, but rather the exhaustion of supply in many areas. One of the study's authors, Daniel Pauly, said, "I expect a continued decline because I don’t expect countries to realise the need to rebuild stocks. I don’t see African countries, for example, rebuilding their stocks, or being allowed to by the foreign fleets that are working there, because the pressure to continue to fish is very strong. We know how to fix this problem but whether we do it or not depends on conditions that are difficult."

Comments

Re:Tomorrow in The Guardian

[MightyMartian]

You are aware, I trust, that climatologists take into account historical fluctuations. You don't actually seriously believe that you have some special bit of knowledge here that people who have dedicated their lives to studying climate, including anomalies and cycles, have?

Re:Tomorrow in The Guardian

[iONiUM]

Submitter here. The summary isn't even the article I submitted. Here is my submission: submission. And here is the actual article I linked as the main article main article.

The title there is "Oceans running out of fish as undeclared catches add a third to official figures."