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

Tomorrow in The Guardian

[Rik Sweeney]

Overeating responsible for obesity.

Re:Tomorrow in The Guardian

[ShanghaiBill]

It is unfair to blame the Guardian for a stupid Slashdot headline. The point of the study was not to show that overfishing caused fish stocks to decline (we already knew that), but to actually quantify the rate of decline. The Guardian's headline expresses that accurately, while the Slashdot headline is misleading.

Re:Go Vegan

[NatasRevol]

Contribute to the declining fish populations with excessive fertilizer runoff!

People eat

[stabiesoft]

More people eat more. 7 Bellion people eat alot more. I do not see this ending well.

Re:Yet another political submission here at Slashd

[BarbaraHudson]

Studying overfishing is done by scientists, not fishermen. That should cover the STEM part. With better data on overfishing, we can make better policies, based on science, to try to reverse the problem. It was technological advances (sonar, etc) that allowed the cod fishery in eastern canadian waters to be overfished to the point that it collapsed.

Re:Really?

[Flavianoep]

There is no such a thing as "bleeding obvious". Overfishing *does* cause decline in fishing population, but one must ascertain the such "overfishing" did occur. The cause could be some other thing, though, like global warming. BTW, what is bleeding obvious for some is not for everyone, so I had to tell many people where I live that *anthropogenic* global warming is not the "bleeding obvious".

Re:Daniel Pauly is wearing blinders

[serviscope_minor]

And with no plan for what to do with the out-of-work owners and their families and some deck hands and their families. Just "stop fishing", that's how to fix the problem.

Ah yes, the old assumption that doing nothing is somehow a sensible default option.

Thing is if you don't force 30% of those boats out of work, then the fish stock will collapse and force 100% of the boats out of work. And those who object to putting 30% out of work sure as hell have NO plan with what to do with the owners, deckhands and families when they're all out of work.

So yes, "just stop" is in fact a better plan than carrying on.