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Popular seafood species in sharp decline around the world
- pstuart 6y agoThe tragedy of the commons writ large.
- everybodyknows 6y agoYes. Author highlights the critical metric: > ... 87 populations were found to be in the “very bad” category, with biomass levels at less than 20 per cent of what is needed to maximize sustainable fishery catches
- lifeslogit 6y agoThe tragedy of the commons is a great launching point for understanding this problem. Managing fish populations is one of the best examples. For further reading, I suggest folks check out Elinor Ostrom, an economist who spent time developing regulatory solutions for managing fish populations. She was even able to implement a few!
- BurningFrog 6y agoI hear Iceland and New Zealand have sustainable ownership based systems.
- youareostriches 6y agoThe “Tragedy of the Commons” is a straw man fallacy. The commons have historically always been collectively managed by the villagers grazing their animals on it. What you should be complaining about is the tragedy of an unmanaged (or in other words unregulated) commons. http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2008/angus250808.html http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2008/angus250808.html That the oceans, a common resource, are not sufficiently regulated, suggests we need better global governance.
- dredmorbius 6y agoReading ToTC itself you'll find that this is specifically what Hardin advocates for: Mutual Coercion Mutually Agreed Upon. Unmanaged commons lead to ruin. The question is how to suitably manage them. http://www.garretthardinsociety.org/articles/art_tragedy_of_the_commons.html http://www.garretthardinsociety.org/articles/art_tragedy_of_...
- rosstex 6y agoUpvoting because I like fish
- travisoneill1 6y agoSo if the population collapses, the fishermen will go out of business until the population recovers? Or is it not as simple as that?
- hammock 6y agoJust like restaurants and bars and their workers during the pandemic
- cloudwalking 6y agoWhen the population collapses, the species will go extinct.
- eloff 6y agoDepends. Both outcomes are possible.
- tartuffe78 6y agoI mean the population would presumably dip low enough to where fishing becomes too difficult to be profitable before total extinction.
- dragontamer 6y agoI'm sure hunters of the Passenger pigeon thought the same too. Many fish and bird species have shear reprodutive ability as their only defense. In the case of Passenger Pigeons, they had very little defenses against predators, but migrated in huge flocks of hundreds of thousands at a time. No predator could really harm the flock as a whole. Well, until Humans became too good at hunting anyway. (Also, USA used to be covered in forests. But we cut those trees down to make room for our cities) As described in 1813 (From Wikipedia): > The air was literally filled with (passenger) Pigeons; the light of noon-day was obscured as by an eclipse; the dung fell in spots, not unlike melting flakes of snow, and the continued buzz of wings had a tendency to lull my senses to repose.
- 6y ago
- 14 6y agoI really wish there was a way to stop all fishing at a commercial level for 10 years. Not that you can’t eat a fish just that if you want that luxury you have to go catch it yourself. I know this will never happen.
- toomuchtodo 6y agoThere is, but the duration might be longer than 10 years. We grab a bunch of what's endangered, sequence their genomes, construct plans for future repopulation, and be prepared for a future when we're more responsible with these natural resources. The fisheries will exhaust, and demand will shift elsewhere in the short term. There is no other path to success, as attempting cooperation with those who will fish relentlessly is futile. Preserve what's left today for a future with better humans.
- beambot 6y agoOrganisms are so much more complex than their genome, in ways we're only now starting to understand: > Human cells make up only 43% of the body's total cell count. The rest are microscopic colonists. https://www.bbc.com/news/health-43674270 https://www.bbc.com/news/health-43674270
- wlll 6y agoThe problem there is that when the fish become extinct, the entire ecosystem is altered and may never recover.
- apazzolini 6y ago> future with better humans Mighty bold of you to assume we're not on the Idiocracy timeline :)
- enriquto 6y ago> Not that you can’t eat a fish just that if you want that luxury you have to go catch it yourself. But can't I pay a thousand dollars to a friend to catch the fish for me? I'm afraid of the sea.
- blakesterz 6y agoThe actual study is here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0272771419307644 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S027277141... Fishery biomass trends of exploited fish populations in marine ecoregions, climatic zones and ocean basins It's a journal called Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science.
- quotemstr 6y agoWe cultivate all our other food. We don't feed ourselves by walking around the plains of Anatolia and collecting wild wheat. Why should we feed ourselves by dragging hooks through the oceans? The fishing industry is the last vestige of humanity's hunt-and-gather past, and it, too, needs to yield to agriculture. We need better fish farms.
- wonderwonder 6y agoWith the way the human population is expanding and the rising income of 3rd world nations we are really going to look at a major increase in both genetically engineering food stock to be larger and more nutritious as well as ramping up lab grown meat. Conservation is clearly not going to work as so many nations ignore it anyway and quite often regulations lack teeth due to the fear of killing an industry. Its difficult to ask 3rd world nations to cut back while first world nations have been reaping benefits for so long. While I wish organically growing food and conservation was the answer, its unfortunately not. Society just wont change to support it. A science fiction style solution is going to be the only way to feed the world.
- coldpie 6y agoYup. We're already pretty much at capacity in terms of using arable farming land[1]. We need more efficient farming, which means GMOs and advanced farming methods; we don't need less efficient farming like organic and anti-GMO. [1] https://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/how-much-arable-land-is-there/ https://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/how-much-arabl...
- jadler999 6y agoAny good studies estimating the carrying capacity of Earth with current ag tech?
- hxegon 6y agocan't remember where but I think theoretical upper bound was about 11-12B, but realistically I think 9.5-10B based off nothing in particular.
- gen220 6y agoIt's worth noting that every time there's been estimations on carrying capacity applied to humans, it's eventually turned out to be wrong. The reality is that we are not very efficient at agriculture in all of the places where agriculture is practiced. Most carrying capacity models make the assumption that we are at or near peak agricultural output, but this simply isn't true, so the models' predictive powers fall apart. For an example from another industry, where people have been similarly predicting capacity-related doom since the 80s, look at oil. In the 80s, people thought we were going to run out of oil, because "proven accessible reserves" were dwindling. Between the innovations of low-cost fracking and more effective "proving" tools, this problem evaporated. The moral of the story is that, where demand is high, capitalistic pressures means that, given enough time, we will always finds a way to open up more supply. All this to say, be very critical of the assumptions made by whatever models you find, or doomsday claims you may come across. If agriculturalists are not concerned about this, the burden of evidence for us to be concerned should be rather high.
- beached_whale 6y agoWe should be fixing farmed fish. When was the last time people ate wild cow. It's not sustainable for a population to be exploiting wild fish, farm properly and learn to do it quickly. As long as we eat meat, we have to do it in the least intrusive way.
- i_am_proteus 6y agoSince cow are definitionally domesticated, nobody has ever eaten a wild cow, but people eat wild mammals on a regular basis. Game is typically much healthier as a food source than domesticated animals; this includes wild-caught fish vs. farm-raised fish.
- MattGaiser 6y ago> but people eat wild mammals on a regular basis. Not in meaningful quantity. It would bet that the median time since a typical Westerner last had wild mammal could be measured in months if not years.
- s_dev 6y ago>Not in meaningful quantity. Enough wild meat to introduce a new Virus and pandemic though.
- beached_whale 6y agoprobably not if most families in Sydney and Melbourne went out hunting.
- phonypc 6y agoI'd bet a typical westerner has never eaten wild mammal meat. I expect the statement in born from the misconception that "game" meat as found in restaurants and for sale is from wild animals, when it is actually farmed.
- 6y ago
- dummydata 6y ago> Of the populations analyzed, 82 per cent were found to be below levels that can produce maximum sustainable yields, due to being caught at rates exceeding what can be regrown. Of these, 87 populations were found to be in the “very bad” category, with biomass levels at less than 20 per cent of what is needed to maximize sustainable fishery catches. It seems to me that we don't have a clear concept of sustainable commercial fishing looks like (with regards to wild capture). Thankfully, it seems Aquaculture is on the rise to offset increasing demand: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fishing_industry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fishing_industry
- s1artibartfast 6y agoHow do you draw the conclusion that we dont know what sustainable fishing looks like. According to the article, we know the optimal sustainable take down to the percent. The failure is in getting any nation to adhere to limits.
- TheAdamAndChe 6y agoI buy canned sardines regularly. I've noticed for the last year that the size of the sardines are increasing, and many that are canned now have eggs. It makes me wonder if pressure is making them age and try to reproduce sooner than before, or if the fishing season is being expanded to meet demand. I've cut back on buying them as much. I may quit after this.
- hammock 6y agoCould just be that there are more of them, due to less predators (the bigger fish), therefore the average size is bigger/older
- rjsw 6y agoWhere are you buying them ? Some countries call the younger fish "sardines" and older ones of the same species "pilchards", both have been sold for food for a long time. Maybe this is just a change in how they are labelled.
- TheAdamAndChe 6y agoCentral USA. I'm not sure what is legally considered a sardine here, but it's definitely something to look into.
- fludlight 6y agoHuman induced evolution is happening with wild salmon. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3352430/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3352430/
- pengaru 6y agoI too eat canned sardines regularly and have for many years, have not noticed any such thing. There is a seasonality to them though, just like with most natural wild foods. As far as wild-caught seafood goes Sardines are of least concern.
- buovjaga 6y agoThe orange roughy story is particularly sad https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orange_roughy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orange_roughy "The orange roughy is notable for its extraordinary lifespan, attaining over 200 years." "Orange roughy is fished almost exclusively by bottom trawling. This fishing method has been heavily criticized by environmentalists for its destructive nature."
- LifeLiverTransp 6y agoDrop a concrete block with a blade - and the bottom trawling is over..
- sadmann1 6y agoBetween rising consumption, rising populations in net food importing countries and global warming we'll see fireworks soon enough
- ThomPete 6y agoAquafarming or aquaculture is the way we solve that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquaculture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquaculture
- greenhorse 6y agoIt's not that hard to be vegetarian or at least cut back a lot on meat folks.
- danhak 6y agoSociety will never overcome this tragedy of the commons. Only a few will make personal sacrifice for the common good. Only a market-driven solution will be viable. We need to find sustainable alternatives that are better than the foods they replace. Just like we need electric cars that are better than internal combustion engines.
- kickout 6y agoThank you. You get it. Agriculture (animal and plant) need market incentives to change. Not some feel good story. https://thinkingagriculture.io/a-marketplace-for-carbon-and-agriculture-subsidies/ https://thinkingagriculture.io/a-marketplace-for-carbon-and-...
- cryptoz 6y ago> We need to find sustainable alternatives that are better than the foods they replace. Just like we need electric cars that are better than internal combustion engines That's already happening though. Meat eaters still don't seem to care. I'm a recent vegetarian and the food I eat now tastes better, is often more nutritious, and is easier to make. The better alternatives are here. Oat milk! Wow! Have you tried it? I knocked vegan cheese forever because it sucked. But you know what? They are starting to make some that is better than some 'real' cheese. Indian food. Baked/BBQ tofu is amazing. I've had veggie burgers in CA and WA that beat a 'regular' burger by a mile. Try Souley Vegan in Oakland for one. Wowza. Better than any meat burger I've ever had. Not all vegetarian food is sustainable, I know. But it's better. I'm vegetarian for the taste more than anything really. It's not a sacrifice! I think a lot meat eaters would be absolutely shocked at how delicious and healthy a lot of vegetarian food is now. > Only a few will make personal sacrifice for the common good. ??? I didn't make a 'personal sacrifice' to become vegetarian. It's a literal animal sacrifice every meal the other way around! Vegetarian food isn't a sacrifice. What the world needs is to convert more to veggies is to squash the idea that becoming vegetarian means making a sacrifice.
- KerrickStaley 6y agoIf you're interested in adjusting your seafood eating habits towards eating more sustainable seafood, the Monterey Bay Aquarium maintains a guide on which seafood (based on species and location/method of catch) is most sustainable, somewhat sustainable, and not sustainable. My favorite version of the guide is the printable version that you can fold up and put in your wallet: https://www.seafoodwatch.org/seafood-recommendations/consumer-guides https://www.seafoodwatch.org/seafood-recommendations/consume... Here's the main site where you can search for a fish by name: https://www.seafoodwatch.org/ https://www.seafoodwatch.org/ This is geared towards the USA but I think the guides are at least somewhat useful in other countries.
- ygjb 6y agohttps://seafood.ocean.org/ https://seafood.ocean.org/ is a good international alternative; for example, Ocean Wise logos can be found on many menus in Vancouver and other Canadian cities.
- nanna 6y agoI'd be interested in an EU or UK version of this if anyone can link?
- twic 6y agoThis is for the UK: https://www.mcsuk.org/goodfishguide/search https://www.mcsuk.org/goodfishguide/search The app page has links to Android and iOS apps, and a PDF (although the latter is dense and highly coloured, not ideal to print). This being for the UK, they also have a fish finger guide.
- twic 6y agoBut what winds me up in the UK is how rarely i even have the option of eating sustainably. If i go to a fishmonger, or a decent-sized supermarket, sure. But in a small supermarket, or a pub or a fish and chip shop, it's always the standards: cod, haddock, skate, rock, plaice (and to be honest plaice is a pleasant surprise). Of those, haddock is the only one that's really okay (scores 2-4): https://www.mcsuk.org/goodfishguide/search?name=Haddock https://www.mcsuk.org/goodfishguide/search?name=Haddock Cod is okay if it's from the far north, but most of the time you have no way of knowing (scores 1-5): https://www.mcsuk.org/goodfishguide/search?name=Cod%2C+Atlantic+Cod https://www.mcsuk.org/goodfishguide/search?name=Cod%2C+Atlan... Plaice is okay if it's from the east coast, but even then, the fishing methods are damaging (scores 2-5): https://www.mcsuk.org/goodfishguide/search?name=Plaice https://www.mcsuk.org/goodfishguide/search?name=Plaice Rock salmon is critically endangered (scores 5): https://www.mcsuk.org/goodfishguide/search?name=Spurdog%2C+Spiny+Dogfish%2C+Dogfish%2C+Rock+Salmon+or+Flake https://www.mcsuk.org/goodfishguide/search?name=Spurdog%2C+S... Skate is endangered and illegal to fish (scores 5): https://www.mcsuk.org/goodfishguide/search?name=Skate https://www.mcsuk.org/goodfishguide/search?name=Skate Now, given that rock and skate are endangered, i have to admit i'm a bit confused about how they end up on menus. Are they being imported from other parts of the world where they're legal to fish? Or are they actually other, similar and legal, fish being sold under incorrect but familiar names?
- 88840-8855 6y ago250 new humans are born every single minute. This is the biggest issue we are facing. This problem must be solve immediately. Once the population stops growing efficiency measures become effective.
- rcMgD2BwE72F 6y agoMost of them will have a reasonable footprint on their environment for their lifetime. The actual issue is with all the people who consume as if there were 5 to 10 habitable planets within reach. For some reasons, those who complain about population growth tend to consume the most.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- nxpnsv 6y agoPerhaps calling them sea food is part of the problem?
- arkanciscan 6y agoTime to start eating Jellyfish!
- danans 6y agoOh Impossible Fish[1], where art thou? https://www.seafoodsource.com/news/foodservice-retail/whats-possible-impossible-foods-teases-its-fishless-fish-aspirations https://www.seafoodsource.com/news/foodservice-retail/whats-...
- jungletime 6y agoPollution is also a big problem. For example, people won't eat Great Lakes fish because they are too polluted.
- zackmorris 6y agoI'm shocked that the article didn't mention this, but the mass die-offs we're seeing are because the world's coral reefs will be dead by 2050: https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/environment-90-percent-coral-reefs-die-2050-climate-change-bleaching-pollution-a7626911.html https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/environment-90-per... https://www.businessinsider.com/great-barrier-reef-could-disappear-by-2050-why-2019-10 https://www.businessinsider.com/great-barrier-reef-could-dis... https://www.forbes.com/sites/trevornace/2020/02/24/70-90-percent-of-coral-reefs-will-disappear-over-the-next-20-years-scientists-say/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/trevornace/2020/02/24/70-90-per... The effect of this is that 500 million pacific islanders will be forced to flee to Southeast Asia as their primary food source dies, which will lead to widespread political instability and possibly war. Not to mention that since 25% of sea life depends on reefs, their death will have catastrophic ripple effects throughout the ocean. All due to runaway global warming acidifying the ocean with CO2. This was well-understood and warned about decades ago (I learned about it as a kid in the 1980s). I sure wish a tech billionaire would do something about this. Their inaction on countless fronts, in fact their complacency in undermining progress on environmental causes in global politics, is one of the thousand reasons I got out of tech.
- makerofspoons 6y agoI have little hope that we will reduce emissions in time or in sufficient quantity to save the coral reefs. My remaining hope is that projects like Project Vesta will help reverse ocean acidification https://projectvesta.org/ https://projectvesta.org/
- numpad0 6y agoWould a hot war in East Asia be enough for the same effect? Hypothetically of course
- makerofspoons 6y agoWell a nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan would cool the Earth temporarily, but it wouldn't help long term: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/10/191002144251.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/10/191002144251.h... I would expect ocean acidification would actually get worse, since the effects would mimic the 'Year without a Summer' so people would be releasing more carbon to heat their homes.
- drc37 6y agoInteresting article that just came out yesterday from Yale University that is right in line with this article how China's commericial fishing fleet is doing a lot of this damage. https://e360.yale.edu/features/how-chinas-expanding-fishing-fleet-is-depleting-worlds-oceans https://e360.yale.edu/features/how-chinas-expanding-fishing-...
- irthomasthomas 6y agoEveryone please stop blaming coral bleaching on climate change. Nitrogen run-off from farming is the main cause. We need to reduce nitrogen enrichment in farming, which will lead to lower yields and lower profits (or, more likely, higher prices). But blaming climate change here is an egregious example of green washing which will prevent or delay resolving the real issue. Stop it. Please. "Anthropogenic nutrient enrichment is often associated with coral reef decline. Consequently, there is a large consent that increased nutrient influxes in reef waters have negative longterm consequences for corals" https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877343513001917 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S187734351... "Increased loadings of nitrogen (N) from fertilizers, top soil, sewage, and atmospheric deposition are important drivers of eutrophication in coastal waters globally. Monitoring seawater and macroalgae can reveal long-term changes in N and phosphorus (P) availability and N:P stoichiometry that are critical to understanding the global crisis of coral reef decline" https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00227-019-3538-9 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00227-019-3538-9
- Johnjonjoan 6y agoI'm not sure we can make this conclusion. Certainly the effect you're mentioning does extreme damage but it is localised. Acidification is nowhere near as localised, therefore whilst it doesn't affect individual areas as strongly it is much more widespread. When looking at the accumulative effects the question of which one is worse is up for debate and non trivial to answer.
- JoshTko 6y agoYour sources don't seem to exclude warmer waters as a contributor to bleaching. From your first source "...recent scientific results show that increased nutrient levels can reduce the heat stress tolerance of corals..." So it seems that runoff + heat both contribute to coral bleaching.
- tuatoru 6y ago> Stop it. Please. No. Nitrogen pollution has local effects and is an enormous problem in some important fish spawning grounds, but it cannot explain what happened to the Great Barrier Reef in 2018 and again in 2019. The effects of temperature on corals are getting to be quite well understood now. Globally, marine heat waves are a major problem, alongside pollution and direct reef destruction. Likewise, ocean acidification is happening as part of "climate change" (carbon pollution) and is another stress for corals. I agree with your point about N runoff. We need to stop growing maize for biofuels and animal feed and implement megascale riparian planting programmes to limit the damage done by floods. For starters. These things are not either-or. Overfishing and destructive fishing practices, "development", various kinds of pollution and oxygen depletion ... we're doing it all, and it all affects reefs.
- TheTruth321 6y agoRIP Earth ... but at least we'll be able order a ride share on our app while heading off to our next gig.
- 29athrowaway 6y agoOne symptom of overfishing is seeing a lot of fish below reproductive age. If you see this, you are seeing fish that could not reproduce. This is not sustainable. Once I bought canned fish and saw 3 small fish instead of one regular fish inside.
- blobbers 6y agoWhen I consider the implications for the children of this world, these thoughts make me deeply sad. Not in a way I feel I can directly action. Not in a way that many children don't have bigger problems than saving the whales. Just sad. I hope people share this feeling.
- swhitf 6y agoAll the time.
- growlist 6y agoWhen are people going to start acknowledging the elephant in the room: there are too many humans for us all to live western lifestyles, and unless we want our descendants to live vastly poorer lives we need to give serious attention to population control now.
- all_usernames 6y agoBecause there are alternatives to population control, like increasing the sustainability of food and energy sources. After all, the planet now supports twice as many people as it did a few decades ago, and that's basically down to agricultural yield improvements. Making less humans seems to be morally taboo, no one wants to go there.
- 2ion 6y ago> Making less humans seems to be morally taboo, no one wants to go there. The train will eventually have arrived at that station while people continue to pretend it didn't.
- williesleg 6y agoI'll bet they're tasty! Seriously, though, does anyone think with all the big shipping ships belching spew into the oceans the fishies will thrive and survive? Gotta build and consume locally.
- ace_of_spades 6y agoMaybe this is an unpopular opinion but I would encourage anyone interested in doing good to mostly abstain from animal products altogether. This must not necessarily be carried to extreme veganism but if you have the choice to not use animal products it’s in almost all circumstances better to take it. Plant based products are generally better for our health, our future, and the animals.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 6y agoI like Michael Pollan's mantra: Eat food, not too much, mostly plants.
- pacifika 6y ago“Seafood species” is an offending description of the purpose of these animals by the “click bait generator” I mean editor.
- AtomicOrbital 6y agoIan Urbina, investigative reporter, has written a book and published articles describing a fleet of 800 industrial fish boats from china who are illegally poaching catch from North Korea waters ... fallout is a devastating drop in squid partly due to these chinese boats catching squid as they migrate to their spawning grounds ( caught before they breed ) which is extremely short sighted and illegal ... also hundreds of ghost fishing boats from North Korea washing up on Japanese shores with dead crew ... I suggest you read up on Ian Urbina's work