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Tuna species popular in sashimi and poke bowls in sharp decline
- TheCryptoBro 3y agoDisruption of the food chain, cultural blow and sighs of disappointed foodies worldwide. Hilsa, a fish from the Bengali delta (India and Bangladesh), periodically has similar crises, but seemed to be dredging along its cherished existence. Here is hoping that the Tuna fisheries will pick up a thing or two from that brood and execute some good measures.
- selimthegrim 3y agoRelative of hilsa is in Indus River so there is some genetic backup.
- justrealist 3y agoTuna (horrific overfishing) and octopus (intelligence) are the two animals I won't eat.
- magospietato 3y agoAmusing anecdote - I used to eat octopus whenever I could get my hands on it, but always as an ingredient in a larger dish - e.g. chunks of octopus in a stew or sauce. One day I ordered octopus tentacle from a tapas bar, and it arrived whole (and beautifully presented as a centerpiece of sorts). This surfaced many memories of nature documentaries demonstrating the wit and resilience of the octopus. Looking at the delicacy artfully arranged on its plate, all I could think was "Jesus, that's _someone's arm_ we're eating!" Took a bite, nearly threw up, and haven't eaten octopus since.
- forward1 3y agoSounds like you briefly became aware of a cognitive dissonance and even stumbled upon an subconscious ideology, in this case Carnism. Melanie Joy speaks wonderfully on this subject and your realization: https://www.richroll.com/podcast/melanie-joy/ https://www.richroll.com/podcast/melanie-joy/
- adrianN 3y agoPigs are smart too. Octopuses at least don’t live very long in the wild either.
- pvaldes 3y agoSorry to hear that you developed an irrational phobia. But lets try to see the positive side of this history: more octopus for me.
- forward1 3y agoThe speciesism in this comment is profound, as if you have some empirical evidence an octupus is more intelligent than, say, a pig; or whether a creature's lack of ability to reason (versus feel pain and suffer) gives way to treat it cruelly.
- P_I_Staker 3y agoYeah, I think you would have to avoid many mammals, if you have these concerns; it's debatable how much this should even mater. Alligators may seem "dumb", but they're smarter than us, if you go only by success. We don't know what all those nice sunbathes do for the animal. Could bring the same joy and nastagia as climbing to the top of the mountain. Who are we to spoil this? How is it different from the joy we experience, or that of an octopus, pig, dog, ect as it frolics in the fields?
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- _ph_ 3y agoAnother important candidate are shark fins. Not only are sharks of many kinds endangered, cutting of their fins and tossing the still living shark back in the ocean is especially cruel and wasteful. But considering that most fish species are endangered and basically all of them are contaminated by plastic, there is good reason to avoid seafood altogether. Unless perhaps if you know that it has been fished sustainably from a local stable population. Which still wouldn't change the issues with the plastic.
- justrealist 3y agoOk sure I just mean of foods I might normally eat in normal life. I've never even had the option of declining shark fin soup.
- _ph_ 3y agoUnfortunately, they are still popular in parts of Asia. You don't see them at every corner, but e.g. in Taipeh it was offered in some places. And it is consumed enough to drive several species of sharks into extinction. Which of course, beyond the cruelty, will disrupt the eco systems further.
- lgkk 3y agoAs someone who eats almost exclusively vegan I think it would be great as the whole world faces these issues, we see lots of switches to eating tofu or plant based foods. Way cheaper. Can’t get so fat and unhealthy. And far healthier since most vegans and vegetarians live long and healthy lives compared to other groups. Poke tastes great with tofu btw. We shouldn’t destroy the oceans. Anyway I’m bracing for the inevitable downvote to oblivion
- defterGoose 3y agoNot going to downvote you because I appreciate your position. It seems really unlikely that tuna consumption is driving obesity or detrimental health effects though. Sushi lovers (and meat eaters) such as myself do need to make educated choices about their consumption though, I agree. Which is why basically any tuna species is (and has been) at the bottom of my list.
- HWR_14 3y ago> We shouldn’t destroy the oceans. That's why this isn't great. Because this is not "we went vegan to save the oceans". It is "the oceans look like they are already destroyed". Besides that, I haven't seen any studies that show a vegan or vegetarian diet makes someone healthier.
- nerpderp82 3y agoThere are over a billion people that don't eat meat by choice on the planet and another billion plus that have low access to animal protein. We can attempt to fix it before ecosystems collapse, if we do it afterwards, the only meat you will be eating will be worms.
- thfuran 3y ago>There are over a billion people that don't eat meat by choice on the planet and another billion plus that have low access to animal protein. That's not evidence that they're healthier for it.
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- renewiltord 3y agoOh interesting. Time for an update to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellowfin_tuna https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellowfin_tuna That article's IUCN description is now wrong. I'll do it later today if someone doesn't get to it first.
- kossTKR 3y agoI have family working as a UN advisor on sustainable food chains and she says the entire ecosystem in the oceans could potentially collapse in 10 to 20 years if we don't stop large scale fishing entirely, especially trawl and unreported fishing destroying the seafloor and acidity going haywire. I have no idea if this is correct but i'm pretty sure around 1 billion rely on this food and can't imagine what would happen if this somehow got removed from the system. Does anyone know if it's really that bad?
- tokai 3y agoThey have already collapsed some places in the world. Like the Baltic sea where a keystone specie like the cod is in so much trouble that it seems irreversible.
- TSiege 3y agoI read a lot about these sort of bleak predictions from people very in the weeds on the topics, but rarely see it being surfaced in a way that's easily citeable. I've seen second hand reports that the Amazon rain forest will experience it's tipping point within the next 3-5 years no matter what happens and even that it's already tipped, but we haven't figured it out yet. Frustrating that such dire claims aren't widely reported and made more aware. I fear that everything climate/earth system related is stuck in with the view that we should only say how bad things are when it's already over and measurable beyond any sort of doubt. That obviously leaves the public with no time to act
- adrianN 3y agoThe public simply refuses to believe the truth. Facts don’t matter anymore in the public discourse.
- PaywallBuster 3y agofarmed fish is probably not as vulnerable and there's many that can be created in inland ponds so it simply could be a shift in consumption
- delfinom 3y ago
- rolobio 3y agoI watched a documentary years ago about jellyfish invading Japan. Basically, the jellyfish population was exploding because the fish didn't exist to eat the baby jellyfish and keep them under control. The Japanese fishermen were furious that they kept catching jellyfish, rather than the fish that they wanted. They were the cause of their own suffering. Sounds like things haven't changed... I hesitate to think that Japan could do something about it though. If they stopped over-fishing, that would just attract Chinese fishermen who would fill the gaps. Just can't win without global cooperation.
- thfuran 3y agoThey could start eating jellyfish to pick up the slack.
- rolobio 3y agoYes, that is the second half of the documentary. They were trying to come up with delicious recipes to take advantage of the situation. I don't imagine I would like to eat jellyfish either, but I would certainly give it a try.
- hardwaregeek 3y agoThe Chinese prepare it quite well! It's great with some chili oil in a salad
- namtab00 3y agoit doesn't taste like anything... it's 90%+ water, and water solid remains is basically tofu: absorbs the flavor of what it's cooked with
- pvaldes 3y ago> They were trying to come up with delicious recipes to take advantage of the situation And this plan will be a failure from the start. The pool of edible species is just a very small part of the total. Leatherback turtles eat jellyfishes. What if we stop killing them instead? or increase the ludicrous amount of resources allocated to protect turtle nests?
- 0xbadcafebee 3y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passenger_pigeon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passenger_pigeon Passenger pigeons were hunted by Native Americans, but hunting intensified after the arrival of Europeans, particularly in the 19th century. Pigeon meat was commercialized as cheap food, resulting in hunting on a massive scale for many decades. There were several other factors contributing to the decline and subsequent extinction of the species, including shrinking of the large breeding populations necessary for preservation of the species and widespread deforestation, which destroyed its habitat. A slow decline between about 1800 and 1870 was followed by a rapid decline between 1870 and 1890. In 1900, the last confirmed wild bird was shot in southern Ohio. So too shall go the tuna. The size of a single tuna is already 50% to 70% smaller than normal. Soon their populations will go into freefall once there's not enough mature ones to spawn. The fishing will continue until there's no more. Even if legal limits are imposed, fishing will just continue illegally as it already does today.
- thfuran 3y agoMaybe. Cod suddenly collapsed by like 98% but never went extinct.
- morkalork 3y agoProbably a dumb question but why hasn't cod rebound on the east coast? The fishing moratorium has been in place for decades now, shouldn't the population have increased exponentially since then?
- alecthomas 3y agoThis paper [1] (PDF) indicates it is likely a complex interaction between multiple parts of the ecosystem. One example is that large cod are apex predators, competing with seals and when those cod were removed, seal populations increased, and predation on small cod increased correspondingly. [1] https://oceansfirstjournal.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/oceansfirst_05_steele.pdf https://oceansfirstjournal.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/ocean...
- NoMoreNicksLeft 3y agoI suspect that in 50 years, few people will be eating any seafood that isn't cultivated (aquaculture). Not out of choice, and not because of changing cultural values (it is tasty, after all). But because there's just none left. Saw a headline on reddit the other day, $800,000 for a single bluefin tuna. Granted, it was large (over 500 lbs), but you don't hold auctions with winning bids approaching a million dollars on a single fish when they're still in easy supply. I had assumed that this article would be talking about bluefin, was slightly surprised. It's kind of screwed up, if you ask me. Not a fan of sushi, and I guess I didn't know what a poke ball, but it's not just the fish favored by Japanese cuisine. I don't even know when the last time I would've eaten real cod at Long John's... in the 1980's as a kid? Now it's all something like Alaskan pollock or whatever. Gulf coast shrimp, shellfish off the east coast, very little of it seems to be in good status.
- empath-nirvana 3y ago> $800,000 for a single bluefin tuna. Granted, it was large (over 500 lbs), but you don't hold auctions with winning bids approaching a million dollars on a single fish when they're still in easy supply. That had nothing to do with supply. It was the first tuna of the season and people bid on it as a status symbol.
- verisimi 3y agoEven now, I thought most tuna were farmed. There are certainly lots of large farms in the Mediterranean.
- jjcm 3y agoThese crazy prices are typically bought for the advertising of having paid those prices, they aren’t a reflection of cost of the goods. The 800k fish was the first fish auctioned in the new year, which gets a lot of news cycles given the importance of the auction in Japan.
- selimthegrim 3y agoAn edible pokeball would be something
- s_dev 3y agoI'd be in favour of removing meat subsidies. If the 'true' price of steak or a burger was ten times higher people would eat it for special occasions and not every day with every meal. It's telling and hypocritical how many meat eating 'libertarians' are in favour of government handouts to preserve their food eating habits rather than letting the market do it's work. I'm a meat eater but I'll concede that those subsidies would have to be slowly removed -- otherwise it would result in the collapse of certain industries. Commercial fishing is just unsustainable. So unless you're a guy with a fishing rod we'll eventually have to just stop the boats heading out to sea.
- verisimi 3y agoCan you give an example of a 'meat subsidy'? I'm unaware of any.
- Symbiote 3y agoThe EU's Common Agricultural Policy. https://concito.dk/en/concito-bloggen/groen-reform-eus-landbrugspolitik https://concito.dk/en/concito-bloggen/groen-reform-eus-landb... and https://agriculture.ec.europa.eu/system/files/2022-05/vcs-ms-support-decisions-claim-year-2022_en_0.pdf https://agriculture.ec.europa.eu/system/files/2022-05/vcs-ms... , but I don't know much about it.
- imw 3y agoNot GP, but US livestock subsidies total $50B since 1995: https://www.ewg.org/news-insights/news/2022/02/usda-livestock-subsidies-near-50-billion-ewg-analysis-finds https://www.ewg.org/news-insights/news/2022/02/usda-livestoc... I found this a useful primer on the form that those subsidies take: https://farm.ewg.org/subsidyprimer.php https://farm.ewg.org/subsidyprimer.php (edited to clarify US scope)
- the_doctah 3y agoThe primer mentions nothing about livestock
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- 2024user 3y agoEat less meet people, it's not that hard.
- racl101 3y agoEat more chickin'
- pacomerh 3y agoPeople will downvote you but I see nothing wrong with your comment. Chick'n or other meat alternatives are a way to alternate your fish or meat consumption to reduce it (notice I didn't even say eliminate completely). Why not replace a few meals with alternatives. People's blood will boil when you tell them their beloved fish will not be an option one day. At this rate factory farmed fish will be your only option and we all know how ethical this process is. Oh I keep forgetting how most people don't care how they produce it as long as they can go out for Sushi.
- BiteCode_dev 3y agoEat less, meet people. Eat less, meat people.
- 2024user 3y agoI can't even blame typing on a mobile.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 3y agoPeople love being told what to do.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- palemoonale 3y ago
- aurizon 3y agoChina and Russia, are major over fishers. They have huge factory ships with swarms of smaller netters grabbing every fish they can. They do not respect size/species limits. Many countries have used armed patrol boats for offenders in their 200 mile economic zone. mid ocean sea mounts are have their fish exterminated by these vessels. Atlantic cod may not return because of over fishing on shallow banks that extend over 200 miles from Canada = where all fish are grabbed and the under 200 mile zone does not create enough young fish to compensate for these losses. Canada need to extend their control to the Grand Banks to add a contiguity zone. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Banks_of_Newfoundland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Banks_of_Newfoundland
- bannedbybros 3y ago[dead]
- hereme888 3y agoIsn't this issue almost exclusively caused by the Chinese fishermen?
- p_j_w 3y agoWhat evidence has lead you to this belief?
- pvaldes 3y agomath evidence show that 1000000 > 10. "Exclusively" is a big claim, but is reasonable to assume that the country with the supersized fleet catches more fishes
- hereme888 3y agoHere's one of many, many articles published over the years on the matter: https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3110537/how-chinas-vast-and-aggressive-fishing-fleet https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/arti... Oh, that's a paywalled article. Well, here's another: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/aug/25/can-anyone-stop-china-vast-armada-of-fishing-boats-galapagos-ecuador https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/aug/25/can-anyo...
- advisedwang 3y agoDo you have a source for this? Or is it just speculation? To be honest it sounds kind of xenophobic to just randomly blame the Chinese.
- hereme888 3y agoI've read many news reports over the years that it's the Chinese fishing vessels encroaching upon the national waters of other nations, and overfishing them. Those vessels tend to obscure themselves by illegal means, whether by fishing at night and with almost no lights, or other means. They're also reported to be very aggressive, and their unsafe fishing techniques are very damaging to the environment. Nothing xenophobic or random. It's facts. Here's one article: https://e360.yale.edu/features/how-chinas-expanding-fishing-fleet-is-depleting-worlds-oceans https://e360.yale.edu/features/how-chinas-expanding-fishing-...
- mikkom 3y agoWhere I live (Finland) salmon is most likely the most commonly used sushi/sashini fish. It tastes absolutely great, IMHO better than tuna. Hopefully other countries can also start using more commonly available fishes for sushi/sashimi and don't just stick to tuna because of historical reasons.
- jrochkind1 3y agoI'm afraid salmon fisheries aren't doing great either, and are facing similar levels of decline and risk. > Atlantic salmon (pictured) is placed in the “near threatened” category. New evidence says that globally, the population has declined by 23% between 2006 and 2020. https://www.fishfarmermagazine.com/2023/12/13/wild-atlantic-salmon-facing-major-threat/ https://www.fishfarmermagazine.com/2023/12/13/wild-atlantic-... https://wrt.org.uk/atlantic-salmon-now-near-threatened-on-iucn-red-list/ https://wrt.org.uk/atlantic-salmon-now-near-threatened-on-iu... (And actually when I try to look it up, it does not look like Yellowfin Tuna is actually on the "near threatened" or worse list officially? So atlantic salmon may be more threatened than yellowfin tuna according to IUCN?)
- mikkom 3y agoThe salmon we are using is mostly from fish farms, not from wild salmon. Wild salmon is wildly expensive here so I don't think it is ever used for sushi. https://www.marinefinland.fi/en-US/Humans_and_the_Baltic_Sea/Maritime_business/Fish_farming https://www.marinefinland.fi/en-US/Humans_and_the_Baltic_Sea... https://dyrevern.no/dyrevern/fish-farming-in-norway/ https://dyrevern.no/dyrevern/fish-farming-in-norway/
- nytesky 3y agoJapan kind of considers Salmon a junk fish, though I agree with you. https://www.npr.org/2015/09/18/441530790/how-the-desperate-norwegian-salmon-industry-created-a-sushi-staple https://www.npr.org/2015/09/18/441530790/how-the-desperate-n...
- fomine3 3y ago
- racl101 3y agoHeh, poke bowls are already $20 where I live. Maybe we should make them $30 or $40 and save the fish.
- WarOnPrivacy 3y agoIncreasing what fish wholesale pay for caught tuna might serve to make smaller catches more viable. I mean I expect those dish prices to go up regardless but I don't think that is near enough by itself. Fishing families have to pay their bills and corp fishing execs have to satisfy whoever they're beholden to. Those are powerful motivators and they commonly don't respond to anything less than enforced regulation.
- butlike 3y agoYou get a punch card. 5 per year. Every time you eat a tuna dish, youy get a punch. Oversimplifying the problem for a punch line, since there's only a few viable solutions, as I see it now.
- morkalork 3y agoI'd take a war time like food rationing system over what is most likely going to happen. At least with rationing you get your 5 meals/year and the option to trade/sell them if you don't want. Without rationing you'll get nothing (because you can't afford it) and the wealthy just carry on as usual.
- fouc 3y agoI wonder if we could police the ocean with automated seafaring drones.
- adrianN 3y agoOnly if they are armed and you’re willing to go to war over fish.
- fulladder 3y agoNo, this is overblown. The drones just travel around the ocean scanning for illegal fishing. When they detect it, they determine who owns the vessel and send them a bill for fines. People respond to fines.
- jandrewrogers 3y agoPeople are free to ignore the fine. The country they live in won't enforce it, especially since the illegal fishing is often occurring in another country's waters. In many cases, it is tacitly encouraged by the home country. We can already detect illegal fishing, that's not a limitation. Illegal fishing fleets greatly out-scale the ability of naval forces to seize them, so the occasional seizure is just a cost of doing business, like with illegal drugs. There is little that will be effective at stopping illegal fishing short of using naval forces to sink them (which would scale), and that isn't going to happen.
- fulladder 3y agoI think we're talking about different scenarios. What I'm considering is a scenario where some type of enforcement authority for illegal fishing is considering whether drones are a good solution. My answer is yes. However, I am aware that no such authority exists at present because the illegal fishing is not actually illegal under any globally recognized laws. My larger point in the GP is that you don't need to threaten anybody with force to get them to comply with a (hypothetical, future) law or treaty like this. The people doing this fishing are operating businesses, and if you make it costly for them to operate a certain way, they will change how they are operating to become compliant. This occurs all the time in other industries, so I don't see why fishing would be different.
- neonnoodle 3y agoI started casually watching the reality TV series "Deadliest Catch" about 15 years ago, and became a regular viewer since then. In that time span: - the amount of Bering Sea ice has dropped significantly - the amount of 100-year storms has increased - crab numbers have decreased - crab seasons have been outright canceled due to major population collapses - crab that remain are seeking deeper/colder water As much dissembling as people want to do about climate change, you can see with your own two eyes the difference between season 1 and now. They almost never mention climate change on the show. They complain a lot about how "regulations" are destroying the fishermen's livelihood.
- riffraff 3y agointerestingly, blue crab from the US atlantic coast is now an invasive species in the mediterranean.
- whartung 3y agoWe should ship over a few large containers of "Old Bay", perhaps that will help fix that problem over there. Blue crab are, indeed, "Good eats".
- riffraff 3y agosure, there was a somewhat large media frenzy focused on them in Italy last summer, with literal titles such as "what are blue crabs, why are they dangerous but delicious"[0] [0] https://www.lacucinaitaliana.it/article/granchio-blu-cosa-perche-pericoloso-buono-ricette/ https://www.lacucinaitaliana.it/article/granchio-blu-cosa-pe...
- whartung 3y agoPeople negatively affect by regulation complain about regulation. Say it ain't so! Any regulation of this type has a pointy end poking into someones back, regardless of the overall goal or intent of the regulation. Doesn't mean the regulation is bad, simply that it impacts someone. While climate change is certainly having an impact on the crab fisheries in Alaska, none of the population changes have been attributed to over fishing. While, like everyone, the fleet contributes to systemic climate change, it's certainly not "their fault". They're just another microcosm showing impact of the climate dynamic. The Alaska fisheries are some of the best managed fisheries in the world, and the fishermen comply and work with the regulations. The change to a quota system over the free-for-all derby system impacted a lot of fishermen. No doubt those whose livelihood were disrupted probably have a low opinion of it. The survivors probably enjoy it more, as its a more deterministic and safer system without the racing aspects of derby fishing, and the fishery is better managed because of it. Arguably an overall win. But not for those who dropped off the bottom, they were forced to find something else.
- EMCymatics 3y agoI'm going to repeat ad nauseam we need to police the seas and protect fisheries.
- HarHarVeryFunny 3y ago> Tuna species popular in sashimi and poke bowls in sharp decline I suspect they are being eaten.
- HarHarVeryFunny 3y agoHumor not allowed/welcome here I guess ?
- AndrewKemendo 3y agoTuna are Megafauna Humans deterministically deplete ingenious populations of megafauna to extinction The counter to this to date was megafauna herding via property boundary permanence. aka fencing for cattle So the only solution would be to figure out how to do ocean megafauna herding because reducing consumption is unlikely. Which would require massive scale 3 or 4 dimensional fencing. Sounds like a technical problem that can be solved if extremely difficult Also the externalities would be bonkers most likely Edit: Looks like this is starting to happen for tuna as of last year https://www.sojitz.com/caravan/en/special/tuna/1.html https://www.sojitz.com/caravan/en/special/tuna/1.html
- ProjectArcturis 3y agoThe solution you are describing is aquaculture aka fish farming. It already exists for many species.
- AndrewKemendo 3y agoGiant Tuna are Megafauna That is a whole different kind of problem to farm than having a humdrum sub-mega fauna fish farm Problems are more akin to trying to raise farm grown Elephants
- McDyver 3y agoSea Shepherd puts it well: How to save the ocean: 1) Don't eat marine animals 2) Be a voice for marine animals 3) Repeat steps 1 and 2
- elzbardico 3y agoThe problem with globalized food fads. Ideally people should eat more local, and reserve distant food stuffs for a few special occasions.
- jacknews 3y agoFish-hunting on an industrial scale should be banned, it's completely unsustainable, regardless of quotas, international agreements, conservation efforts, etc, and it's just backward - we don't wild-hunt anything else for food at such scale, we farm it.
- Apofis 3y agoThey really do need to just figure out how to farm all marine species and stop this madness of depleting up to 90% or more of natural stock. It's absurd, they're causing ecological collapse globally.