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Nature has published an article that claims
The world's oceans have lost over 90% of large predatory fish, with potentially severe consequences for the ecosystem.
The link is only the first paragraph, but a New Scientist article provides more detail.
Populations of these species plummet as soon as big fishing boats arrive, the researchers found (Nature, vol 423, p 280). They fall by about 80 per cent within the first 10 or 15 years, but eventually stabilise at around 10 per cent of the original numbers. In other words, the world's oceans once held 10 times as many large, predatory fish as they do today.
Ransom Myers ... likens the loss to denuding a game reserve of its wildlife. "There was a Serengeti in the ocean, and it's gone now," Myers says.
And the worst part is that fisheries may be unaware of this.
The fact that populations tend to level off at about 10 per cent of their pristine numbers poses a further trap for managers. Myers thinks fish populations often stabilise at this level because the reduced catch rates drive many commercial boats to fish in other places or for other species.
The danger is that fisheries managers remain unaware of the initial plenty, and come to see this degraded state as normal. Because numbers remain relatively stable, they may even regard the fishery as healthy when it is in fact a mere shadow of its former self.
As someone who has started to eat fish again, I can see that I will have to rethink my position. |
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