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Ted Danson launches attack on British fish and chips over rare shark
A leading Hollywood actor has attacked the traditional British dish of fish and chips for causing the near extinction of an endangered species of shark.
Ted Danson said the "fish" enjoyed by millions of Britons in their fish and chips could be "spiny dogfish", a rare species of shark that is on the World Conservation Union Criticially Endangered List.
The Cheers actor, who founded Oceana, the largest international group focused soley on ocean conservation, said the dogfish was once the most abundant shark species in the world but has been brought to the edge of extinction by over fishing.
The main fishing grounds for the spiny dogfish are in the North Sea, west of Scotland and the Celtic Sea.
The UK is the fourth biggest shark fishing nation in Europe, hauling in almost 8,000 metric tonnes of sharks and rays, the bulk of which comes from the Northeast Atlantic.
Mr Danson, said much of this catch, including the endangered shark species, is marketed as "rock salmon" and is ending up in our fish and chips.
He said: "In general we are over fishing all of our fisheries around the world. Cod, which used to be in your fish and chips, has become so over-fished that we cannot find enough so we are turning to something that is called 'rock salmon' but that is really the endangered shark species spiny dog fish.
"So, a lot of your fish and chips come from this species of shark. It used to be the most abundant shark in the ocean but now it is down to five per cent of what it used to be."
The European nations are the second biggest "fishing nation" for sharks and rays after Indonesia, taking almost 94,000 or 12 per cent of the global shark and ray catch in 2006. More than 10,000 tonnes of those catches were for sharks that are threatened according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature Red List.
Mr Danson said current controls on shark fishing in Europe are "grossly inadequate".
However the actor did not urge British people to give up on the dish altogether, just to check that rock salmon is not in the ingredients and to join the campaign to try to increase controls on shark fishing around Europe.
He added: "I love fish and I love fish and chips. I am not going to stop eating fish and chips. Not eating fish and chips is not going to have an impact necessarily. What is needed is to become an activist to try to get the policy changed on shark fishing."
Mr Danson, who founded Oceana 20 years ago when he couldn't answer his daughter's question on why his local beach was closed for fishing, said 90 per cent of shark species in the world have already been wiped out.
According to Oceana more than one hundred million sharks are killed by commercial fisheries every year. Approximately 50 million are caught unintentionally as "by-catch" and up to 73 million are caught for their fins used in "luxury" products like shark fin soup or for their liver, oil and cartilage which are used in cosmetic and dietary supplements. A leading Hollywood actor has attacked the traditional British dish of fish and chips for causing the near extinction of an endangered... more -
Fishing Technology Letting Turtles Off the Hook
Alternative fishing technology has been shown to save turtles while not affecting fish catches, according to a report released by WWF and the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission (IATTC).
The report demonstrates how changing from the classic J hook to circular hooks, providing adequate training and tools to release turtles accidentally hooked and enhancing sustainable fishing practices, can dramatically reduce incidental catch (bycatch) of marine turtles without impacting fishing activity.
Data gathered showed an overall significant trend of bycatch reduction, with a reduction of up to 89 per cent in the marine turtle bycatch per thousand hooks. Ninety-five per cent of all turtles caught in long-line fishing were recovered alive, while circle hooks performed as well as J hooks in the catch rates of tuna, billfishes and sharks fishery. Alternative fishing technology has been shown to save turtles while not affecting fish catches, according to a report released by WWF ... more -
Bycatch & discards: Treating marine life like trash
The objective of commercial fishermen is to catch fish that can be sold. The higher the price that these fish fetch at market, the more money the fishermen will make. The fishermen has limited time and space in which to maximise their income, so in order to do so their main objective must be to be as selective as possible.
However most fisheries are at least partially non-selective and catch fish and other animals that are not targeted. This non-targeted catch is known as bycatch. This bycatch is usually discarded (thrown over the side of the boat either dead or dying).
In the North Sea nearly one million tonnes of marine life is discarded in this way every year, and unbelievably, seventy percent is comprised of commercially important fish species. This equates to nearly one-third of the total fish landed by fishermen, and one-tenth of the estimated total biomass of fish in the North Sea. These fish are discarded because they are either undersized, over quota or not of sufficiently high value to the fisherman.
In EU Community waters the practice of discarding fish is not illegal and it speaks volumes on EU fisheries policy that when in a time of worldwide food and fuel shortages and rapidly declining fish stocks the practice of discarding is not only tolerated, but is in many cases a legally binding requirement.
There is no way of knowing what damage discarding has on the marine ecosystem as amazingly very little scientific research has been carried out to determine its detrimental affects on the marine ecosystem, but it is worth mentioning that no other industry gets close to the practice of discarding in terms of sheer waste and destructiveness.
Norway obviously feels strongly enough about the matter to have banned the discarding of commercial fish in its waters as early as 1990, requiring all boats to land the fish for processing into fishmeal. Measures have also been introduced whereby fisheries can be closed very quickly if an area is found to contain a large number of juvenile fish.
So what are the solutions? Personally I would completely ban the discarding of bycatch full stop, but since I see absolutely no hope of this happening, perhaps a ban could be put in place for a long enough period for there to be a proper scientific audit of the scale of the problem?
Almost half of all discards are caused by the various types of trawling, and it may be time to call and end to this particularly destructive method of fishing. If the Marine Stewardship Council's fishery certification program and seafood eco-label gain widespread acceptance within the EU member countries this may in itself help to end the indiscriminate methods employed by trawling.
Bycatch and discards are an aberration. We are in the 21st century and yet the wholesale slaughter of our marine life still continues in our oceans, with no protected areas from which marine life can recover from this onslaught, and where the fishermen, once their catch is dead, can pick and choose which animals are worth keeping and which can dumped back into the ocean. This cannot be right. The objective of commercial fishermen is to catch fish that can be sold. The higher the price that these fish fetch at market, the mor... more -
Dolphin-friendly tuna may not be environmentally friendly
Dolphin-friendly tuna is not as environmentally friendly as consumers think, with "destructive" fishing practices placing other marine life at risk, research has revealed.
Pressure from shoppers forced the industry to change its methods to avoid trapping the mammals, but the "by-catch" caught up in the net is still a significant problem, Greenpeace said.
John West, the UK's largest seller of tinned tuna, ranked bottom of the environmentally friendly league because it relies on fishing methods which kill thousands of sharks and turtles a year.
They use fish aggregation devices (FADs) - huge nets that scoop up all forms of marine life - and for every 10 kg of tuna caught, they catch 1kg of other species.
The fishermen also catch juvenile tuna which are not suitable for use and kills off the stock before it matures.
According to Greenpeace's Tinned Tuna Hidden Catch report, John West "never tells consumers how the tuna was caught, imposes no restrictions on FADs for the majority of their catch and no support for marine reserves and more widespread use of tuna from stocks under specific threat".
In comparison, Sainsbury's own brand tuna proved the most environmentally friendly, using a pole and line to snare the fish.
David Ritter, from Greenpeace, said: "Thousands of turtles and sharks are killed every year while catching tuna to be put in tins. And John West - the biggest tinned tuna seller in the UK - is currently the worst supplier of the lot.
"Whilst the label on the tin may say 'dolphin-friendly', some tuna fishing methods can be hugely destructive.
"John West must stop selling tuna caught in this way. And, if the whole fishing industry is going to be truly sustainable, then they must support the introduction of large scale marine reserves across the world's oceans."
The Greenpeace report warned that tuna stocks were being over-fished and without effective management, the entire industry could collapse.
The UK is the second highest consumer of tinned tuna in the world, devouring more than 700 million tins of tuna in 2006.
Greenpeace urged consumers to stop buying tuna which was caught using FADs and to support retailers who have adopted sustainable catch methods.
A spokesman for John West said: "We are surprised by the comments made by Greenpeace and do not recognise the assessments made of our tuna procurement.
"John West cooperated with Greenpeace by responding to its questionnaire and does not understand how the statements in the press release and the report have been arrived at, based on the answers it provided.
"It is the company's intention to seek an open and constructive meeting with Greenpeace to gain clarification on the conclusions reached in its report and to share with them its examples of environmental best practice." Dolphin-friendly tuna is not as environmentally friendly as consumers think, with "destructive" fishing practices placing ot... more -
Feds Protect Huge Areas of the Bering Sea from Trawling
The National Marine Fisheries Service announced Friday that nearly 180,000 square miles of the Bering Sea will be closed to destructive bottom trawling to protect important seafloor habitats and marine life effective August 25, 2008. These in-the-water protections reflect an approach first developed by Oceana, and supported by local communities and other conservation organizations, that freezes the current area, or "footprint," where trawling already occurs in the Bering Sea and prevents trawlers from expanding into previously untrawled areas.
The final regulations establish a northern boundary for trawling in the Bering Sea to protect the marine life and ecosystems of the northern Bering Sea and Arctic from the impacts of bottom trawling, where huge nets are dragged across the seafloor, pulverizing corals, sponges and other seafloor life in a technological race to fish harder and longer.
The Bering Sea is home to 26 species of marine mammals, including the critically endangered northern right whale; millions of seabirds hailing from all seven continents; more than 450 species of fish; and some of the world's largest submarine canyons. Blue, humpback, gray and bowhead whales travel through the Bering Sea each year. The northern Bering Sea shelf is critical habitat for endangered spectacled eiders, with the entire population of these large seabirds coming to the Bering Sea each winter to feed on the clams and invertebrates that live in and on the seafloor. Clams and seafloor invertebrates are also a significant source of food for Pacific walrus.
According to the National Academy of Sciences, fishing boats that trawl on the bottom destroy important seafloor habitat, decimating corals, sponges and other sensitive areas. Many of these seafloor animals and habitat areas can take centuries to recover, if they recover at all. Much is still not know about the possible impacts of bottom trawling in the northern Bering Sea, and the fishing industry has been aggressively expanding in recent years. The National Marine Fisheries Service announced Friday that nearly 180,000 square miles of the Bering Sea will be closed to destructiv... more -
Tuna Stock Falls In Wake Of Sushi Craze
MEDITERRANEAN SEA (AFP) - The rage for sushi and sashimi, Japan's raw fish dishes that overtook the West and have now spread to increasingly prosperous China, risks wiping out one of the Mediterranean's most emblematic residents: the bluefin tuna.
Experts say too many of these majestic fish prized since Greek and Roman times -- each one of which can weigh up to 900 kilos (nearly 2,000 pounds) -- are ending up on the platters of restaurants around the globe.
"Japanese consumption was already a threat to bluefin tuna in the Mediterranean. The European craze for sushi bars has added to that," said Roberto Mielgo Bregazzi, a Spanish expert and author of several reports for Greenpeace and the World Wildlife Fund.
And "if the Chinese market continues to grow, that will be the end of the stock," he said.
China seems to be next, according to Bregazzi who said there had been a significant increase in tuna consumption there in the past six years. Even though there are few official figures on Chinese consumption, the trend has also been observed by the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT), a body responsible for managing bluefin tuna fishing.
Japan, however, remains the main consumer of bluefin tuna. "Around 80 to 85 percent of bluefin tuna caught in the Mediterranean is exported to Japan," said Jean-Marc Fromentin, a leading worldwide expert on the subject at the French Research Institute for Exploitation of the Sea (IFREMER).
"This stock has now collapsed thanks to over-fishing, and the Japanese turned their attention to the Atlantic bluefin tuna," said Fromentin, adding that despite its name, Atlantic bluefin comes mainly from the Mediterranean.
Prices began to climb. Fishing fleets were modernised in Europe, and new fishing fleets created in Turkey and northern Africa. The result -- a huge over-capacity in fishing.
Today more than 50,000 tonnes of bluefin tuna are caught every year in the Mediterreanean. To prevent stocks from collapsing, that figure should be limited to 15,000 tonnes in the short term, according to ICCAT.
"The bluefin tuna industry is in the process of fishing itself to death," said Greenpeace oceans campaigner Karli Thomas.
The risk now is that the depletion of tuna will wipe out the fishing sector, and cost thousands of jobs in the Mediterranean region.
In May and June, fishermen from France, Italy, Libya, Malta, Spain, Tunisia and Turkey are under pressure to maximise their catch. Most use a net called a "purse seine", which is weighted to reach the sea floor, with hoops and ropes which allow the fishermen to pull the drawstrings and trap the bluefin tuna within the net.
The fattened tuna are then sold at around 13 euros (20 dollars) a kilo to Japanese buyers, who in turn sell them for a much higher price in Tokyo -- where a good quality, 200-kilo tuna can fetch up to 20,000 euros.
"It is the big firms that push the fishermen into over-fishing," said Bregazzi.
"If important parties in ICCAT such as the US, the European Union and Japan decide to put an end to this unsustainable situation and to adopt real recovery measures, the other countries should accept them," he said.
"Japan is the key market. If there is a real willingness from Japan to ensure that only real sustainable production is being imported, they can implement that," he added.
"The potentiality is there, it only lacks political will." MEDITERRANEAN SEA (AFP) - The rage for sushi and sashimi, Japan's raw fish dishes that overtook the West and have now spread to i... more -
Krilling Fields
As populations of once plentiful pelagic fish become exhausted many of the boats equipped to fish for these species are unfortunately starting to turn their attention to krill. Krill are a shrimp like animal that are said to represent the largest biomass on Earth and are key to the health of the marine environment.
Krill fishing briefly peaked in the 1980s when the Soviet Union caught 500,000 tonnes per year but declined significantly with the fall of Communism. However with severely over-exploited fish stocks and an increasing demand for fish oils and food for the Aquaculture industry the krill fishery is expected to boom in the next few years. Companies like Aker BioMarine are developing new technology that can deliver a stream of live krill onto a vessel and is converting a second vessel for krill catches, alongside its existing Saga Sea. The company says it will be able to catch 200,000 tonnes of krill a year in the near future.
It is reckoned that catches could rise to 1 percent of the total biomass of krill, or 5 million tonnes a year if the total was 500 million tonnes. Scientists say little is known about krill stocks and as a keystone marine species - they are the favoured food of whales, penguins, fish and seabirds - large scale exploitation could have dire consequences for the marine ecosystem. As populations of once plentiful pelagic fish become exhausted many of the boats equipped to fish for these species are unfortunately ... more -
Not So Happy Feet In Brazil
Thousands of dead penguins have been washing ashore Brazil's Rio De Janeiro beaches...
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Urban Aquaculture: Professor Martin Schreibman wants to bring fish farms into the ...
"Professor Martin Schreibman says our oceans have been overfished beyond repair. If we're going to keep eating fish and chips, tuna tartare, and all those omega-3 fatty acids, we may have to rely on aquaculture. Schreibman is working to bring those fish farms into the city. Urban aquaculture? We'll bite."
(End of excerpt)
Video by Lindsay Utz, Morgan Currie, Michael Schaubach, Danielle Flug, Henry Joost, Ariel Schulman, MacKenzie Fegan, Supermarché, Eric Winkowski, Jake Yuzna// GOOD Magazine
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Work is licensed by GOOD Magazine under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Generic
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/ "Professor Martin Schreibman says our oceans have been overfished beyond repair. If we're going to keep eating fish and chip... more -
Overfishing must now be seen as a threat to human existence
Climate change grabs all the money and headlines, but now overfishing must be seen for the global threat that it really is.
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More pressure on global fish stocks as scientists warn of underreporting of catche...
Fish catches in some of the poorest nations in the world have been grossly underestimated, scientists warned yesterday.
The implication is that global fish stocks, already widely acknowledged to be under heavy pressure, are in far more in danger than thought. The underreporting particularly threatens the hundreds of millions of poor people around the world who rely on fish for subsistence.
A reconstruction of actual catches in 20 places around the globe showed that fish landings that were not reported were at least as high as the declared catch, and sometimes more than 16 times higher.
The new study, presented to the 11th international coral reef symposium in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, was conducted by scientists from the Sea Around Us project, an international research group based at the University of British Columbia. They visited the locations, questioned local officials and made their own estimates of subsistence fishery calculations since 1950.
They found huge disparities. In American Samoa, the annual haul of fish was 16.6 times greater than the declared catch. Hawaii's anglers and sport fishermen took enough to double the declared catch. The catch off Mozambique was more than six times the official estimate, despite the country's government selling permits to EU fishing fleets. And Tanzanian officials failed to include the island of Zanzibar in its data, although Zanzibari fishermen accounted for 30% of the total catch.
Dr Dirk Zeller and Jennifer Jacquet of the Sea Around Us project found that domestic catches in 20 Pacific islands had been declining by between 54% and 86% since 1950, probably because of overfishing near population centres.
This shows that the underreporting does not suggest there are more fish in the sea than thought. Instead it confirms that many fisheries could be perilously close to extinction Fish catches in some of the poorest nations in the world have been grossly underestimated, scientists warned yesterday. ... more -
Bushmeat of the ocean
Most of us have seen the pictures, some of the world's most endangered animals being sold in markets across Africa as bushmeat. Gorillas, chimps, monkeys and wild cats, no animal is safe from this destructive trade. Logging in areas of pristine tropical forest has created a network of new roads which give the hunters easy access to their prey in parts of Africa that may previously have taken weeks to reach.
Suprisingly perhaps, a similar situation can be found in markets across the US, Europe and Asia but instead of gorilla, chimp and serval you will find grouper, tuna and cod. Instead of logging companies you have equally ruthless fishing concerns, whoes hunters are the bluewater trawlers and longliners.
How can you compare a grouper with a gorilla? I hear you say. Well according to the highly respected IUCN (International Union for the Conservation of Nature) there are three species of grouper that are critically endangered (calico, goliath and black) one level higher than the endangered mountain gorilla.
It seems that we are quite happy to tuck into an endangered marine animal whilst we reel in horror at what we perceive to be the barbarity of the African bushmeat trade, well here's a warning, that monkfish you had for supper last night is the bushmeat of the ocean, once plentiful, but now a rare and endangered wild animal. Most of us have seen the pictures, some of the world's most endangered animals being sold in markets across Africa as bushmeat. G... more -
Oceans in crisis
One of the long-established ecological principles is that large animals are less abundant than smaller ones. There are fewer elephants than antelope, which are less numerous than rabbits. Because larger animals need more resources, and ecosystem can support fewer of them.
The one glaring exception to this principle is us: Homo sapiens. There are 6.7 billion humans on earth. No other large animal gets close to us as a species. For example, our nearest relatives the great apes (gorillas, orang's and chimp's), number fewer than 350,000.
Part of our success as a species can be attributed to our ability to domesticate animals and plants. Farming as we now call it, has enabled us to feed a population that would be impossible to sustain from wild resources alone. Crops and livestock, genetically modified over millennia for food, have led to a situation where the global population of humans can now double every 40 years or so.
The domestication of land animals may have also inadvertently saved the remaining wild populations from being hunted to extinction, a situation that unfortunately does not apply across the board. The exploitation of wild marine animals continues unabated, mostly without the safety-valve of large scale farming to reduce pressure on the populations.
Perhaps because of the vast and hostile environment in which they inhabit marine animals have, until recently, shown remarkable resilience to over 100 years of industrial scale exploitation. But there are now numerous unmistakeable indicators that this is no longer the case.
Ninety percent of all commercial fish species are in dire trouble. Fished well beyond sustainable limits for decades some experts predict that 'wild seafood', as such, will cease to exist by 2050.
Fish and jellyfish essentially compete for similar nutrient resources and with the fish gone the jellyfish thrive. Jellyfish populations have exploded all across the world, overtaking fish in terms of total biomass in many areas.
There have been an increasing number of reports where whales, porpoises, seals and seabirds have been found starving to death through lack of enough fish to eat and Namibia are culling 86,000 Cape fur seals this year to protect their overexploited and dwindling fish stocks.
In the Mediterranean sharks have been declared 'functionally extinct' and the bluefin tuna is expected to join them any day now. Sharks across the globe are being cruelly slaughtered in their millions to satisfy the fin soup market. Hardly an essential ingredient to human survival.
Longlining is decimating the billfish and pelagic bird populations. The iconic marlin, sailfish and swordfish are now in grave danger of disappearing off the face of the earth forever and the accidental bycatch of pelagic seabirds and turtles, such as the albatross and hawksbill, is reducing populations so quickly that there is virtually no hope of their breeding quickly enough to maintain healthy populations.
Not satisfied with taking all the fish, pelagic fishing boats are now converting to krill fishing to satisfy the increasing demand for fish-oil and fish-meal. Venturing deep into Antarctic waters to harvest what has recently been described as 'pink gold'. Krill are a 'keystone' species whose exploitation we may later refer to as the 'straw that broke the camels back'.
The evidence of destruction is there for all but the blindest to see, and yet the exploitation goes on unabated and largely unregulated. Something is very seriously wrong with our oceans and if these tell tale signs are continually ignored, that damage may well become irreparable. One of the long-established ecological principles is that large animals are less abundant than smaller ones. There are fewer elephants... more -
EU to fine, blacklist illegal fishing operators
European Union ministers agreed on Tuesday to tighten inspections on illegal fishing in EU waters and slap stiff fines on lawbreakers and to compile blacklists of boats and countries.
The EU has one of the world's largest fishing fleets and is the top market and importer of fisheries products, worth around 14 billion euros ($21.7 billion) a year.
Of that, at least 1.1 billion euros is believed to come from illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing (IUU), which experts say poses a serious risk to marine biodiversity.
EU vessels or any non-EU vessel trying to land a catch at an EU port will, from 2010, be hit with a maximum fine of five times the market value of the catch. For a repeat offence, that fine is set at eight times the value.
"The scope of the regulation is to cover both EU vessels and those of third countries, irrespective of where they carry out their fishing," he said. The idea is that non-EU vessels wanting to land illegally would find EU ports shut to them.
Fishing using banned practices -- overly small nets, explosives or squirting chemicals into the water to stun fish without killing them, for example -- can cause a high level of unwanted by-catches, also of other species such as seabirds or turtles, that are then thrown back into the sea.
Other illegal practices include ignoring the need to require catch licenses, quota-busting, entering closed fishing areas, using non-approved tackle and catching undersized fish.
A lot of IUU fishing is done by vessels that use so-called flags of convenience where scrutiny by local authorities can often be minimized, officials say.
To tackle this problem, the EU plans to blacklist countries used as hosts for such flags and any vessels that carry out IUU fishing or are registered under the flag of a country that has been deemed suspect for turning a blind eye to IUU fishing.
The new law also restricts access to EU markets to fisheries products, including processed, that have been certified as legal by the flag state or exporting state concerned.
"The measures allow an efficient certification system that will allow us to close EU markets to IUU products," Borg said.
Worldwide, illegal fishing is estimated to be worth 10 billion euros a year. Fishermen working illegally can usually maintain low operating costs and enjoy substantial profits. European Union ministers agreed on Tuesday to tighten inspections on illegal fishing in EU waters and slap stiff fines on lawbreakers ... more -
Jellyfish outbreaks a sign of nature out of sync
The dramatic proliferation of jellyfish in oceans around the world, driven by overfishing and climate change, is a sure sign of ecosystems out of kilter, warn experts.
"Jellyfish are an excellent bellwether for the environment," explains Jacqueline Goy, of the Oceanographic Institute of Paris. "The more jellyfish, the stronger the signal that something has changed."
Brainless creatures composed almost entirely of water, the primitive animals have quietly filled a vacuum created by the voracious human appetite for fish.
Dislodging them will be difficult, marine biologists say.
"Jellyfish have come to occupy the place of many other species," notes Ricardo Aguilar, research director for Oceana, a international conservation organisation.
Nowhere is the sting of these poorly understood invertebrates felt more sharply than the Mediterranean basin, where their exploding numbers have devastated native marine species and threaten seaside tourism.
And while much about the lampshade-like creatures remains unknown, scientists are in agreement: Pelagia noctiluca -- whose tentacles can paralyse prey and cause burning rashes in humans -- will once again besiege Mediterranean coastal waters this summer.
That, in itself, is not unusual. It is the frequency and persistence of these appearances that worry scientists.
Two centuries worth of data shows that jellyfish populations naturally swell every 12 years, remain stable four or six years, and then subside.
2008, however, will be the eighth consecutive year that medusae, as they are also known, will be present in massive numbers.
The over-exploitation of ocean resources by man has helped create a near-perfect environment in which these most primitive of ocean creatures can multiply unchecked, scientists say.
"When vertebrates, such as fish, disappear, then invertebrates -- especially jellyfish -- appear," says Aguilar.
The collapse of fish populations boost this process in two important ways, he added. When predators such as tuna, sharks, and turtles vanish, not only do fewer jellyfish get eaten, they have less competition for food.
Jellyfish feed on small fish and zooplankton that get caught up in their dangling tentacles.
"Jellyfish both compete with fish for plankton food, and predate directly on fish," explains Andrew Brierley from the University of St Andrews in Scotland. "It is hard, therefore, to see a way back for fish once jellyfish have become established, even if commercial fishing is reduced."
Which is why Brierley and other experts were not surprised to find a huge surge in the number of jellyfish off the coast of Namibia in the Atlantic, one of the most intensely fished oceans in the world.
Climate change has also been a boon to these domed gelatinous creatures in so far as warmer waters prolong their reproductive cycles. The dramatic proliferation of jellyfish in oceans around the world, driven by overfishing and climate change, is a sure sign of ecosys... more -
EU to ban bluefin tuna fishing
EU fisheries regulators have banned trawling from next week for bluefin tuna in the eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean to stop overfishing of a species that is approaching stock collapse, the EU executive said on Friday.
Bluefin tuna is prized by sushi lovers and its numbers have fallen sharply after heavy exploitation by EU countries that hunt for it in these waters -- Cyprus, France, Greece, Italy, Malta, Portugal and Spain.
Last year, their combined national fleets caused the EU to exceed its international catch quota by 25 percent. Scientists say bluefin tuna may die out if fishing is not restricted.
But the incentive to catch bluefin tuna remains strong, particularly in June, the month when around 85 percent of the fish are caught. Since last year, market prices for the delicacy have roughly tripled: in Japan, the major market for bluefin tuna, a single fish can cost up to $100,000.
As of June 16, vessels flying the flags of Cyprus, France, Greece, Italy and Malta will be prohibited from fishing for bluefin tune in either Mediterranean or eastern Atlantic waters. Spain gets a similar ban that will enter into force on June 23.
The bans apply to vessels that use a "purse seine", a type of net that floats the top of a long wall of netting on the surface while its bottom is held weighted under the water.
Using purse seine nets is a common method for catching fish species that gather near the surface, like sardines, mackerel, herring and certain types of tuna.
The European Commission, the EU executive, regulates fishing quotas for member states and also negotiates international fisheries agreements on their behalf.
"The Commission is determined to use all necessary means to prevent a recurrence of the substantial overfishing seen in 2007," it said in a statement.
"Last year, overfishing was largely driven by the industrial purse seine sector of the fleet, which takes more than 70 percent of the total catch," it said.
Commission experts say the EU's fishing capacity is so large and bluefin tuna trawling activity so concentrated in June that the EU quota can be exhausted in just two days of fishing. EU fisheries regulators have banned trawling from next week for bluefin tuna in the eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean to stop overfis... more -
U.S. sets policy to protect the Arctic from industrial fishing
President Bush today established a U.S. policy halting the expansion of industrial fishing into the Arctic until we have more information. The policy in part states that "the decline of several commercially valuable fish stocks throughout the world's oceans highlights the need for fishing nations to conserve fish stocks and develop management systems that promote fisheries sustainability," and also states that until international agreement for managing Arctic fishing are in place, "...the United States should support international efforts to halt the expansion of commercial fishing activities in the high seas of the Arctic Ocean."
"This is the first significant step the U.S. government has taken to protect the Arctic Ocean," said Jim Ayers, Vice President of Oceana. "With the polar ice cap disappearing before our eyes, we must fend off the ”˜Cold Rush' that is threatening to further destroy the Arctic. As goes the Arctic, so goes the planet. Today's actions are an enormous step in the right direction."
To enact this policy into law, Oceana, the Marine Conservation Alliance and others are already working with the North Pacific Fishery Management Council on developing a Fishery Plan for the Arctic that focuses on protecting the health of Arctic ecosystems and opportunities for the subsistence way of life. That plan is expected to be in place in 2009. Additionally, the Council and NOAA Fisheries adopted Oceana's approach to freeze the footprint of bottom trawling in the Bering Sea and set a northern boundary for bottom trawling to prevent expansion of that type of destructive fishing into the high Arctic.
Today's action is in large part due to the leadership of Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska, who introduced and shepherded this idea through the U.S. Congress. Taken together this new national policy and the work of the Council represent strong support locally and nationally for protecting already-stressed Arctic ecosystems. President Bush today established a U.S. policy halting the expansion of industrial fishing into the Arctic until we have more informat... more -
Tuna fishing ban for South Pacific zones
Tuna fishing is to be banned in two huge areas of the South Pacific in an attempt to halt the chronic over-exploitation of the highly prized fish.
The new rules, agreed to at a fisheries meeting this month, will come into effect on June 15.
They will create two vast fishing-free zones, one between Papua New Guinea and Palau, and another bounded by PNG, the Marshall Islands, Kiribati, the Solomon Islands and the Federated States of Micronesia.
The two high seas enclaves, or 'donut holes', are outside the countries' respective exclusive economic zones.
The restrictions were drawn up by a group of eight South Pacific states, which despite being among the smallest nations in the world have some of the largest and richest fishing grounds.
Tuna vessels fishing within their exclusive economic zones will have to carry fisheries observers at all times.
And ocean floats used to attract huge numbers of fish, known as fish aggregating devices or FADs, will be banned for the third quarter of each year.
"This is an historic moment for the Pacific, its people, marine life and future food security," said Lagi Toribau, Greenpeace Australia's Pacific Ocean campaigner.
Toribau was speaking from the Greenpeace ship Esperanza, which in recent weeks has roamed the Pacific, hunting down tuna boats and protesting against the overfishing of two key tuna species: the yellowfin and the bigeye, a main source of sushi and sashimi.
The Pacific holds the last relatively robust populations of tuna and provides half the tuna consumed globally.
But the fish are under threat from Asian fishing fleets which have exhausted their own waters. European boats are also turning to the Pacific, as Atlantic bluefin tuna stocks dwindle as a result of a decade of over-fishing.
Greenpeace says that unless "drastic action" is taken, yellowfin and bigeye tuna will be critically over-fished within three years. Some tuna stocks in the Pacific have been reduced to 15 per cent of what they once were.
While fisheries experts welcomed the announcement of the two protected enclaves, there was concern about how the new rules would be implemented. Tuna fishing is to be banned in two huge areas of the South Pacific in an attempt to halt the chronic over-exploitation of the highly ... more -
More than 80% of world’s fisheries in danger from overfishing
A new report released by Oceana today concludes that more than 80 percent of the world's fisheries cannot withstand increased fishing activity and only 17 percent of the world's fisheries should be considered capable of any growth in catch at all. Too Few Fish: A Regional Assessment of the World's Fisheries shows there is very little room for further expansion of global fishing efforts.
"The world's fishing fleets can no longer expect to find new sources of fish," said Courtney Sakai, senior campaign director at Oceana. "If the countries of the world want healthy and abundant fishery resources, they must improve management and decrease the political and economic pressures that lead to overfishing."
Oceana's report, based on data from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), finds 58 percent of the world's fish stocks are being fished at or beyond sustainable levels, 24 percent of the stocks have an unknown status and only 17 percent are considered underexploited or moderately exploited. The report also assesses the world's fisheries by region. Some key findings include:
In 6 regions that accounted for more than 50 percent of the total global catch in 2005, more than 85 percent of the stocks cannot sustain any further expansion of fishing; these areas include significant parts of the Atlantic Ocean, the western Indian Ocean and the northwest Pacific Ocean.
Major emerging fishing grounds, including the Southern Oceans, the western Indian Ocean and the southern Atlantic Ocean, have large numbers of fish stocks with unknown status, ranging from more than 50 percent to nearly 75 percent.
"The large numbers of fisheries with unknown status in major emerging regions is particularly alarming," said Sakai. "These fisheries are at great risk of overfishing and depletion, which threatens the economic stability and social welfare of the people and communities that depend on the resource."
Many of the areas with high levels of unknown stocks also have high levels of exploitation on stocks that have been assessed. This level of uncertainty creates significant challenges to effectively managing the fish stocks and ocean resources in these regions. For example, there is historical evidence of overexploitation and stock declines of species whose assessment status was unknown at the time of greatest catch. A new report released by Oceana today concludes that more than 80 percent of the world's fisheries cannot withstand increased fis... more -
Fin soup threatens survival of ocean sharks
Overfishing partly caused by booming demand for shark fin soup, a delicacy in some Asian countries, is threatening the existence of 11 kinds of ocean sharks, an international study showed on Thursday.
The fish, often seen as ferocious sea predators, suffer from largely unregulated fishing for their valuable fins, said the report into 21 species of sharks and rays living in the open oceans.
The experts who wrote the study, organised by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, also urged governments to quickly impose catch limits.
"The traditional view of oceanic sharks and rays as fast and powerful too often leads to a misperception that they are resilient to fishing pressure," Sonja Fordham, report co-author and deputy head of the IUCN's shark specialist group, said.
Thresher sharks, silky sharks and the shortfin mako are all under threat, said the report, presented at a May 19-30 U.N. biodiversity conference in the city of Bonn.
The sharks, all "pelagic" or living in the open ocean, include large species such as the whale shark and great white shark. Although relatively few compared to coastal and deep sea sharks, a greater number of pelagic species is under threat.
"The increase in demand for shark fin soup in countries like China is a major driver of the problem," Fordham told Reuters, noting that growing affluence in China, where the soup is served as a treat at celebrations, is behind its increasing popularity.
Fishers from all over the world catch and trade sharks for their lucrative fins, often discarding their carcasses, said Fordham, noting Indonesia and Spain are among the top culprits.
Seven ocean pelagic shark species will be added to the IUCN 2008 "Red List" of endangered species, bringing the total to 21.
Sharks and rays are especially vulnerable as they take many years to reach sexual maturity and have few offspring.
Research shows the disappearance of shark species could lead to the demise of other species by upsetting the natural balance in the world's oceans.
Governments should set up catch limits for sharks and rays and ensure an end to shark finning, said the report. It also recommended a better monitoring of fisheries, more investment in research and closer international cooperation. Overfishing partly caused by booming demand for shark fin soup, a delicacy in some Asian countries, is threatening the existence of 11... more
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