Marine population halved since 1970 - report
The study says some species people rely on for food are faring even worse, noting a 74% drop in the populations of tuna and mackerel. In addition to human activity such as overfishing, the report also says climate change is having an impact. The document was prepared by the World Wildlife Fund and the Zoological Society of London.
"Human activity has severely damaged the ocean by catching fish faster than they can reproduce while also destroying their nurseries," said Marco Lambertini, head of WWF International.
The report says that sea cucumbers - seen as a luxury food throughout Asia - have seen a significant fall in numbers, with a 98% in the Galapagos and 94% drop in the Red Sea over the past few years. The study notes the decline of habitats - such as seagrass areas and mangrove cover - which are important for food and act as a nursery for many species. Climate change has also played a role in the overall decline of marine populations. The report says carbon dioxide is being absorbed into the oceans, making them more acidic, damaging a number of species. The authors analysed more than 1,200 species of marine creatures in the past 45 years.
Worldwide Fish Populations Have Halved in the Last 40 Years
The World Wildlife Foundation 2015 report states [PDF]:
The marine Living Planet Index (LPI) presented here is roughly in line with the global LPI, which shows a 52 per cent decline in vertebrate populations since 1970. That alone should set off alarm bells. But it's what's hidden in the overall marine LPI that foretells an impending social and economic crisis.
When we look at the fish species most directly tied to human well-being – the fish that constitute up to 60 per cent of protein intake in coastal countries, supporting millions of small-scale fishers as well as a global multibillion-dollar industry – we see populations in a nosedive. The habitats they depend on, such as coral reefs, mangroves and seagrasses, are equally threatened.
The picture is now clearer than ever: humanity is collectively mismanaging the ocean to the brink of collapse. Considering the ocean's vital role in our economies and its essential contribution to food security – particularly for poor, coastal communities – that's simply unacceptable. Could the economic implications of the collapse of the ocean's ecosystems trigger the next global recession or undermine the progress we have made on eradicating poverty?
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Snow on Thursday September 17 2015, @04:37PM
The picture is now clearer than ever: humanity is collectively mismanaging the ocean to the brink of collapse.
No Shit! When you have these floating fish factories towing nets that are measured in kilometers catching anything and everything, how could anyone reasonably think that we are not killing the oceans. I'm embarrassed to be human a lot of the time when all we seemingly do is fuck up the planet.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Tork on Thursday September 17 2015, @05:33PM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 5, Insightful) by jmoschner on Thursday September 17 2015, @06:03PM
The big thing too is that while the fish population has dropped in half, the human population has nearly doubled.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Friday September 18 2015, @01:00AM
1970: 3.7b
2015: 7.2b
http://populationpyramid.net/world/1970/ [populationpyramid.net]
I'm sure there's some pie-in-the-sky rationalization out there about why endless exponential human population growth is of no consequence, but people aren't made out of nothing. Until we can get our own population under control, we'll just go on displacing everything till all that's left are cows, corn, and endless mewling streams of ankle biters.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday September 18 2015, @01:04PM
Until we can get our own population under control, we'll just go on displacing everything till all that's left are cows, corn, and endless mewling streams of ankle biters.
If you live in the developed world, your own population is already stable. By current UN projections, in 2050 the only continent with significant population growth will be Africa and if the projections hold through 2100, Africa will be about 80-90% of the population of Asia (with every other continent in population decline for at least two decades at that point!). I see this as possibly creating a tremendous division between Africa and the rest of the world, but we'll see what actually happens.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by cmdrklarg on Thursday September 17 2015, @06:20PM
No, no, no. We are NOT fucking up the planet. When humanity is done raping and pillaging all of the natural resources, the Earth will still be here.
Humanity won't be able to LIVE on it anymore, but it will still be here.
Answer now is don't give in; aim for a new tomorrow.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 18 2015, @01:33AM
And you win the award for being juvenile pedant of the year. Grow the fuck up.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Thursday September 17 2015, @07:08PM
We need fewer people, more synths.
Create logical, sexy robots and eliminate the welfare begat welfare begat welfare begat generations: the drains on society need to go and replace them with synths who are productive.
Cry havoc and let loose the robots of sex! :-@
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by joshuajon on Thursday September 17 2015, @07:11PM
The thread you're looking for is over here. [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Thursday September 17 2015, @07:39PM
I cum, i saw, i conquered. :)
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 1) by Kozel on Friday September 18 2015, @05:43AM
So like all uncontrolled populations, we will eventually experience the famine which culls us back to what the food supply can support.
Probably with wars over water/food supply areas.
Huzzah!
(Score: 5, Informative) by richtopia on Thursday September 17 2015, @04:57PM
https://xkcd.com/1338/ [xkcd.com]
Very few things outside what we grow to eat. And us.
(Score: 2) by Snow on Thursday September 17 2015, @05:01PM
At least with cows and stuff, we breed them for the purpose of consumption. Cows wouldn't do to well without humans looking after them. Fish on the other hand is like a free lunch. We are 'borrowing' fish from the ocean without doing anything to replenish. If we want to continue to eat fish, we need to make fish farms in the ocean for fish and leave the rest of the ocean alone.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Thursday September 17 2015, @06:32PM
We are 'borrowing' fish from the ocean without doing anything to replenish.
Not true.
The feds have hatcheries all over the place: http://www.fws.gov/fisheries/nfhs/ [fws.gov]
In addition many states have State run hatcheries.
In Alaska there are privately owned hatcheries licensed by the state.
British Columbia has a bunch of hatcheries http://www.pac.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/sep-pmvs/hatcheries-ecloseries-eng.html [dfo-mpo.gc.ca]
Just about every country that borders on the ocean has hatcheries.
The problem is that none of these rear bait fish - the species that all the hatchery fish need to survive.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by Snow on Thursday September 17 2015, @07:04PM
When other countries' fishing vessels just fish in international waters just outside those preserved areas, it defeats the purpose...
(Score: 2) by frojack on Thursday September 17 2015, @07:13PM
You might think that until you see the return to a hatchery stocked stream 4 years after first stocking.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 18 2015, @01:12AM
So what you're saying is this report is incorrect.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Friday September 18 2015, @02:56AM
So what you're saying is this report is incorrect.
What I'm saying is poster Snow is incorrect.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by HiThere on Thursday September 17 2015, @07:56PM
Unfortunately, most fish farms destructive to the environment. They feed the fish that they are raising lots and LOTS of smaller fish that they catch wild. Many of these would, if not killed, grow up to be larger wild fish. And they emit dangerous pollutants that spread sickness amoung the local fish. I believe that Tilapia is an exception, as it's a vegetarian. OTOH, you don't get Omega-3s from Tilapia.
What we need to do is breed a carp with thick bones, so they're less trouble to eat. They can be raised in ponds in a stable fashion. and like to live on algae and insects. (They will eat any smaller fish they can catch.) And then something similar for the ocean, preferably a plankton feeder that can be raised in a pelagic cage. This would probably require an extremely GMO fish species, but needs must. Perhaps seaweed could be grown floating down from the cage, fertilized by the fish that lived within the cage, and forming a habitat for a much smaller fish that could feed off of the seaweed as well as other things it could find. Occasionally those fish would swim up into the cage, and become additional food for the inhabitant.
Note that this proposal is still depending on the plankton population being healthy, which means we need to start cleaning up our act starting a decade or so ago.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2, Informative) by SanityCheck on Thursday September 17 2015, @08:10PM
Actually it has recently been discovered that the human way of preserving is wrong. Protecting small fish at the expense of large fish does not bode well. The small fish number in orders of magnitude more than the larger fish, and the larger fish are the ones that are actually reproducing. And they produce a lot of young, many more than can be expected to reach adulthood.http://www.nbcnews.com/science/environment/super-predators-humans-hunting-animals-wrong-size-age-n413296 [nbcnews.com]
Pretty much humans always have done thing the exact opposite way of every other animal on this damn planet. While it may have done very well for us in short term (the few million years), I don't think it is a winning long-term strategy.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Friday September 18 2015, @09:25PM
You are talking about within the same species, where I was more concerned about between species. If you are farming fish, you don't let the fry wander about, because they are not only quite subject to being eaten, but they are also hard to catch for raising within a pen.
What you say about "Protecting small fish at the expense of large fish " is quite correct within the same species. One can think of current practices as directed evolution, where the direction is against becoming a large fish...and it's been a pretty strong selection pressure.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 17 2015, @10:25PM
That is wrong. So very, very wrong. So completely wrong it defies common sense. I would not waste the time on responding if this absurdity was not modded up. What are farm-raised fish fed? The same thing every other damned piece of livestock is fed: corn. All corn all the time. That is why wild-caught tastes like fish and farm-raised fish taste like, you guessed it, more corn. Few people notice the mild, overly sweet taste in their atlantic salmon because they are feasting on the same thing the livestock are fed. It is all corn all the time even for us.
Take a step back for a couple weeks and avoid corn-based products and additives. Then you will see that everything tastes like fuckin corn.
(Score: 3, Informative) by hemocyanin on Friday September 18 2015, @01:30AM
http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/aquaculture/faqs/faq_feeds.html [noaa.gov]
#2: ... Traditionally, diets for carnivorous fish contained 30-50% fish meal and oil; however, continued research is leading to greatly reduced reliance on these ingredients. ...
#4: About ¾ of the fishmeal and oil are produced from the harvest of small, open-ocean (pelagic) fish such as anchovies, herring, menhaden, capelin, anchovy, pilchard, sardines, and mackerel. ...
#6: Traditionally, diets for carnivorous fish contained 30-50% fish meal and oil; however, continued research is leading to greatly reduced reliance on these ingredients. ...
#21: ... Although NOAA, its partners, and others are making significant strides toward reducing and, in some cases, replacing fishmeal and fish oil in aquaculture diets, two major constraints exist. ... Growth in worldwide population and the related increase in demand for all types of food. ... The technical challenge of alternative ingredients. The challenges for researchers are to develop alternative ingredients that fish will eat and that supply the nutrition fish require to grow; and to make available alternative ingredients that are commercially viable.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Friday September 18 2015, @01:32AM
oops -- must've ctrl-v'ed when I meant to middle-click-paste, or vice versa:
#6: Fishmeal and fish oil supply several major industries because they are natural ingredients of high nutritional value. While they have been major ingredients of swine and poultry feeds for many decades, a growing percentage of these resources have been used to manufacture aquatic feeds. This is due to the worldwide growth of aquaculture over the past two decades. Demand for fish oil in the supplement industry also is rising rapidly.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Friday September 18 2015, @01:16AM
You haven't seen Salmon Confidential about the massive disaster that is BC farmed salmon apparently: https://vimeo.com/61301410 [vimeo.com]
Fish farms and hatcheries are super efficient and killing off wild fish:
http://www.opb.org/news/article/scientists-determine-hatchery-salmon-threaten-wild-fish/ [opb.org]
http://modernfarmer.com/2014/07/let-fish-fish-hatcheries-pacific-northwest/ [modernfarmer.com]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday September 17 2015, @06:21PM
I knew there was a reason I'd been having lousy fishing luck compared to when I was a kid.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by mendax on Thursday September 17 2015, @06:43PM
A big world war would be a good thing for the fish. Not good for humanity but excellent for the fish.
During the Second World War when navies were roaming the oceans, it was not safe to fish too far from one's shores. Thus, it was a great time for the fish, whose populations bounced way up thanks to the lack of fishing boats on the water.
The fish lover in me (the one who likes to see them on a plate with some tartar sauce) would like to see another world war; the human in me doesn't like it for obvious reasons.
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 17 2015, @07:35PM
In figure 1 of that pdf it shows this "50% loss since 1970" claim has been true since ~1987... That is before we even start discussing the meaning of this averaged/adjusted/etc data they call the LPI. For example, it is reasonable to think the record becomes more complete as time goes on. When comparing to the past, they use an ad hoc adjustment which adds hypothetical animals to all columns with missing data:
Collen B., Loh J., Whitmee S., McRae L., Amin R. & Baillie J.E.M. (2009) Monitoring change in vertebrate abundance: the Living Planet Index. Conservation Biology 23: 317-327.
Where does this 1% come from? What effect does fiddling with it have on the final index result? The people peddling this questionable stuff in the media are just awful. You are responsible for the destruction of a pillar of our civilization, science, and should be ashamed.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by tynin on Thursday September 17 2015, @07:49PM
We could go down to the pier, look into the water, and see crystal clear water with spots of dark pools here and there of nothing but fish. Drop your line into the dark pool and BAM, nearly in an instant you'd have one on your line. You could see huge manta rays frequently come right up to the beach. Manatees were ridiculously common to see, even though they aren't very social they were still in apparent herds.
Fast forward 30 years and all that is gone now. The pier is nearly devoid of life, you might catch something if you work at it for an hour, and I haven't seen a manta ray in years, and even then none of them are giant... but you can spot a singular manatee if you get lucky, mostly in the inter-coastal waterways.
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Friday September 18 2015, @01:25AM
You're lucky you can still get to the pier. On my last visit to NJ I visited many of the fishing spots I frequented growing up. Almost every single one was off limits now, either in private hands or access was blocked for public "safety and security".
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Thursday September 17 2015, @08:04PM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhUvDrR9dHM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by curunir_wolf on Thursday September 17 2015, @10:30PM
Would you be surprised if we told you the World Wildlife Fund isn’t really about wildlife? Or that national parks aren’t really about conservation of nature? Would you be shocked if we told you the whole “wildlife preservation” scheme is really just a scam to make a few elite investors rich? Conservation schemes are not about preserving resources for future generations, they are about preserving resources for an elite group of global criminals.
Measure your ignorance and naivete by learning about the global criminals who control vast tracts of land, locking up natural resources for their exclusive use and mistreating native peoples.
Note the left-wing bias in this post. We are not saying the information is wrong, we are saying that global Communism is not superior to global fascism.
I am a crackpot
(Score: 2) by Non Sequor on Friday September 18 2015, @02:37AM
America stands for freedom. But if you think you're free, try walking into a deli and urinating on the cheese.
Write your congressman. Tell him he sucks.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 18 2015, @01:58PM
I tried that, but the deli owner said that was his job, and asked that I do not give away his secret flavoring trick.