More horrors of overfishing
 

The news is not good. This hour long vid. is not pleasant.

Overfishing and more: SEA THE TRUTH -- In 2048 The Oceans Will Be Empty! (16:9, full-length, HiQ) - YouTube

It was assumed the fish population in the Canadian maritimes would come back. Even though they pretty much stopped fishing years ago it really has not. At least so far.

I think it was a reasonable thought that it would re generate itself and when it did not is now a concern.

We fundamentally do not know the life histories of most sea life. Fishing treaties and limits are little more than guesswork. Violations are a way of life. It's "Tragedy of the Commons" on a planetary scale.

The 2048 date of losing all the fish has been around since the early 2000's and widely been dismissed. Not to say that commercial overfishing is not a huge disaster for our oceans- it is. Distant nation fleets are raping the oceans.

Support Sea Shepherd..... sink the illegal trawlers

The human eco system will continue to consume to serve its needs….

I'm beginning to think that might be a good idea.

- Peter.

I like Sea Shepherd, they need to get themselves an ex Russian Navy ship with a 5in gun on it.

I like them too.

That is what I suspect as well. No one is lining up to starve as a means of lessening demand. The best idea I've heard of is to set up nursery zones off limits from all fishing. But how to enforce it? Would be incredibly expensive.

^More conservation and production methods appear the only practical solution with a hope of success. Along those lines, fish farming has taken a foot hold. The issues with farming is that certain diseases are wide spread among farmed fish and the fish don’t get the same diet they would naturally, so they don’t grow the same, or taste the same. There are a lot of fish hatcheries, at least around here, plus the local division of the army corps of engineers along with fish and wildlife transport some adults past dams and help fix some of the problems fish encounter.

More measures such as those noted above, and i'm sure a lot i've never read about appear to me the only realistic ways to cope with increasing demand. As we both noted, there is nfw people are gonna voluntarily consume less.

Sea Shepard is full of idiots who cause more harm than good (despite the positive press in the whale wars), and fish farming removes more biomass from the oceans than just eating wild fish.

SS does not "sink illegal trawlers".

Fish farming of vegetarian critters could work. But like MTU noted, salmon fishing and no doubt other sorts require fish meal. Catching fish to feed farmed fish is a net loss of sea food protein. Supposedly. And it makes sense.

Farmed catfish OTOH, are fed grain and soy meal and are raised in ponds keeping waste and parasites away from oceans.

I gather that carp can be farmed with a grain diet. As carp is supposedly not highly palatable for American tastes, perhaps they could be fed to salmon.

But that would have to be expensive - raising fish to feed to other fish - and you'd still have the problem of concentrated salmon populations in waterways. It is widely alleged and well argued that salmon farming is hastening the decline of the wild species.

This is the first time I've used PETA as a source. It's useful to hear the left side of the issue to balance against the pro-farming faction:

Top 10 Reasons to Not Eat Salmon | Vegan Food | Living | PETA

The latter is no doubt debatable. But we are pretty sure that tuna at least are high in mercury, it’s worth wondering how much mercury we acquire from out diet and from where, of course.

I’m no expert but if the logic behind the net loss part of salmon production were true, the oceans would have died off long ago but I have no doubt that concentrating them in rearing ponds and tight habitat is inhumane, subjects them to vastly increased incidents of disease, and does little to produce a superior product.

As an aside a rock star named Ian Anderson (Jethro Tull front man) had salmon farms for many years and did a lot to improve the final product and the lives of the fish, but he ultimately got out of the business due to economic restraints caused by other salmon farmers.

Most or all farmed salmon processing houses add food color so that their fish doesn’t look anemic.

There is also a lot of efforts to re-stock streams, lakes, rivers, etc, plus there are efforts to restore means of salmon to naturally make it past dams to spawn.

Plus there is the damage to fresh water spawning fish and bottom feeders such as the tuna you mentioned due to pollutants in the water.

It will take increased conservation efforts on all fronts to sustain human consumption. I dunno if other countries are as vigorous in their efforts at this as is the USA. IMO not enough is being done about the pollution of water ways.

But as I noted (above), nothing will reduce the consumption of sea food. It is another example of the human eco system consuming and destroying nearly everything around us, not unlike an over grown bacteria in a petri dish; and probably with the same end result.