Overfishing Not Fishermen’s Fault, Say ‘Deadliest Catch’ Seamen

Overfishing is a huge environmental problem – the world’s oceans are losing their stocks of fish at a dramatic pace. Almost 80% of fish stock is fully- to over-exploited, depleted or in a state of collapse, which means bad news for the entire ocean ecosystem and the humans that depend upon fish for survival. Schools of fish are no match for the fishing industry’s modern technology, and many blame fishermen for unsustainable fishing practices.

Not so fast, say the stars of The Discovery Channel’s reality series ‘Deadliest Catch’. In a Reuters report, several of the show’s boat captains assert that small commercial fishermen shouldn’t take the fall for the problem.

Several fishing boat captains from the Emmy-nominated cable TV show say government bodies and fisheries need to set wiser fishing quotas to ensure healthy fish populations and a balanced food chain. The show’s fifth season finale airs on Tuesday on the Discovery Channel cable television network.

“When things go wrong, the fishermen get blamed, but the truth is we are only fishing what they tell us we can fish,” captain Phil Harris told Reuters, referring to the quotas that Alaskan crab fisherman like him are given at the beginning of each season setting limits to how much they can catch.

“It makes me so angry when people talk about overfishing. We have never overfished, they give us a quota and we catch it,” said captain Andy Hillstrand, who heads his family-owned vessel the “Time Bandit.” “People call fishermen greedy, but it is not their job to regulate it.”

For years, the fishing industry has rewarded large-scale operations for capturing vast quantities of fish – so they worked on methods and technology that would help them catch the largest amounts possible.

When the European Union put strict fishing quotas in place, unscrupulous fishermen responded by catching as many as they could and then dumping the less valuable species and smaller fish – which were dead by this point – back into the ocean to avoid fines.  Fishermen claimed it was the only way they could make a living with such “ridiculously low quotas”.

Scientists, environmentalists and the commercial fishing industry have been unable to agree on a solution that works for everyone.

Link [Reuters]

End of the Line: We’ll be Out of Fish by 2050

Imagine a world without fish. Such a scenario wouldn’t just affect what ends up on your dinner plate – it would have global consequences, from dramatic changes in ocean ecosystems to worldwide famine.

The End of the Line, a documentary revealing the impact of overfishing on our oceans, examines the imminent extinction of bluefin tuna, brought on by increasing western demand for sushi; the impact on marine life resulting in huge overpopulation of jellyfish; and the profound implications of a future world with no fish that would bring certain mass starvation.

From the End of the Line website:

Scientists predict that if we continue fishing as we are now, we will see the end of most seafood by 2048.

The End of the Line chronicles how demand for cod off the coast of Newfoundland in the early 1990s led to the decimation of the most abundant cod population in the world, how hi-tech fishing vessels leave no escape routes for fish populations and how farmed fish as a solution is a myth.

The film lays the responsibility squarely on consumers who innocently buy endangered fish, politicians who ignore the advice and pleas of scientists, fishermen who break quotas and fish illegally, and the global fishing industry that is slow to react to an impending disaster.

The End of the Line points to solutions that are simple and doable, but political will and activism are crucial to solve this international problem.

In six exclusive episodes at Babelgum.com, director Rupert Murray takes us behind the scenes and deeper into the issues raised by the film. You can also check out video extras, get info about screenings in your area and learn more about what you can do to help.

Link [End of the Line]

Should We Adapt Our Diets to Eat Overpopulated Species?

We’ve heard it before: eat squirrels, kangaroo or [insert overpopulated species here] to aid ecological balance and reduce our reliance on harmful factory farming. Now, Grist is asking whether we should add jellyfish to our diet as well. The stinging ocean creatures are showing up in larger numbers, earlier in the year and in more places than ever before.

Warmer waters help jellyfish grow faster and reproduce better, and overfishing leaves jellyfish with fewer predators and fewer competitors. That means tons of jellyfish out there, prime for your dinner plate.

From Grist:

If we don’t start building back the health of our marine ecosystems, we may need to start fishing for things that we never imagined. A jellyfish burger and fries may not seem so appetizing to your average American seafood lover, but the notion isn’t too far off. The Chinese have eaten jellyfish for over a thousand years. In Asia, these slippery snacks can fetch ten to twelve dollars a pound wholesale.

Culinary preferences aside, the increase of jellyfish in our ocean is indicative of a much larger problem. Our ocean is sick, and struggling to keep up with the ever-increasing demands for seafood.

It does make sense that, in these times of climate change and threatened food shortages, we humans become more adaptive and eat what is plentiful instead of continuing to rely on foods that diminish marine life diversity and cause further climate change.

Westerners in particular have gotten far too accustomed to getting whatever we prefer to eat, regardless of the impact on wildlife and the earth. Americans practically consider it their birthright to enjoy an endless supply of burgers, chicken and fish, no matter the cost.

Of course, it wouldn’t be too surprising to see people get attached to a certain overpopulated species and continue to seek it out after numbers have gotten under control, creating a potentially bigger problem. We Americans, always causing trouble one way or another.

Link [Grist]
Photo credit: The Guardian via Treehugger

Overfishing, Waste Dumping Drove Somalis to Piracy

When things get bad, people get desperate – and things in Somalia have been really bad for a while. Somali pirates have taken over the Gulf of Aden and as you know, unless you’ve been living under a rock, have been in the news a lot lately for taking international hostages.  While some people might opine that these pirates are simply bloodthirsty criminals, the fact is that stark hardships have spurred these people to act for their own survival, at all costs.

The surprising root of Somali pirates’ desperate acts? Overfishing and waste dumping in Somali waters.

From Treehugger:

Thousands of Somalis once made their living as fishermen. But Somalia has been without a central government for nearly two decades—so there’s no active body that’s able to effectively protect the country’s rights to its coastline, and the once-abundant supply of fish it held. So now, due to the willingness of foreigners to exploit fisheries off Somalia’s coast, and the lack of a governing body to stave them off, many of these fishermen are finding their nets empty.

And without the ability to bring home even a sufficient amount of fish to eat, many of these fisherman justifiably grow desperate. But even from here, it’s not a simple jump to pirating. Initially, many of the now-termed “pirates” were vigilante patrol squads, steering their boats to fishing vessels they found illegally snagging seafood or dumping toxic waste in Somali waters and demanding they pay a tax. After this proved ineffective, something closer to organized piracy developed.

Read more about one Somali pirate’s account of the motivation to hijack ships and take hostages at The New York Times.

Beyond overfishing, there’s another major problem for Somalians: the dumping of radioactive waste into the country’s coastal waters. Since the collapse of Somalia’s government in 1991, Western goverments and corporations have taken full advantage of the lack of oversight and used the country as a dumping ground. The secret was uncovered after the 2004 tsunami, but has barely received coverage in the media. Some people even claim that some of the pirates are eco-warriors, working to clean up the mess.

So, what does it all come down to? Greed. Power. Lack of concern for other human beings – on all sides. The ugliest facets of human nature. Somali pirates can’t be let off the hook for their actions because of the injustice they’ve been through, but they aren’t all the evil killers that so many people make them out to be.

Link [Treehugger]
Photo credit: The Guardian

3 Reports Don’t Lie: Ocean Fish Rapidly in Decline

80% of the world’s ocean fish species have been over-exploited and are in rapid decline, according to three new reports. Overfishing, climate change, acidification, agricultural runoff and, most interestingly, U.S. taxpayer subsidies are responsible for the steep drop in fish populations.

From The Daily Green:

The U.N. Food and Agriculture’s State of the World Fisheries and Aquaculture concludes that about 50% of all marine fish stocks are being “fully exploited” — meaning they are being fished at or near sustainable limits. Another 19% are overexploited, 8% depleted and 1% recovering from depletion.

Oceana, meanwhile, has released a report, Hungry Oceans (pdf), predicting the collapse of the ocean ecosystem because of overfishing of the smallest fish in the ocean. These prey species were considered so abundant, and so quick to replenish their own numbers, that depletion wasn’t a concern. We have proved that theory wrong, particularly as the world has begun catching more small fish — not only for direct human consumption, but to feed fish in aquaculture operations.

Finally, the most detailed financial analysis of its kind, by the Lenfest Ocean Program, finds that roughly half the $713 million in annual U.S. fishing subsidies contributes to overfishing by encouraging the targeting of overexploited fish stocks. Among the interesting other findings of the analysis: most subsidies come in the form of tax breaks on fossil fuels, and Western Pacific fishermen receive more than 20% of all subsidies, but catch just 2% of fish sold in the U.S.

What does the loss of fish in the oceans mean to us? Well, for starters, it greatly disturbs the food chain that we rely on for survival. And the situation is deteriorating frighteningly quickly. Catastrophic loss of fish species is close at hand – 29% of species have been fished so heavily that they’re down to 10% of their previous population levels. If we keep doing the same things that have caused these problems, we could see a 100% collapse in fish stock by mid-century. That, obviously, would spell disaster for the entire world.

Link [The Daily Green]

Mexico Pays Fishermen to Save Porpoises

The endangered vaquita porpoise has an unlikely new group of friends: commercial fishermen who were previously accidentally trapping and killing the animals while trying to catch shrimp, mackerel and sharks.  The Mexican government is paying 800 fishermen in the northernmost area of the Gulf of Mexico to stop fishing with nets and, in some cases, stop fishing altogether.

From The New York Times:

Probably no more than 150 vaquitas survive, conservationists say. The population could fall to 100 in a couple of years. If that occurred, there would be too few sexually mature adults left for the species to recover.

“We have one or two years,” said Omar Vidal, the director of the World Wildlife Fund in Mexico and a biologist who has studied the vaquita for 25 years. “We’re on the brink.”

The Mexican government agrees. It has spent about $20 million over the last two years on conservation measures, primarily to persuade 800 of the 4,000 registered fishermen in the area to accept its offer to stop using nets or to cease fishing entirely, according to the environment minister, Juan Elvira Quesada. Next year, officials hope to spend an additional $13 million to continue the plan.

Many of the fishermen who accepted the offer say they’ll use the money to start new businesses, but for those who wish to keep fishing, there’s a new net available developed with help from the World Wildlife Fund that won’t trap the vaquita.

Now, that’s the way to work together to protect endangered animals.  Hopefully this last-ditch effort will work, because they’re running out of time. A cousin of the vaquita, the Chinese river dolphin, was declared extinct last year.

Link [The New York Times]
Photo credit: Cetacean Society International

UK Fishermen Dump Catch Overboard to Make More Money

The European Union put fishing quotas in place for a reason: to prevent the kind of overfishing that experts warn could lead to mass extinction of marine life in the coming decades. But, European fishermen aren’t pleased with the quotas because they limit profit possibilities. So to get around that, they’re doing something pretty horrifying: dumping tons of perfectly good dead fish back into the water. Fish that should never have been caught in the first place.

Recently, the Norwegian Coast Guard shot video of UK fishermen doing just this, and the sight of such wastefulness (a whopping 5 tons of dead fish) has shocked many people who didn’t realize the extent of what was going on. Check it out at The Guardian.

From The Guardian’s Environment blog:

The practice is legal, as the EU only sets quotas for fish landed at ports, not what is actually caught at sea. In this case, it appears the fishermen were discarding low-value small (but legal) fish in order to fill their quota with higher-value big fish.

But the wasteful consequences of Europe’s fisheries policies, though well-known, are rather abstract to most people – it all happens a long way out at sea. And that’s the power of the video. At the start, a stream of dead, silvery fish slip down a chute and into the water. It goes on. And on. Seagulls gather to snap up a free lunch.

But this is apparently not rapid enough. So the men start dumping whole boxfuls of their catch over the side. And then another load comes up from the hold, and so on.

What an incredible waste, and a slap in the face to conservationists who are working so hard to maintain sustainable numbers of fish in our oceans. WTF. This is incredible disrespect and disregard not just for the fish but the future of humanity. What’s going to happen when our oceans are overfished to the point of irreparably damaging the delicately balanced ocean ecosystems?

Learn more about the problem of overfishing by reading the article ‘More Species Considered Overfished’ at the Florida Museum of Natural History website.

Link [The Guardian]