Fishsticks: RIP 2048?

Palomar · 2006-11-03 09:31:01

Collapse of seafood stock by 2048?

One of the researchers is named Boris Worm. Seems amusingly appropriate considering fish-hook-worm.

Likely this is another Doomsday Scenario. But our population is growing by leaps and bounds. Time to rename Earth Easter Island?

C M Edwards · 2006-11-03 16:09:49

Fear not - most fish sticks never swam to begin with.

However, coming from an area where many people make their living from fisheries, I must admit that this represents a threat to more than people's diets.

The lost resources that it represents is also unnerving. I'm beginning to fear the Club of Rome was right all along.

noosfractal · 2006-11-03 16:31:49

Classic tragedy of the commons.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons

cjchandler · 2006-11-04 13:25:39

How much fish is actually fished these days anyways though? I live in NS Canada in a fishing village, but I can tell you there is a real push to do aquaculture, especially as fishing is such an unpredictable industry even in good times, and aquaculture pens are poping up all over. Also I was talking to a fisherman the other day who was saying that to get to the fishing grounds is was costing thousands of dollars in fuel because of high diesel prices. So, I'd say there isn't too much danger, at least in NS, as the fish stocks decrease it will become unprofitable to fish them to extinction especially since there is the alternative of aquaculture. The only problem would be if the government subsidized the fishing, but that probably won't happen since they're already pretty near broke.

noosfractal · 2006-11-04 18:22:34

How much fish is actually fished these days anyways though?

I thought this was an excellent question. This powerpoint has a lot of interesting information on the subject ...

http://aquanic.org/images/slides/World% … 202006.ppt

Apparently, 35% of all seafood now comes from aquaculture. I didn't realise the proportion was so high. "Wild capture" has remained basically steady for at least the last 10 years, with aquaculture making up the difference.

Top ten wild fishers in millions of metric tons ...

1. China    16,756,000
2. Peru    6,090,000
3. USA       4,939,000
4. Indonesia    4,675,000
5. Japan       4,596,000
6. India       3,689,000
7. Chile    3,622,000
8. Russian Fed    3,281,000
9. Thailand    2,817,000
10. Norway    2,550,000

I had no idea fishing was such a huge industry for Peru.

China is also first in aquaculture, by a long shot. India is 2nd, and it doesn't do a tenth of what China does.

Commodore · 2006-11-05 22:57:32

Is there any reason all our seafood coundn't be provided with aquaculture? You know, other than the fact it really wouldn't be seafood anymore?

I think the reason natural fish are fished so much is that in those areas, they are still the most abundant and accessable source of food. I think as more advanced agricultural methods reach other areas and food producing industries, those areas will have a bigger menu, reducing the dependance on natural fish.

noosfractal · 2006-11-06 00:55:36

Is there any reason all our seafood coundn't be provided with aquaculture?

I think the main criticisms mirror those for intensive farming practices in other sectors - crowded conditions, high levels of effluent, high levels of drugs to keep the animals alive in crowded conditions. That sort of thing. I think with fish farming there is also the concern of farm-escaped fish outbreeding the wild fish and reducing biodiversity.

Article on a "blue revolution" company trying to address some of these issues ...

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/stor … Id=5291579

Palomar · 2006-11-07 08:53:05

I have to wonder how much seafood is being cooked up/served in fast-food restaurants around the globe just daily. Maybe if McD's nixed Filet-o-Fish that'd help? If Long John Silver's served more chicken? Seriously...

And now another bit of wonderful news:

HUGE swirling plastic vortex in ocean

It can grow to the size of TEXAS. Is located near the NW Hawaiian islands. Yuck!

cjchandler · 2006-11-07 10:41:08

If we really need to stop fishing wild fish, we probably need to change the type of fish we eat, like if we were content to eat catfish we could just feed them corn and that would be it. Another way to prevent overfishing the oceans fo aquacultre feed would be to build enclosed areas and put extra nutrients in the water like iron to trigger a massive algae bloom, like those folks were going to do in the pacific to stop global warming. Then your fish could eat that and the sludge at the bottom could be sold as fertilizer for land farmers. It's interesting that the limiting nutrients in water ecosystems are so different from those on land.

Palomar · 2006-11-07 10:50:41

What about farming more types of fish/seafood? We've already got catfish farms in Dixie. Not sure how many. Aren't tilapia also bred on farms?

Grypd · 2006-11-08 05:28:24

The problems is that farming actually damages fish stocks as well. They concentrate the hazards to fish and increase diseases that prey on them. A good example is the sea lice which is a bane to fish but hard to get in the wild. But fish farms concentrate the fish and sea louse population is booming to the point that for miles away there is a slick of sea lice that infect any passing fish and so stocks in the wild get hammered.

C M Edwards · 2006-11-08 12:54:12

What about something that can be farmed in inland ponds, then, like catfish or tilapia?

(There's probably a problem with this, too. I just don't want to give up fried fish. :twisted: )

Grypd · 2006-11-08 13:57:40

The problem is cost and the limited amount of produce it will make.

So pricing fish out of the cheap market and into the expensive luxury market.

SpaceNut · 2006-11-08 21:53:44

"farmed in inland ponds" has another issue in high Mercury levels at least here in the New England states.

SpaceNut · 2006-11-09 21:33:10

Indirectly the acidic levels of small lakes has been on the rise with many small ponds dieing under the growth of plant rather than marine life. Acid rain was termed for the burning of coal.

Expert says oceans are turning acidic

In a study titled "The Future Oceans — Warming Up, Rising High, Turning Sour," Rahmstorf and eight other scientists warned that the world is witnessing, on a global scale, problems similar to the acid rain phenomenon of the 1970s and 1980s.

Stormrage · 2006-11-26 00:43:42

Better yet. We get the Navies to patrol sensitive spots. If a fishermen even tries to set a net. His ship would get blown apart. These greedy fishermen are evil. Right now they are killing the cod in the north sea and when every the environmentalist call for action they whine "look there is plenty of cod there and if you stop us from fishing them we will be out of jobs". Dumb asses YOU WILL be out of a job if the stock collapse.

SpaceNut · 2006-12-08 11:08:48

I wonder if there is more of a link to the larger Huricanes, quantity of them as a result of global warming.

NASA Research Reveals Climate Warming Reduces Ocean Food Supply

By comparing nearly a decade of global ocean satellite data with several records of Earth's changing climate, scientists found that whenever climate temperatures warmed, marine plant life in the form of microscopic phytoplankton declined.
Whenever climate temperatures cooled, marine plant life became more vigorous or productive.

John Creighton · 2006-12-12 22:45:14

Isn’t a large part of the problem ocean trollers tearing up the plant life that sustains the ecosystem which sustains the fish?

John Creighton · 2006-12-12 22:46:14

I wonder if there is more of a link to the larger Huricanes, quantity of them as a result of global warming.
NASA Research Reveals Climate Warming Reduces Ocean Food Supply
By comparing nearly a decade of global ocean satellite data with several records of Earth's changing climate, scientists found that whenever climate temperatures warmed, marine plant life in the form of microscopic phytoplankton declined.
Whenever climate temperatures cooled, marine plant life became more vigorous or productive.

See I don't get why the phytoplankton can't just move north if it likes the cold,

C M Edwards · 2006-12-13 15:31:03

See I don't get why the phytoplankton can't just move north if it likes the cold,

Swim, little phytoplankton, swim...

noosfractal · 2006-12-13 18:13:28

I don't get why the phytoplankton can't just move north if it likes the cold

My understanding is that phytoplankton is already everywhere, but in the far North/South it's productivity is limited by available light levels, whereas in the tropics there is plenty of light, so the limiting factor is upwelling nutrients. Apparently the problem with the warming is that it enhances temperature stratification of the ocean's upper layers making nutrient transport from the depths less efficient.

I read the Nature paper, and the authors fall over themselves to say how tentative their results are. They basically used a hi-res satellite camera to monitor color changes in the oceans and the assumption that the more green it was, the more plankton there was. Seems reasonable, but apparently there are all sorts of complications, and the plankton that produce a good signal in the visible light spectrum aren't the most important ones. The authors are now lobbying for a specially designed instrument that is most sensitive in the ultra-violet.

The strongest statement the paper makes is that changes in plankton populations may effect marine biodiversity.

Grypd · 2006-12-14 12:57:34

Warmer water less plancton so less fish.

lose the poles less Krill less big fish and whales so less food elsewhere in the system.

noosfractal · 2006-12-15 00:07:24

Actually, increased warming, so increased stratification in some areas, so a reduction in nutrient transport efficiency in those areas, so decrease of a particular type of plankton in those areas, so ... may be other plankton that are usually crowded out increase, may be some creature that feeds exclusively on the decreasing plankton also decreases, but may be it just switches to some other type of plankton instead, etc, etc.

Krill live at the south pole, Antarctic sea ice extent is increasing (hmm, don't see that fact often in the press, do you?).

Population modeling is an order of magnitude harder than climate modeling - which is exactly why environmental alarmists are moving on to that area, because we are finally learning enough in the climate field to quash alarmism there.

Lose the poles? They respond to temperature signals on _millennial_ timescales. It really worries me that people with scientific training, who would be ruthlessly skeptical in other areas, swallow whole whatever the news service headline writer throws up if it relates to climate.

C M Edwards · 2006-12-15 06:58:44

Antarctic sea ice extent is increasing (hmm, don't see that fact often in the press, do you?).

No, I don't. In fact, you're the very first person I've seen claiming that.

Do you have a source you can recommend for this information?

Grypd · 2006-12-15 10:52:22

Krill live at the south pole, Antarctic sea ice extent is increasing (hmm, don't see that fact often in the press, do you?).
Population modeling is an order of magnitude harder than climate modeling - which is exactly why environmental alarmists are moving on to that area, because we are finally learning enough in the climate field to quash alarmism there.
Lose the poles? They respond to temperature signals on _millennial_ timescales. It really worries me that people with scientific training, who would be ruthlessly skeptical in other areas, swallow whole whatever the news service headline writer throws up if it relates to climate.

Krill do not just live at the south pole they are present all across all oceans but in the north and south latitudes they are much more abundant. This is due to the conditions found there and as these conditions change they struggle. Krill are one of the lowest and common foods on the food chain. Cold seas are the most productive seas and as the seas warm they become less productive.

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#1 2006-11-03 09:31:01

Re: Fishsticks: RIP 2048?

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Re: Fishsticks: RIP 2048?

#3 2006-11-03 16:31:49

Re: Fishsticks: RIP 2048?

#4 2006-11-04 13:25:39

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#5 2006-11-04 18:22:34

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#6 2006-11-05 22:57:32

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#7 2006-11-06 00:55:36

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#8 2006-11-07 08:53:05

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#9 2006-11-07 10:41:08

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#10 2006-11-07 10:50:41

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#11 2006-11-08 05:28:24

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#12 2006-11-08 12:54:12

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#14 2006-11-08 21:53:44

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#15 2006-11-09 21:33:10

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#16 2006-11-26 00:43:42

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#17 2006-12-08 11:08:48

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