The end of big fish

[Jenise]

Here's a startling article from the Daily Kos illustrated with souvenir photos from a sport fishing outfit on the Gulf Coast that span the good old days to now. Watch the fish change in size. We all know that the ocean's 'bounty' has changed for the worse in our lifetimes, but still, it's a sobering read:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/03/17/1285265/-We-are-close-to-eating-bait-and-jelly-fish-as-big-fish-numbers-plummet

[Robin Garr]

Here's a startling article from the Daily Kos illustrated with souvenir photos from a sport fishing outfit on the Gulf Coast that range from the good old days to now. Watch the fish change in size. We all know that the ocean's 'bounty' has changed for the worse in our lifetimes, but still, it's a sobering read:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/03/17/1285265/-We-are-close-to-eating-bait-and-jelly-fish-as-big-fish-numbers-plummet

I hate seeing the results, but I love the methodology that the researcher used to get there.

Fascinating article. Thanks, Jenise.

Yep, one of the unintended side effects of setting minimum size limits on commercial fishing is that we have been selectively breeding for runt fish in several important commercial species. Atlantic cod, for example, which has been over-fished for decades. Even after the overburdened fisheries were closed, the big cod have not come back. There are more cod fish, but they mature at a smaller size than they used to and don't grow to what used to be full size for the species.

Researchers have demonstrated this effect at fish farms. It only took ten years of harvesting out the legal-catch size fish to result in a population of dwarf fish that do not grow to full size.

So for all practical purposes the destruction of the traditional fisheries is permanent. It may take the better part of a century for the large fish to return.

-Paul W.

Yet we continue to pile on debris, garbage, chemicals, etc. just to see how much this planet can take before it rebels. I hope it will be longer than we should expect, but it is a finite amount. It is the dark underbelly of capitalism, just look at how elephants and tigers have fared against the almighty marketplace. "All good things must come to an end". Was that Louis Carroll? I just "Googled" it and it is attributed it to Chaucher (1374). Were they a bit wiser back then?

Richard,

IMO it's not just capitalism, per se. It's more that there are three or more times as many humans inhabiting this planet as can be comfortably accommodated. The population explosion predicted in the 1970s is here with us today. Due to the Green Revolution, we're not in the famine situation that was predicted back then. But the Green Revolution has not been without its environmental cost. Runt fish are just one of the more obvious outcomes. What really has me scared to death is nitrogen pollution--something you barely hear of in the news, which is distracted by the, by contrast, benign CO2 global warming.

The degree of nitrogen fixation and the resulting pollution that are the inevitable consequence of the Green Revolution that is staving off global famine are unsustainable. There are already massive "dead zones" in the world's oceans where the world's rivers dump their nitrogen-laden effluent. This is not sustainable, and this particular chicken is far worse than C02 global warming, when it comes to roost.

Note that I didn't say IF it comes to roost. It's WHEN, not IF.

I likely will be dead before this all comes to a head. I hope so. However this works out, it's going to be very nasty.

-Paul W.