Here's Some News of which to be Proud - NOT!

[Mr T.]

Big fish of the seas face extinction
By Roger Highfield, Science Editor
(Filed: 15/05/2003)


The world's fisheries are in a far worse state than anyone realised: 90 per cent of large fish have disappeared in the past half century, according to research that suggests that the bigger fish - large tuna, sharks, swordfish and even cod - may soon be merely memories.

Industrial fishing methods can take as little as a decade to grind any new fish community they encounter to one tenth of what it was before, according to a 10-year study of the archives that provides the first insight into the devastation caused by 50 years of over-fishing.

The average size of top ocean predators - such as the blue marlin - is only a fifth to one half of what it used to be, says the study, published in Nature.

The Canadian scientists say that if the world's oceans are to recover, fishing mortality should be cut by up to half by reducing quotas, overall fishing effort, subsidies, bycatch and by creating networks of marine reserves. These measures will cause fishermen short term pain - but will ensure long term gain.

The researchers show that, compared with 1950, we now have only 10 per cent of all large fish - both open ocean species including tuna, swordfish, marlin and the large groundfish such as cod, halibut, skate and flounder - left in the sea.

"Since 1950, with the onset of industrialised fisheries, we have rapidly reduced the resource base to less than 10 per cent - not just in some areas, not just for some stocks, but for entire communities of these large fish species from the tropics to the poles," said the lead author Prof Ransom Myers of Dalhousie University in Canada.

Most surprising is the decline in open ocean where people have presumed that there are still untapped reservoirs of big fish.

To measure this decline, the researchers used data from Japanese longline fleets, which catch a wide range of species in a consistent way over vast areas. "Whereas longlines used to catch 10 fish per 100 hooks, now they are lucky to catch one," said Prof Myers.

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Also, check ou these URL's for further (deeply concerning) reading:

http://ram.biology.dal.ca/depletion/

http://www.nature.com/nature/links/030515/030515-1.html

http://www.ices.dk/

[And]

<font color='#0000FF'>Hi

Sad, very sad

WL

[MATTBIN]

Here we are arguing the toss about dir/non-dir and this brings us back to land very hard.
iIts sad to see any animal driven to extinction, perhaps thats the point we cant see it.

Matt

[Dr Stevil]

<font color='#0000FF'>The evolutionary truth is that it is the destiny of all animals to become extinct, that includes Homo sapiens too, I'm just sorry that we're taking so many other species with us, and it's that fact that makes this extinction event unusual, &nbsp;check out &quot;The Sixth Extinction&quot; by Richard Leakey and Roger Lewin (Doubleday, 1995).

[And]

Originally Posted by [b

Quote[/b] (Steve W @ May 15 2003,16:46)]The evolutionary truth is that it is the destiny of all animals to become extinct, that includes Homo sapiens too, I'm just sorry that we're taking so many other species with us, and it's that fact that makes this extinction event unusual,  check out &quot;The Sixth Extinction&quot; by Richard Leakey and Roger Lewin (Doubleday, 1995).

<font color='#0000FF'>Hi

Have you read Bjorn Lomborgs book &quot;The skeptical environmentalist&quot; ?

He thinks the whole idea of conservation is tosh

WL

[Paul Beal]

Originally Posted by [b

Quote[/b] ]
He thinks the whole idea of conservation is tosh

Back in my undergraduate days I remember being told by a very old bearded professor of Ecology that there is significant statisical evidence that endangered species become extint faster once they are placed in a conservation area - food for though!!

Paul

[Dr Stevil]

Originally Posted by [b

Quote[/b] (wetlettuce @ May 15 2003,17:25)]Have you read Bjorn Lomborgs book &quot;The skeptical environmentalist&quot; ?

He thinks the whole idea of conservation is tosh

WL

<font color='#0000FF'>I must confess I haven't read it, but I know at least one other wacky Dane! Remember he's a statistician, now they really are very strange people indeed.

Science needs challenges and debates ,otherwise there is no advancement, however there are a lot of dodgy scientists. For instance, there was some one at my workplace until recently, she was reasonably able lab worker, but she honestly believed that the world was only about 5000 years old because it says so in the Torah (I think thats the correct name, the Jewish 'bible'), totally incredulous
Chee-az
Steve