Oh, Fishy, Fishy, Fish!

Apparently the worlds ocean's are rapidly running out of fish, due to industrial overfishing, according to the Scripp's Institute of Oceanography. Fully 85-90% of those fish most likely to end up on our dinner plate are gone, according to the study. I have to admit I was skeptical when I first read this. If fish had become so rare, surely we'd note this in the price of fish? But it seems that conservations efforts in America have done better. It also seems that most of the damage was done in the early years of industrialized fishing, before survey-taking. None of which has stopped the usual crowd from bellowing about how nasty our species is. One fellow seems to long for the days when you could harpoon giant tuna from your rowboat. But such is to be expected.





What I keep thinking of is how often dieticians and other scolds tell us we're supposed to be eating more fish. I also keep thinking about how all this fish is probably most needed in those areas whose population is growing most swiftly (we are eating these fish, after all, not mounting them on our mantelpiece). And then I consider how no one at the Scripps Institute has anything to say about the problem but how we think there's a limitless supply of fish in the ocean when there isn't. What exactly are we to do about it? Go back to binging on beef? Tax the fishing fleets out of business? Start a quota and limitation system? I hear no answers.





Which doesn't mean that answers don't exist. I went to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's web site to see what they had done to conserve American fish stocks. The press release suggests that they've had a banner year, taking more species off the "overfishing" list than they're putting on, and showing gains in all numbers of fish for whom "rebuilding programs" have been put in place. I couldn't tell you what those programs specifically involve. I can't tell you how much real "co-operation" is going on between fishermen and the government. I suspect, to be successful, that the fishermen are going to have to provided with some kind of real, immediate incentive to rebuild the fish populations. I may look into this further.