|
TWO 'doomsday' scenario reports on the state of fish stocks, one global and the other closer to home in Scotland were published at the weekend.
Researchers from the University of York and Marine Science Scotland have warned that the seas around the Firth of Clyde have been so heavily fished that they have almost become marine deserts.
Meanwhile, the Census of Marine Life has carried out a ten years study of world fishing and is due to reveal that the world may run out of fish within the next 40 years. Both reports were highlighted in the Sunday Times.
In the Scottish situation the researchers said the Clyde was once rich in fish life with many edible varieties such as cod, halibut and herring. All that remains now of any commercial worth are langoustines, but that stock too was in danger of collapse because of overfishing. Marine Science Scotland warned that the collapse was approaching the scale of the disaster which happened off the Grand Banks of Newfoundland in the 1960s when cod practically disappeared.
On a global level, the world's fishing fleets are now catching 150 million tons of seafood a years more than four times the amount in the 1950s when there were probably more fishing boats. But huge improvements in fish finding and fish catching technology in the past 50 years means stocks are being wiped out at an unsustainable rate.
Full details of the Census of Marine Life Study are due to be published shortly. But the message is already clear, says the the Sunday Times - global fisheries will be driven to extinction by 2050 unless action is taken now.
Should fisheries be closed during breeding time to allow stocks to reach more sustainable levels?
