

Bluefin Tuna on the Verge of Extinction? - ComputerGuru
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1862255,00.html?cnn=yes

======
bd
Let's be more precise: the article speaks about bluefin tuna, one of the many
tuna species, the high-end expensive one used for sushi.

Other tuna species (that are usually sold in cans) seem to be doing ok.

Just to get the perspective - three bluefin species all together make just
over 1% of all tuna catches:

<http://www.fao.org/fishery/statistics/tuna-catches/en>

~~~
whacked_new
IIRC, the other tuna species are _not_ doing ok. They are projected to be gone
within 40 years if current consumption trends continue. Of course that
disqualifies them from "on the verge," but 40 years is hella fast in terms of
extinction, or even from totally safe to not-safe.

~~~
bd
We are speaking about self-replicating beings. This is not oil, that once
drilled is gone forever. Predicting 40 years into future is hard.

But there is definitely a problem. A fundamental one. Overfishing is a
classical "tragedy of commons" example. There are no easy solutions.

~~~
whacked_new
Actually it should be possible to construct a model of oil quantity as if oil
was a self-replicating being. After all, we are talking about conservation of
matter (and matter-energy conversion which I suppose is negligible here). In
this sense, oil self-replicates as animals (that have consumed the benefits of
oil) die off, and fossilize over billions of years.

That's just P(t) - C(t) + K for P = production, C = consumption, and K =
amount available at t = 0.

So for oil, we have small P, large C, large K. For tuna, we have small P,
large C, small K. As such, projection estimates should rest on similar
assumptions, and extinction models should be as realistic as you can get.

I agree that there are no easy solutions, but the problem is there; it's the
elephant in the room, in all aspects of consumption.

(this was posted as more of a thought experiment than anything else).

~~~
bd
Maybe the proper solution is to increase the production?

I found a much better article on bluefin tuna troubles in Scientific American
- indeed there are attempts to farm tuna:

<http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=bluefin-tuna-in-peril>

BTW that's also one of the reasons why I think predicting populations 40 years
in advance is hard. Even for a good model assumptions can change. And for
systems of nonlinear differential equations even small differences in
constants can lead to widely different outcomes.

~~~
whacked_new
IMHO, the "best" countermeasure is the most inconvenient one, which is not
only inconvenient on personal levels, but also on social levels. The
inconvenience is evident in another posting on this thread and extends to
areas beyond tuna -- which is why I am bearish on whole matter (just imagine
the number of people with that sentiment), even if you increase production.

------
fbbwsa
i know this is a terrible thing to say... but...

I love bluefin tuna. its delicious. knowing that i might not be able to eat it
in a few years leaves me conflicted between increasing consumption for my
personal enjoyment (at the cost of the burden of knowing that I'm accelerating
bluefin toward its extinction) and decreasing personal consumption for the
small moral victory that I at least tried to help keep a species on earth (at
the cost of decreased sushi enjoyment).

If God wanted bluefin to survive, maybe He should have made them less tasty.

------
dhughes
"...the world's remaining stocks of bluefin tuna, 90% of which are in the
Mediterranean, could be on the verge of extinction." "...biologists predict
that this year [2006] approximately 50,000 tons of tuna will be caught in the
Med."

They fish Bluefin Tuna where I live (PEI, Canada) but it's one at a time with
a rod sort of like Marlin or Swordfish. The quota here is 100 to 200 tons, I
couldn't imagine 50,000 tons!

------
ramchip
You can tune a filesystem, but you can't tuna fish...

