
Popular seafood species in sharp decline around the world - InInteraction
https://news.ubc.ca/2020/07/21/popular-seafood-species-in-sharp-decline-around-the-world/
======
KerrickStaley
If you're interested in adjusting your seafood eating habits towards eating
more sustainable seafood, the Monterey Bay Aquarium maintains a guide on which
seafood (based on species and location/method of catch) is most sustainable,
somewhat sustainable, and not sustainable.

My favorite version of the guide is the printable version that you can fold up
and put in your wallet: [https://www.seafoodwatch.org/seafood-
recommendations/consume...](https://www.seafoodwatch.org/seafood-
recommendations/consumer-guides)

Here's the main site where you can search for a fish by name:
[https://www.seafoodwatch.org/](https://www.seafoodwatch.org/)

This is geared towards the USA but I think the guides are at least somewhat
useful in other countries.

~~~
RankingMember
I think the intent is great, but what is the percentage of the population that
would utilize such a thing in their daily life? Not trying to be a downer, but
I think most people don't have the bandwidth to be carrying around little
cards reminding them to buy this/don't buy that, "oh, and is that tuna line-
caught or pole-caught?", etc. If eating a certain kind of fish is causing
environmental damage, we need regulation as a chokepoint somewhere in the
chain, whether it be to stop it from being fished or at least from being sold.

~~~
jsilence
Exactly! And that is probably the reason why the majority of us should cut
down hard on animal based food consumption, just to be on the safe side.

~~~
defnotashton2
Oh cool let me change my entire lifestyle just to be safe.. For everyone
else..

~~~
bartvk
Do you really feel that adjusting ingredients in your meals is equal to
changing your entire lifestyle?

------
irthomasthomas
Everyone please stop blaming coral bleaching on climate change. Nitrogen run-
off from farming is the main cause. We need to reduce nitrogen enrichment in
farming, which will lead to lower yields and lower profits (or, more likely,
higher prices). But blaming climate change here is an egregious example of
green washing which will prevent or delay resolving the real issue. Stop it.
Please.

"Anthropogenic nutrient enrichment is often associated with coral reef
decline. Consequently, there is a large consent that increased nutrient
influxes in reef waters have negative longterm consequences for corals"
[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S187734351...](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877343513001917)

"Increased loadings of nitrogen (N) from fertilizers, top soil, sewage, and
atmospheric deposition are important drivers of eutrophication in coastal
waters globally. Monitoring seawater and macroalgae can reveal long-term
changes in N and phosphorus (P) availability and N:P stoichiometry that are
critical to understanding the global crisis of coral reef decline"
[https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00227-019-3538-9](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00227-019-3538-9)

~~~
tuatoru
> Stop it. Please.

No. Nitrogen pollution has local effects and is an enormous problem in some
important fish spawning grounds, but it cannot explain what happened to the
Great Barrier Reef in 2018 and again in 2019.

The effects of temperature on corals are getting to be quite well understood
now. Globally, marine heat waves are a major problem, alongside pollution and
direct reef destruction.

Likewise, ocean acidification is happening as part of "climate change" (carbon
pollution) and is another stress for corals.

I agree with your point about N runoff. We need to stop growing maize for
biofuels and animal feed and implement megascale riparian planting programmes
to limit the damage done by floods. For starters.

These things are not either-or. Overfishing and destructive fishing practices,
"development", various kinds of pollution and oxygen depletion ... we're doing
it all, and it all affects reefs.

------
wonderwonder
With the way the human population is expanding and the rising income of 3rd
world nations we are really going to look at a major increase in both
genetically engineering food stock to be larger and more nutritious as well as
ramping up lab grown meat. Conservation is clearly not going to work as so
many nations ignore it anyway and quite often regulations lack teeth due to
the fear of killing an industry. Its difficult to ask 3rd world nations to cut
back while first world nations have been reaping benefits for so long.

While I wish organically growing food and conservation was the answer, its
unfortunately not. Society just wont change to support it. A science fiction
style solution is going to be the only way to feed the world.

~~~
neckardt
> Society just wont change to support it.

Maybe this is just me, but I would happily change my diet to be around 50%
Soylent or other meal replacement if the cost was cheaper. Currently I eat
around 2400 calories a day, with Soylent that costs me $20 a day. I can get
Chipotle for ~$15 per day, and between the two Chipotle clearly wins on taste.

From what I can tell meal replacements are often far more environmentally
friendly, there might be an environmental win here if the price drops.

~~~
the_af
What about people who enjoy eating? Cheese, meat, vegetables, wine, etc? Let's
not forget eating is a pleasurable activity, not only a source of energy and
protein.

~~~
neckardt
I enjoy eating too, I don't think I would ever switch to meal replacements
completely. But I would consider switching my default from my own terrible
cooking to a meal replacement and eat out for my other meals.

~~~
zabzonk
Learn to cook, read some good cookbooks - for example anything by Madhur
Jaffery - it really isn't difficult.

The thought of educated people eating crap like Soylent and paying for it,
when they could be eating really good food, which completely uneducated people
all over the world manage to cook easily, is quite upsetting to me.

~~~
rdtwo
I agree we have people here making 200+k a year eating chipotle burritos and
soylent as meals. These people are truly missing out.

------
zackmorris
I'm shocked that the article didn't mention this, but the mass die-offs we're
seeing are because the world's coral reefs will be dead by 2050:

[https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/environment-90-per...](https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/environment-90-percent-
coral-reefs-die-2050-climate-change-bleaching-pollution-a7626911.html)

[https://www.businessinsider.com/great-barrier-reef-could-
dis...](https://www.businessinsider.com/great-barrier-reef-could-disappear-
by-2050-why-2019-10)

[https://www.forbes.com/sites/trevornace/2020/02/24/70-90-per...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/trevornace/2020/02/24/70-90-percent-
of-coral-reefs-will-disappear-over-the-next-20-years-scientists-say/)

The effect of this is that 500 million pacific islanders will be forced to
flee to Southeast Asia as their primary food source dies, which will lead to
widespread political instability and possibly war. Not to mention that since
25% of sea life depends on reefs, their death will have catastrophic ripple
effects throughout the ocean.

All due to runaway global warming acidifying the ocean with CO2. This was
well-understood and warned about decades ago (I learned about it as a kid in
the 1980s).

I sure wish a tech billionaire would do something about this. Their inaction
on countless fronts, in fact their complacency in undermining progress on
environmental causes in global politics, is one of the thousand reasons I got
out of tech.

~~~
xoa
> _I sure wish a tech billionaire would do something about this._

I sure wish _VOTERS_ would "do something" about this, where "something" = vote
for the party/parties that actually champion or at least acknowledge the
importance of dealing with AGW/CO2 increasing vs actively denying and
supporting continuing the current anti-free market policies destroying so much
future beauty and potential. This should have been so straightforward, we want
net neutral CO2 ASAP and then net negative as soon as feasible, so all that's
needed is to legislate that emitting a ton of CO2 (or equivalent) is priced at
the cost of rapid industrial removal of a ton of CO2+margin. We could just
make all our energy usage net neutral in a matter of months/years by finally
establishing a Free Market there and then let humanity sort out the best way
to reduce the cost of that. But instead it's a mixture of full denial or, even
more frustrating, so-called "greens" bitching about other people's luxury
energy usage and engaging in worthless moralizing bullshit about
$Cause_Of_The_Day (like Ebil Big Tech) rather then just working to deal with
the problem as efficiently as possible and focusing moral arguments purely on
the harm of AGW.

>Their inaction on countless fronts, in fact their complacency in undermining
progress on environmental causes in global politics, is one of the thousand
reasons I got out of tech.

I'd say the inaction on countless fronts of people like you who just shove all
responsibility off onto nameless godkings rather then actually internalize
that democracy means we're responsible as well has been a far bigger threat.
Tech has been relatively green, and far more active at green efforts then most
industries. It's ludicrous to see you pinning so much on "tech billionaires"
vs, say, oil/coal billionaires.

~~~
twblalock
The voters won't be willing to make the sacrifices necessary to solve the
problem, once they realize how much it would impact them. They won't be
willing to dramatically lower their quality of life to save some Pacific
islanders who live thousands of miles away.

One of the biggest problems is that the damage caused by reducing emissions
falls disproportionately on the poor voters in developed countries. Look at
what caused the yellow jacket protests in France -- a hike in diesel taxes.
People are already in a mood to protest economic inequality in a general
sense, and fighting climate change will make that inequality worse. It's not
going to fly in the current political climate, not even in the EU where people
are generally more sympathetic to the climate problem than elsewhere.

The outcome of social unrest caused by unpopular climate policy will be the
reversal of that policy. Therefore any attempt to solve climate change that
leads to social unrest will be unproductive.

I'm increasingly convinced that geoengineering is the only way to ameliorate
the effects of climate change.

~~~
xhrpost
I think this is a fair point, but are there perhaps compromises where quality
of life doesn't have to go down? Solar panels on homes with government
subsidies where fossil fuels are still heavily used for electricity.
Investments (BIG ones) in public/metro transportation.

I agree with human psychology being a limiting factor here, but I think there
are also ways we can work with it, by saying that life quality doesn't have to
go down or can even improve, rather than the current all or nothing approach.

~~~
twblalock
I don't see a way to halt, much less reverse, global climate change without
making massive sacrifices to the quality of life people enjoy in developed
countries.

We will pay the money it takes to protect our cities from floods and cool our
buildings and deal with the other impacts, and people in poor countries will
be left to deal with the problem on their own. That's not what _should_
happen, but that's what _will_ happen.

------
beached_whale
We should be fixing farmed fish. When was the last time people ate wild cow.
It's not sustainable for a population to be exploiting wild fish, farm
properly and learn to do it quickly. As long as we eat meat, we have to do it
in the least intrusive way.

~~~
Depurator
I'm doing a Ph.D. in salmon farming, it's an exciting field for sure. Just to
address some common misconceptions:

* The feed used for norwegian salmon is about 70-80% plant based, so the fish is a net producer of marine protein. The majority is soy, and the industry is trying to transition to sustainable feed ingredients such as insects (see Protix) and micro algae for EPA/DHA (See veramaris)

* The farmed salmon does not contain any contaminents over allowed limits and they do frequent tests (see [https://sjomatdata.hi.no/#/seafood/1577](https://sjomatdata.hi.no/#/seafood/1577))

* The indsutry is beginning to transition from traditional net-pen farming to offshore, land-based and into cell-based and plant-based production, thus also getting production closer to market and spread over areas that may be less susceptible to pollution.

~~~
bjoli
Are there any viable solutions to the problems with off-shore farming? Last
time I checked the ecosystem around you typical Scandinavian salmon farm in
the ocean was devestated.

We take extreme care not to flush our own sewers into the sea, yet happily
permit salmon farms with the equivalent fertilizing effect of a town of 25000
having all their toilets flush everything out on the shore.

~~~
Depurator
To compliment Gordons reply, here's a (norwegian) overview of the
environmental conditions around the farms:
[https://www.fiskeridir.no/Akvakultur/Drift-og-
tilsyn/Overvaa...](https://www.fiskeridir.no/Akvakultur/Drift-og-
tilsyn/Overvaaker-miljoepaavirkningen/B-undersoekelser)

The last years they have hovered around 95% being very good or good. So
statistically you are very wrong. But sure there are some localities that have
bad conditions, and those should be closed and new localities should be opened
for those farmers. Such as offshore localities when the technology is mature.
Many smart people are trying to figure that out with strong scientific
backing, but the report from havmerden is avaliable to read if you understand
norwegian

In norway there are many environmental institutions following the state of the
fjords, so I wouldn't be too concerned.

~~~
bjoli
What I am saying is not that that are not following current regulations. I am
saying at the current regulations are too weak, which Naturvernforbundet
agrees with.

They are _still_ using hydrogen peroxide to combat lice for example, despite
it's effect on shrimp and plankton.

I am all for farming fish, but on land in closed systems.

------
buovjaga
The orange roughy story is particularly sad
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orange_roughy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orange_roughy)

"The orange roughy is notable for its extraordinary lifespan, attaining over
200 years."

"Orange roughy is fished almost exclusively by bottom trawling. This fishing
method has been heavily criticized by environmentalists for its destructive
nature."

------
blakesterz
The actual study is here:

[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S027277141...](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0272771419307644)

Fishery biomass trends of exploited fish populations in marine ecoregions,
climatic zones and ocean basins

It's a journal called Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science.

------
dummydata
> Of the populations analyzed, 82 per cent were found to be below levels that
> can produce maximum sustainable yields, due to being caught at rates
> exceeding what can be regrown. Of these, 87 populations were found to be in
> the “very bad” category, with biomass levels at less than 20 per cent of
> what is needed to maximize sustainable fishery catches.

It seems to me that we don't have a clear concept of sustainable commercial
fishing looks like (with regards to wild capture). Thankfully, it seems
Aquaculture is on the rise to offset increasing demand:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fishing_industry](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fishing_industry)

~~~
s1artibartfast
How do you draw the conclusion that we dont know what sustainable fishing
looks like.

According to the article, we know the optimal sustainable take down to the
percent. The failure is in getting any nation to adhere to limits.

------
greenhorse
It's not that hard to be vegetarian or at least cut back a lot on meat folks.

~~~
danhak
Society will never overcome this tragedy of the commons. Only a few will make
personal sacrifice for the common good.

Only a market-driven solution will be viable. We need to find sustainable
alternatives that are _better_ than the foods they replace. Just like we need
electric cars that are _better_ than internal combustion engines.

~~~
rcMgD2BwE72F
>Only a few will make personal sacrifice for the common good.

Are you vegetarian? I chose to, only because I want mankind to live on this
planet for a long time. That's _not_ a sacrifice, that's a basic choice. I'm
not sacrificing stuff when I chose to behave responsibly (e.g driving safely,
not stealing my neighbors, paying taxes, etc). Do you think people only pay
taxes because they fear the police? Or they don't kill each others only to
avoid going to jail? Of course they are abuses on our systems (like any social
situation), but if you think most people behave responsibly _only_ to avoid a
kind of punishment, then you have a very dark idea of society or you hang out
with bad people (that can change).

~~~
darkwizard42
Yeah, like the GP said.. only a few. And I think you have pretty rosy glasses
if you think people pay taxes cause they care about their fellow human...

Try explaining this to BILLIONS of people across India and China who are now
for the first time in their family's generations being able to afford and
access a diversity of protein-based and vegetarian cuisine (available all the
time, in and out of what they used to know as the season of availability).

The point is it will take a regulated solution or some sort of new product
that creates a serious incentive to adjust mass behavior.

------
drc37
Interesting article that just came out yesterday from Yale University that is
right in line with this article how China's commericial fishing fleet is doing
a lot of this damage.

[https://e360.yale.edu/features/how-chinas-expanding-
fishing-...](https://e360.yale.edu/features/how-chinas-expanding-fishing-
fleet-is-depleting-worlds-oceans)

------
TheAdamAndChe
I buy canned sardines regularly. I've noticed for the last year that the size
of the sardines are increasing, and many that are canned now have eggs. It
makes me wonder if pressure is making them age and try to reproduce sooner
than before, or if the fishing season is being expanded to meet demand.

I've cut back on buying them as much. I may quit after this.

~~~
rjsw
Where are you buying them ? Some countries call the younger fish "sardines"
and older ones of the same species "pilchards", both have been sold for food
for a long time. Maybe this is just a change in how they are labelled.

~~~
TheAdamAndChe
Central USA. I'm not sure what is legally considered a sardine here, but it's
definitely something to look into.

------
ace_of_spades
Maybe this is an unpopular opinion but I would encourage anyone interested in
doing good to mostly abstain from animal products altogether. This must not
necessarily be carried to extreme veganism but if you have the choice to not
use animal products it’s in almost all circumstances better to take it. Plant
based products are generally better for our health, our future, and the
animals.

~~~
2OEH8eoCRo0
I like Michael Pollan's mantra: Eat food, not too much, mostly plants.

------
growlist
When are people going to start acknowledging the elephant in the room: there
are too many humans for us all to live western lifestyles, and unless we want
our descendants to live vastly poorer lives we need to give serious attention
to population control now.

~~~
all_usernames
Because there are alternatives to population control, like increasing the
sustainability of food and energy sources. After all, the planet now supports
twice as many people as it did a few decades ago, and that's basically down to
agricultural yield improvements.

Making less humans seems to be morally taboo, no one wants to go there.

~~~
2ion
> Making less humans seems to be morally taboo, no one wants to go there.

The train will eventually have arrived at that station while people continue
to pretend it didn't.

------
sadmann1
Between rising consumption, rising populations in net food importing countries
and global warming we'll see fireworks soon enough

------
travisoneill1
So if the population collapses, the fishermen will go out of business until
the population recovers? Or is it not as simple as that?

~~~
cloudwalking
When the population collapses, the species will go extinct.

~~~
tartuffe78
I mean the population would presumably dip low enough to where fishing becomes
too difficult to be profitable before total extinction.

~~~
dragontamer
I'm sure hunters of the Passenger pigeon thought the same too.

Many fish and bird species have shear reprodutive ability as their only
defense. In the case of Passenger Pigeons, they had very little defenses
against predators, but migrated in huge flocks of hundreds of thousands at a
time. No predator could really harm the flock as a whole.

Well, until Humans became too good at hunting anyway. (Also, USA used to be
covered in forests. But we cut those trees down to make room for our cities)

As described in 1813 (From Wikipedia):

> The air was literally filled with (passenger) Pigeons; the light of noon-day
> was obscured as by an eclipse; the dung fell in spots, not unlike melting
> flakes of snow, and the continued buzz of wings had a tendency to lull my
> senses to repose.

~~~
jeffbee
I recently read this book which suggests that the abundance of passenger
pigeons in America was itself a result of human interference with the
ecosystem. The general point of the book is that current people have no idea
what a natural landscape looked like, and the places we think of as natural or
pristine were themselves already severely degraded by prehistoric people.

[https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Once_and_Future_Wor...](https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Once_and_Future_World.html?id=DzYoDYRqjGUC&source=kp_book_description)

~~~
dragontamer
Well, I never liked naturalism as an argument anyway.

But with that being said: I like Talapia. I like Salmon. I like various fish.
They're all quite tasty, and I'd like to keep eating them throughout my life
(and possibly let my children have a chance at it too).

For people who liked one food: the passenger pigeon, that opportunity is now
gone, because the species has gone entirely extinct. And overhunting of that
species is cited as a potential cause for extinction.

\---------

It has nothing to do with naturalism or the state of things. Just from a
purely selfish point of view: if you like a certain food source, you have to
take care of it, lest it goes extinct and disappears forever.

------
quotemstr
We cultivate all our other food. We don't feed ourselves by walking around the
plains of Anatolia and collecting wild wheat. Why should we feed ourselves by
dragging hooks through the oceans? The fishing industry is the last vestige of
humanity's hunt-and-gather past, and it, too, needs to yield to agriculture.
We need better fish farms.

------
danans
Oh Impossible Fish[1], where art thou?

[https://www.seafoodsource.com/news/foodservice-
retail/whats-...](https://www.seafoodsource.com/news/foodservice-retail/whats-
possible-impossible-foods-teases-its-fishless-fish-aspirations)

------
nxpnsv
Perhaps calling them sea food is part of the problem?

------
blobbers
When I consider the implications for the children of this world, these
thoughts make me deeply sad.

Not in a way I feel I can directly action. Not in a way that many children
don't have bigger problems than saving the whales. Just sad.

I hope people share this feeling.

~~~
swhitf
All the time.

------
AtomicOrbital
Ian Urbina, investigative reporter, has written a book and published articles
describing a fleet of 800 industrial fish boats from china who are illegally
poaching catch from North Korea waters ... fallout is a devastating drop in
squid partly due to these chinese boats catching squid as they migrate to
their spawning grounds ( caught before they breed ) which is extremely short
sighted and illegal ... also hundreds of ghost fishing boats from North Korea
washing up on Japanese shores with dead crew ... I suggest you read up on Ian
Urbina's work

------
ThomPete
Aquafarming or aquaculture is the way we solve that.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquaculture](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquaculture)

------
29athrowaway
One symptom of overfishing is seeing a lot of fish below reproductive age.

If you see this, you are seeing fish that could not reproduce. This is not
sustainable.

Once I bought canned fish and saw 3 small fish instead of one regular fish
inside.

------
pacifika
“Seafood species” is an offending description of the purpose of these animals
by the “click bait generator” I mean editor.

------
jungletime
Pollution is also a big problem. For example, people won't eat Great Lakes
fish because they are too polluted.

------
14
I really wish there was a way to stop all fishing at a commercial level for 10
years. Not that you can’t eat a fish just that if you want that luxury you
have to go catch it yourself. I know this will never happen.

~~~
toomuchtodo
There is, but the duration might be longer than 10 years. We grab a bunch of
what's endangered, sequence their genomes, construct plans for future
repopulation, and be prepared for a future when we're more responsible with
these natural resources. The fisheries will exhaust, and demand will shift
elsewhere in the short term.

There is no other path to success, as attempting cooperation with those who
will fish relentlessly is futile. Preserve what's left today for a future with
better humans.

~~~
beambot
Organisms are so much more complex than their genome, in ways we're only now
starting to understand:

> Human cells make up only 43% of the body's total cell count. The rest are
> microscopic colonists.

[https://www.bbc.com/news/health-43674270](https://www.bbc.com/news/health-43674270)

------
pstuart
The tragedy of the commons writ large.

~~~
youareostriches
The “Tragedy of the Commons” is a straw man fallacy. The commons have
historically always been _collectively managed_ by the villagers grazing their
animals on it. What you should be complaining about is the tragedy of an
_unmanaged_ (or in other words _unregulated_ ) commons.

[http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2008/angus250808.html](http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2008/angus250808.html)

That the oceans, a common resource, are not sufficiently regulated, suggests
we need better global governance.

~~~
dredmorbius
Reading ToTC itself you'll find that this is specifically what Hardin
advocates for: Mutual Coercion Mutually Agreed Upon. Unmanaged commons lead to
ruin. The question is how to suitably manage them.

[http://www.garretthardinsociety.org/articles/art_tragedy_of_...](http://www.garretthardinsociety.org/articles/art_tragedy_of_the_commons.html)

------
arkanciscan
Time to start eating Jellyfish!

------
rosstex
Upvoting because I like fish

------
88840-8855
250 new humans are born every single minute. This is the biggest issue we are
facing. This problem must be solve immediately. Once the population stops
growing efficiency measures become effective.

~~~
rcMgD2BwE72F
Most of them will have a reasonable footprint on their environment for their
lifetime. The actual issue is with all the people who consume as if there were
5 to 10 habitable planets within reach.

For some reasons, those who complain about population growth tend to consume
the most.

