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 → bd]

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 → whacked_new]

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 → bd]

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 → whacked_new]

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 → bd]

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...