The ocean's great predator fish are disappearing fast. Numbers have dropped by 90% in just 50 years. Time to give up those swordfish steaks
There has been no shortage of signs that all is not well in the oceans. Eleven years ago, the cod population on the Grand Banks off Newfoundland collapsed, prompting an outright ban on cod fishing in the region. The stocks have still to show any sign of recovery. The situation isn't much better in the North Sea. There, cod are teetering on the brink of collapse, and according to the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea, only a total ban on cod fishing will give them any chance of recovering. Last year, researchers warned the same was happening off the coast of western Africa. Once among the richest of fishing waters, the number of fish had plummeted to a new low. Earlier this year came yet another warning: some of the most common species of shark were being wiped out, often killed by trawler nets seeking a more profitable catch. Their numbers have slumped more than 75% in 15 years.
But the piecemeal warnings, shocking as they were, suggested only patches of disaster. Surely there were still regions of deep blue ocean where the trawlers never reached, where fish were still thriving? It seems not. Today, a study published in the journal Nature reveals the big picture is worse than many scientists feared. Fishing has been so destructive that stocks throughout the world's oceans have been driven down by 90% at the very least.
"What we have now are just the remnants," says Ran Myers of Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia. "We're losing fish all around the world."
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