Plenty More Fish in the Sea

By Mark Crutchley

What was once a byword for plenty is beginning to look like a rather hollow saying thanks to the destructive power of the fishing industry. With modern radar and spotter planes to locate the fish; artificial islands to lure them into certain locations and nets and lines which empty the seas over great areas, we are not so much harvesting the world’s fish resources as waging a war against fish from which they may never recover. Some research has suggested that unless we change our policies then by the middle of this century far from there being plenty more fish in the sea, there may actually be none at all.

In the Northern seas, which have been intensively fished for the longest time, there is a clear trend away from catches being made up of larger, higher level fish, towards smaller, lower level ones. We have fished out the stocks of large fish such as cod in many areas and are now left catching what was once their prey. The extent of the decline is difficult to assess because there are no records of what fish stocks were before we began to harvest them. But studies on the Newfoundland cod fishery have indicated that by the time it was suspended in 1992, stocks had fallen to just one third of one percent of their original size.

As we move down the food chain we run the risk of destroying stocks of these fish too and leaving ourselves with nothing left to catch. When a fish stock collapses, it can do so with remarkable rapidity. In 1966 over 1.2 million tonnes of herring were being caught in the North Sea, but less than a decade later this had fallen to just 200,000 tonnes.

One of the most appalling wastes in the industry is the killing of sharks for their fins to make sharks fin soup. Just the fin is taken from the shark, which is then thrown back into the sea to die. Sharks have been the top predator in the oceans for over 400 million years but in the blink of an eye humans are in danger of wiping them out, with some populations having been reduced by over 99%. Globally up to 100 million sharks are being killed every year and many species are rapidly approaching critical levels. If we don’t take action now to stop the slaughter then extinction looms for many species. As a start, if we all boycotted any restaurant we see selling shark fin soup, and let them know that we were doing it and why, then perhaps we could begin to make it as unacceptable to sell this as it would be if we saw somewhere selling tiger steaks – it’s really no different. Supporting the work of the Shark Trust (http://www.sharktrust.org/) is another way to help tackle the problem.

We need to start bringing pressure to bear on those who can do something about this widespread destruction. The EU Common Fisheries Policy is in desperate need of reform so it favours the fish, rather than those out to catch them. The scientific evidence of decline has been evident for years yet still quotas are set well in excess of levels which will allow stocks to recover, or even just stabilise. We need to target the manufacturers of fish products and retailers too, to force them to raise their standards and use only sustainably caught fish.

If we want our children to have the chance to eat fish in the future, then we have to stand up and do something about this now, before it’s too late.

I wouldn’t normally want to use this column to publicise a television programme, but next week there is a series of three programmes on Channel 4 called the Big Fish Fight where well known chefs such as Jamie Oliver, Gordon Ramsey and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall investigate the devastating effects of the fishing industry on marine life. The programmes are on at 9pm on the 11th, 12th and 13th and promise to be well worth watching.