Industrial fishing fleets have doubled the distance they travel to fishing grounds since 1950 but catch only a third of what they did 65 years ago per kilometre travelled, a new study has found.
Researchers from from the Sea Around Us initiative at the University of Western Australia and the University of British Columbia mapped the growth and spread of industrial fisheries since 1950 and found that global trends were dominated by the heavily subsidized fleets of a small number of countries, increasing the total area fished from 60 per cent to 90 per cent of the world’s oceans.
“While most countries continue to focus their fishing efforts on local waters, Taiwan, South Korea, Spain and China have aggressively subsidized vessel and fuel costs to encourage their fleets to operate thousands of kilometres from their home ports,” said lead author David Tickler, a postgraduate student at UWA’s School of Biological Sciences.
Despite this geographical expansion, the catch rates of these fleets – as well as those of the other top 20 fishing countries – have declined dramatically from over 25 tonnes per 1000 kilometres travelled in the early 1950s to approximately 7 tonnes per 1000 kilometres travelled by 2014. Overall, these 20 countries are responsible for 60 million tonnes or 80 per cent of the global industrial fishing catch.
“These findings show that nowadays more fuel is being burned and more time is being spent at sea for every fish caught,” Tickler said. “These diminishing returns to fishing effort are a worrying indicator of the inability of fisheries to sustainably meet consumer demands and previous catch levels.”
The researchers also found that these historical expansions were most pronounced along the coasts and archipelagic waters of Southeast Asia, Africa, South America and the South Asian subcontinent.
“Essentially no waters other than those at the polar extremes are presently unfished to some degree,” said co-author Daniel Pauly, principal investigator of the Sea Around Us initiative at UBC’s Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries. “But this continued expansion and concurrent intensification of fishing efforts has only contributed to the depletion of new areas of the ocean.”
According to the researchers, these findings are further proof that subsidies paid to industrial fishing fleets encourage inefficient and unsustainable uses of fisheries resources. “The data seem to indicate that we have reached the physical limits of expansion in capture fisheries. Industrial catches peaked in 1996, when the discovery of new stocks was no longer able to keep up with the declines in existing stocks,” said co-author Dirk Zeller, who heads the Sea Around Us – Indian Ocean at UWA.
For Jessica Meeuwig, who leads UWA’s Marine Futures Lab and co-authored the study, the solution to these problems is obvious, “We have to accept that for fisheries to continue to support humanity into the future, we are going to have to allow the oceans some space and time to recover from over a century of unfettered industrial fishing.”
Learn more: Fishing fleets travelling further to catch fewer fish
The Latest on: Industrial fisheries
[google_news title=”” keyword=”industrial fisheries” num_posts=”10″ blurb_length=”0″ show_thumb=”left”]
via Google News
The Latest on: Industrial fisheries
- The race to open the Florida coast to industrial fish farms can be stopped | Opinionon April 30, 2024 at 3:01 am
An organizer for the nonprofit Healthy Gulf writes that competing bills in Congress could open Gulf waters off Florida up to industrial fish farming or close it down.
- How New Commercial Fishing Practices Could Be A Boon For Grocerson April 29, 2024 at 2:10 am
Consumers may enjoy fresher fish, less wasted food and better relationship with food retailers, thanks to methods like ikejime ...
- U.S. Fish and Wildlife revokes STAMP industrial park's pipeline permiton April 29, 2024 at 1:46 am
The Western New York Science and Technology Advanced Manufacturing Park hit a new roadblock after the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service revoked its wastewater pipeline permit.
- Federal rule for Cook Inlet EEZ commercial fishing published, implements May 30on April 28, 2024 at 10:30 pm
Federal management of the Cook Inlet exclusive economic zone will begin on May 30, after the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries published on Monday their long developing ...
- Feds approve disaster declaration for 2022 Kuskokwim salmon fisherieson April 26, 2024 at 9:34 am
Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo's disaster declaration covers the Kuskokwim River failure of chinook, chum, and coho fisheries in 2022.
- Report portrays mixed picture of Alaska’s huge seafood industryon April 25, 2024 at 5:00 pm
In 2021 and 2021, there were 1,100 people employed in commercial fisheries across that wide swath of Alaska, working the equivalent of 300 full-time jobs, the report said. In 2019, there were ...
- 'We should be at the table' say Alaskan indigenous tribes impacted by commercial fisherieson April 24, 2024 at 12:41 pm
Fishing rights in Alaskan waters is a centuries-old tradition for local communities now impacted by commerical trawlers ...
- Fisheries Managers Can Limit Risk in the Seafood Supply Chainon April 23, 2024 at 6:28 am
Getting seafood from the ocean to the marketplace is complicated and often risky, with numerous players and ample opportunities for bad actors to skirt the rules. This starts on the water and in ports ...
- Shark species that may be world’s ‘largest predatory fish’ is a rare sight, NOAA sayson April 18, 2024 at 1:03 am
This Pacific sleeper shark was pulled alongside a research boat for catch and release, NOAA Fisheries says. The predators can exceed 23 feet. NOAA Fisheries photo A mysterious shark that may count ...
via Bing News