www.RogerWendell.com
Roger J. Wendell
Defending 3.8 Billion Years of Organic Evolution^SM

Alan Koch with permission

Fish, Fishing, Oceans & Water Life:

On June 14, 2004 I was listening to the BBC when they opened their News Hour program with a report on world fish stocks. News Correspondent and Presenter Lyse Doucet started the program with this announcement:

(On February 18, 2007 I was again listening to the BBC when they reported the discovery of huge "dead zones" in various oceans around the planet. The broadcast I listened to was their World News report at 0400 GMT - they described these dead zones as vast areas of ocean where all marine life has been extinguished...)

Fish for sale in Calais, France

FISHED OUT:    "The U.S. fishing industry is slowly sinking as the catch dwindles." - BusinessWeek September 4, 2006, p.5.

Not Enough Ocean

"Even seven seas can't satisfy the world's appetite for fish. According to a study by the environmental-economics institute Redefining Progress, at the rate we're currently fishing, we're overusing the oceans' bilogical capacity by 157 percent, or one and a half additonal earths. Japan, Indonesia, and China have the most egregious 'fishprints'; the United States comes in eight, overfishing by 165 percent." - Paul Rauber
Sierra, May/June 2007 p. 17

Click Here for my page on Water and other related issues...

While visiting the UK, in 2006, I found this interesting piece in one of their tabloids: Total cod fishing ban 'is needed' "THERE should be a total ban on cod catches in the North sea next year, a report by marien experts claims. The species is still too heavily fished and could suffer a further fall in numbers. There should also be no catches of Nort Sea sand eel, the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea added. ITs findings will be considered by EU ministers 3hen they set catch levels in December." (METRO - Wednesday, October 18, 2006, p. 2)

"Researchers say the world's fish and seafood populations could collapse by 2048 if current trends in habitat destruction and over-fishing continue."

"In an analysis of scientific data going back to the 1960s and historical records over a thousand years, the researchers found that marine biodiversity -- the variety of ocean fish, shellfish, birds, plants and micro-organisms -- has declined dramatically, with 29 percent of species already in collapse."

(All Things Considered - National Public Radio, Friday, November 03, 2006)

Did you know?

Fish is not health food!

According to Doctor Neal Barnard, M.D., "Fish is not a health food by any stretch of the imagination. According to a study published in The New England Journal of medicine, people who followed a diet emphasizing poultry and fish, called the National Cholesterol Education Program Step II Diet, found that their cholesterol levels changed very little." "Fish's selling point is omega-3 fatty acids. But the fact is, fish fat is a mixture of fats. Anywhere from 15% to 30% of the fat in fish is plain old saturated ('bad') fat. That's somewhat lower than in beef and chicken but far higher than in healtful vegetarian foods. And fish fat is everty bit as fattening as lard or chicken fat. People adding salmon to their diets in hopes of some vague benefit often find it hard to manage their weight, because of the load of fat they are eating. Fish flesh contain plenty of cholesterol too. Ounce for ounce, shrimp and other mobile shellfish have nearly twice the cholesterol of beef. "Fish often carry contaminants from polluted waterways. About 40% of fish samples have so much bacterial contamination that they have already begun to spoil before they are sold. Fish are also often contaminated with PCBs, which have been linked to cancer and birth defects. Consumer Reports found PCBs in 43% of salmon, 50% of whitefish, and 25% of swordfish. The US Food and Drug Administration and the US Environmental Proteciton Agency warned pgregnant women, women who may become pregnant, breastfeeding women, and children to limit their soncumption of fatty fish because it contains mercury, which can also contribute to birth defects, kidney damage, impaired mental development, aned even cancer. "So where will we get our omegas-3s? Vegetables, fruits, and beans don't contain much fat, but what fat they do have is relatively high in omega-3. A person aiming for a higher omega-3 intake, for whatever reason, will find it in ground flaxseeds, flaxseed oil, walnuts, soy products, and vegetarian omega-3 supplements, such as Sea Vegg. "If you really want to work on beating heart disease, forget the fish and try a vegetarian diet rich in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and bean low in fats of any kind." PETA's Animal Times, winter 2007, p. 21

"We have to face the fact that industrial fishing is causing terrible damage to our oceans, the wondrous ecosystem that sustains us all. Coral reefs - the rain forests of the sea - have declined 30 percent in the last thirty years, largely because of overfishing and shrimp trawling. Industrial fleets have fished out at least 90 percent of all large ocean predators - marlin, swordfish, shark, cod halibut, skate, and flounder - in the past fifty years."

"If you care about the sea and its wildlife, if you care about your health and that of your family, especially that of your children, and if you care about the livelihood of the commercial fishermen, there is, of course, something you can do. And you know exactly what that is! You can make ethically informed choices in the purchases you make from the store, or the food you order in a restaurant."

- Jane Goodall, in her book, Harvest for Hope, p. 131

"When I was growing up the cod was known as the 'bread of the sea.' It was one of the cheapest fish, so that when, as a treat, we had that very British delicacy, fish and chips, the fish was usually cod. We carried it back, wrapped in grease-proof paper inside sheets of newspaper to keep in the heat. In those days the cod fishing fleet hauled in huge catches. But gradually, as more and more people consumed more and more fish, the great shoals decreased in size. The price gradually went up. This led to increasingly strained relationships between Britain and Iceland."

"Today the cod is a threatened species. So, too, are countless other fish. The depletion of the world's fish stocks resulting from the overfishing of our seas, lakes, and rivers, along with wasteful and unsustainable methods of extracting the catch, and the pollution of the water itself, is one of the most shocking ecological disasters of our time. Drift nets and long lines that stretch for hundreds of kilometers, nets with small mesh that catch young fish before they have a chance to mature, and the vacuum trawlers that suck everything movable into their giant maws, are some examples of unsustainable methods of fishing that destroy thousands of nontargeted species." ibidem pp. 117-118

Fishing Facts:

In the Sep/Oct 2003 edition of Sierra (p. 19) they stated:

Bigeye Tuna were about 2 times as heavy (and 8 times more abundant) in the 1950s Silky Shark were about 3 times as heavy (and 10 times more abundant) in the 1950s Striped Marlin were about 5 times as heavy (and 2 times more abundant) in the 1950s

In the 1992 edition (that's a long time ago!) of The Diversity of Life, Edward O. Wilson said, "About 20 percent of the world's freshwater fish species are either extinct or in a state of dangerous decline. The situation is approaching the critical stage in some tropical countries. A recent search for 266 species of exclusively freshwater fishes of lowland peninsular Malaysia turned up only 122. Lake Lanao on the Philippine Island of Mindanao is famous among evolutionary biologists for the adaptive radiation of cyprinid fishes that occurred exclusively within the confines of the lake. As many as 18 endemic species in three genera were previously known; a recent search found only three species, representing one of the genera. The loss has been attributed to over fishing and competition from newly introduced fish species."

"The United States has the largest freshwater mollusk fauna in the world, especially rich in mussels and gill-breathing snails. These species have long been in a steep decline from the damming of rivers, pollution, and the introduction of alien mollusk and other aquatic animals. At least 12 mussel species are now extinct throughout their ranges, and 20 percent of the remainder are endangered. Even where extinction has not yet occurred, the extirpation of local populations is rampant. Lake Erie and the Ohio River system originally held dense populations of 78 different forms; now 19 are extinct and 29 are rare."

pp. 256-257

Turning the Tide on Shellfish Decline
Restoration Lessons in the Chesapeake Bay
Natur Conservancy, WInter 2006, p. 16

Native oyster reefs, which provide an underwater haven for dozens of species of plants and animals and help clean water and stabilize shorelines, have largely disappeared from U.S. coasts. This is especially true in the Chesapeake Bay, which ha lost most of its 400,000 acres of reefs in the past two Centuries.

RUNNING THE NUMBERS / SHELFISH

• U.S. oyster harvest in 1880: 154 million pounds
• U.S. Harvest in 2002: 31 million pounds
• Historical range of oyster reefs in the Chesapeake Bay: 400,000 acres
• Today's range: less than 20,000 acres
• Time in 1800 oysters needed to filter the Chesapeake's 19 trillion gallons: one week
• Time needed today: more than a year

Marine Mammals:

Elephant Seals - California

In November 2007 Tami and I drove PCH 1 (California's coastal highway) from the Bay area to San Diego. Along the way down we had a wonderful encounter with Elephant Seals on the beaches at Piedras Blancas. From what we could see, Friends of the Elephant Seal are doing a pretty good job of protecting the Elephant Seal and a portion of its beach habitat. Click Here for a video of the seals on the beach!

Judge to Navy: Limit sonar training
Los Angeles, California (AP), Monday, February 04, 2008

"The Navy must follow environmental laws placing strict limits on sonar training that opponents argue harms whales, despite President Bush's decision to exempt it, a federal judge ruled Monday.

"A federal judge ruled that the Navy must limit sonar training that some say hurts whales."

"The Navy is not 'exempted from compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act' and a court injunction creating a 12 nautical-mile no-sonar zone off Southern California, U.S. District Judge Florence-Marie Cooper wrote in a 36-page decision."

"'We disagree with the (exemption) judge's decision,' White House spokesman Tony Fratto said. 'We believe the (exemption) orders are legal and appropriate.'"

"Navy spokeswoman Lt. Cmdr. Cindy Moore said the military was studying the decision."

"The president signed a waiver January 15 exempting the Navy and its anti-submarine warfare exercises from a preliminary injunction creating a 12 nautical-mile no-sonar zone off Southern California. The Navy's attorneys argued in court last week that he was within his legal rights."

"Environmentalists have fought the use of sonar in court, saying it harms whales and other marine mammals."

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