Americans are rich. We can afford to each whatever we want. Whenever we want to. We eat so much that our main health concern is that we’re too fat. Now, as formerly poor nations become wealthy, they too are learning to love junk food and overeat. Our voracious appetites have changed the world. The legendary Dodo bird was eaten into extinction. The not very edible looking pangolin is considered an Asian delicacy and is rapidly disappearing. The list is of creatures that are too delicious to live is long indeed.
But the longest list can be found in our oceans. Many fish species are gone for good, and many others will soon be gone. In poor nations, the loss of critical species has been devastating. In rich nations, we have barely noticed. If you can afford $50 steaks, you can afford $50 sushi. If one fish disappears, there is probably another fish that tastes the same. At least for a little while longer.
McDonald’s sells over 200 million of their iconic fillet-o-fish sandwichs. Yet it’s not the same sandwich that it once was. In the 1960s when it was first introduced, it was made with Atlantic Cod. But overfishing put Cod stocks into decline and Pollock was substituted. The fillet-o-fish grew in popularity and McDonald’s looked for a tastier (and cheaper) fish and found Red Cod. But soon needed to swap to the similar tasting Australian Hoki, until Hoki also went into decline. Today, McDonald’s uses Alaskan Pollock.
While the slightest change to McDonald’s supplies often causes massive internal problems, they have been able to successfully swap from fish to fish with little resistance… or notice… the public. And they will undoubtedly change the source of their fish over and over again.
We Americas like our red meat prepared simply… usually a steak or burger on the grill! But our fish is often consumed breaded, fried, minced, prepared with a sauce, or cut up into tiny pieces of sushi. We know little about specific types of fish, and commonly ask the waitstaff, “Is that fish… y’ know… fishy?” We like our fish to be mild and unobtrusive. And, slowly, we’re are adding more fish to our diet. Which may be good for our health, but not so good for the fish.
Satisfying the world’s massive hunger for fish requires a massive fleet of huge fishing boats. Simple fishing boats have long since transformed into massive ocean-going factories that capture, gut, fillet, freeze, and package fish. Often mere minutes after a fish lands on the ship. This efficiency dramatically reduces the cost of fish, while still delivering a very high-quality product.
The problem is that our fishing fleets are so huge and efficient, that if left on their own, they could easily empty our oceans. So, nations agreed to quotas on fishing, limiting the minimum age when fish can be harvested. Restrictions were placed on fishing in certain areas. Aggressive fishing has destroyed much of the ocean floor where fish used to breed.
Unfortunately, many ships regularly violate these limits. Recent studies show that China is harvesting 12 times their quota. And… other countries are cheating too! Consider the Damanzaihao, the world’s biggest fishing ship. This leviathan can haul in over a billion pounds of fish every year. That’s three times the annual fish consumption of Canada! The Damanzaihao currently tied up in Peru as the crew awaits a court hearing on illegal fishing.
China has the world’s largest fishing fleet, over 200,000 ships. China’s fleet catches about half of the world’s fish harvest. But it’s just not enough. So, the Damanzaihao and thousands of other ships break the law, either catching more fish than their quota or fishing in restricted waters. Often both. This pressure on global fisheries has depleted the world’s stock of fish, placing many species on the endangered list.
As bad as this is, the real situation is far worse. Big fishing ships use miles of fishing nets that sweep up everything in their path. The “junk fish” that fishermen don’t want is called, “bycatch”. As much as a third of all fish we catch are bycatch. Shrimp, one of the most inefficiently harvested seafood, generates up to 98% bycatch. What happens to bycatch? It dies on the decks of fishing ships and then gets dumped into the sea. Then these ships sail on.
Worse still, most fish are counted when they reach the docks, not when they are harvested at sea. Imagine a small fishing boat that just goes out to sea for the day. That boat catches its quota of fish, say a fish worth $5 a pound. But on the trip home, the ship runs across a school of more valuable fish. Naturally, they will catch the higher value fish, and go over quota. How can they fix this problem? Simple, dump the lower value fish (now, long dead) into the sea. None of this will be recorded.
Environmentalists tell us that the fishing quotas are too generous and allow for far too much fishing. But quotas don’t count bycatch and fish dumping. Add that in and we’re exceeding the catch levels by at least half. If we then add in just the cheating by China and the real fish harvest is probably 3 to 4 times greater than the quotas.
Of course, every now and then something new is added to the mix that confuses everyone. For decades, U.S. lobstermen (and their lobsters) have been on the brink of extinction. In the 1970s the industry was nearly overfished into extinction. But after years of limits on fishing, lobsters came back! Environmental protection worked! But after a little while overfishing took hold again, and it was the end of the American lobster all over again.
But then something truly unexpected happened. There was an explosion of lobsters. Lobsters were so cheap and plentiful that it threatened the lobstermen with extinction (again)! Was this a sign that nature could take care of itself? Were the environmentalists just crying wolf?
No. The environmentalists were right. The lobster was terribly overfished. What we had forgotten was that every species is both predator and prey. There wasn’t a rise in the number of baby lobsters. Instead, all of the other predators of lobsters (Cod, Haddock, Flounder) were decimated by overfishing. Tiny lobsters got to live long enough to be caught by lobstermen.
It is just possible that we can all eat our fill of fish for generations to come IF we make a few changes in what we eat and how we catch it. But we need to cheating on fishing quotas and give some species a chance to recover. If we don’t we will reach a point of no return. If we continue to destroy coral beds and other complex underwater environments where fish breed, some fish may never recover.
While the fishing industry has never given e ocean an honest accounting, the seas of the world are counting on us. What do you think? Have we overfished the seas? Is there still a chance for recovery?