Anybody see the news that by 2050, no fishes to be found in the sea?

[lonestarnot]

No clams, oysters, shrimps, dolphins, whales, puffers, whistlers, slippers, sliders, swimmers, walkers, runners, nutt'n but weeds if we're lucky?

[niallmac]

1. Too scary! I need Rush Limbaugh to make fun of that. n/t

[lonestarnot]

6. Don't tell that freak, he'll start eat'n them all now!

[dysfunctional press]

2. thank goodness for fish farms...

and the fact that i'll probably be dead by then, anyway.

i can't imagine life in a world without sashimi...

the HORROR.

[lonestarnot]

5. Might be sooner than even published here.

:cry:

[dysfunctional press]

15. fish farming may be a VERY lucrative business when it does.

but scuba diving is going to get pretty fucking boring.

[Jcrowley]

3. No Fish by 2050

No Fish by 2050
Enjoy the next 50 years of aquatic cuisine, for that might be all we have left.
By Jack Penland
November 02, 2006 | Environment


Research unveiled today is projecting that by the year 2050, all current fish and seafood species will collapse. The report is the work of 12 researchers worldwide and is published in this week's edition of the journal Science.

"I was chilled," says the report's lead author, Boris Worm of Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada who adds, "I was really shocked because, I didn't expect it to be so soon."

Worm and the other researchers studied worldwide fishing records from the past 50 years, fishing records from 12 places that stretch back as long as 1,000 years, and records of small scale controlled studies. He says the studies all point in the same direction, "We see very clearly the end of the line. It shows that we're going to run out of viable fisheries, out of all seafood species by the year 2050." He says the report shows that one third of the fisheries have collapsed, but that the trend is accelerating, and that, "We only have another 40 or 50 years now."

Worm says the problem is that commercial fishing is harming the ability of the fish to maintain steady populations, especially against other threats such as pollution and global warming. Additionally, fishermen often unintentionally catch and kill sea life nobody wants to eat, what fishermen call "bycatch." However, that bycatch is often the food for the commercially important fish.

http://www.discover.com/web-exclusives/no-fishing-2050-stocks/

No matter how you try you simply can't get people to give up what they perceive as their rightful convenience. As usual the report doesn't go far enough. All commercial fishing should be banned. Our children will curse us.

The first rule in tinkering is to leave all the parts. That rule has been violated in spades and mass extinctions are upon us. I'll be amazed if humanity survives in any numbers through the year 2100.

[lonestarnot]

4. Thanks J. Crowely!

We're doomed.

[ThomWV]

7. Sheeeeet .... I Couldn't Catch Any In 2001

[lonestarnot]

8. I don't want to catch any any more. Just depressing.

:cry:

[Squatch]

9. As long as I have trout, I'm good.

I just won't have any sea trout.

[porphyrian]

10. That's only if trends continue as is.

It could be sooner or never, depending on what is done about it.

[lonestarnot]

12. Do you think we are realistically going to be effective at stopping

overfishing, polluting, and the rest in time? Nope.

[porphyrian]

13. Well, obviously you don't.

I'm not that defeatist, however. I think we can make just about anything happen if we really want it.

[lonestarnot]

16. Don't get me wrong. I am not using this as an excuse to do nothing,

but look how long we've tried to stop the use of commercial fishing nets. Hasn't stopped yet. Commercial fisherman have no respect for sea life. Corporations don't seem to give a crap, they still dump their crap. And how many secret nuke tests have we done in the sea? All the crap we put into the air eventually falls back into the sea.

[porphyrian]

17. We just haven't tried the right way yet.

With the exception of corporate fishing conglomerates, most of the fishermen you mention, for example, are just trying to make a living in a highly competitive and even dangerous line of work. Simply passing laws restricting the way they do their job, without providing them with an easy and affordable alternative, makes it easy for them to blame us and justify their breaking those laws. The thing is that most of the problems we face, like this one, are much more complicated than they may seem on the surface, and we can't expect either instant results or quick fixes to be real solutions to them. Back to the fishing example, what may end up working is providing an alternate form of industry to the fishing communities or the invention of a chemical that safely lowers the mercury content of seawater, thus allowing fish to repopulate at a greater rate. I don't know the answer, but I believe we can find it if we really want to.

[0rganism]

11. it's not just the fish that will go belly up

we're talking huge chunks of the biosphere as we know it now, completely unable to function. Not just ocean fish, oh goodness no.

How are the ospreys and sea otters and penguins and pelicans going to eke out a living with no fish in the sea? And without the penguins, how will the leopard seals fare? And so on, and so forth, all the way around the food chain. It will be a die-off the likes of which few dare imagine.

[SammyWinstonJack]

14. ..

:-(

[lonestarnot]

18. Yes. just like a fishbowl of dead fish with flies.

Starvation or tons of species.