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Having fish and eating it too: Imperiled fisheries make a comeback, study shows

Posted by: Maven on July 31, 2009 at 8:15 am

From the New York Times:

“Can we have our fish and eat it too? An unusual collaboration of marine ecologists and fisheries management scientists says the answer may be yes.

In a research paper in Friday’s issue of the journal Science, the two groups, long at odds with each other, offer a global assessment of the world’s saltwater fish and their environments. Their conclusions are at once gloomy — overfishing continues to threaten many species — and upbeat: a combination of steps can turn things around. But because antagonism between ecologists and fisheries management experts has been intense, many familiar with the study say the most important factor is that it was done at all.

They say they hope the study will inspire similar collaborations between scientists whose focus is safely exploiting specific natural resources and those interested mainly in conserving them. “We need to merge those two communities,” said Steve Murawski, chief fisheries scientist for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “This paper starts to bridge that gap.” …. “

More from the New York Times by clicking here.

From NPR’s All Things Considered:

“Worm says this new analysis relies on much more scientific data to assess the state of the world’s fisheries. And it is still not an upbeat report. “This trend in increasing species collapse that we found in the previous paper still persists,” he says. The researchers find that 14 percent of the 170 species they studied are now at less than 10 percent of their original numbers. That’s how they define a fishery “collapse.”

The study then goes a step further. “What this paper shows is there are solutions, and those solutions are beginning to work in a number of places,” Worm says.

Some of the good-news stories come from the United States. Strict federal fishing laws have cut back significantly on overfishing. And some stocks, such as haddock off New England, have rebounded so well, they are actually as healthy as they’ve ever been. Iceland, too, has rebuilt some of its fisheries. …”

More from NPR’s All Things Considered by clicking here.

EVEN MORE COVERAGE from Miller-McCune by clicking here.

July 31, 2009 · Filed Under Wildlife & Endangered Species

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