Eco-friendly Chilean sea bass?

Up to 15% of the so-called eco-friendly Chilean sea bass (or Patagonian toothfish) was found not to what was on the label, being either from a non-certified stock or of a completely different species: http://healthland.time.com/2011/08/22/fish-labeled-as-eco-friendly-chilean-sea-bass-may-not-be/


The Marine Stewardship Council, the eco-friendly certification body, responded that the fisheries is now being investigated:
http://www.msc.org/newsroom/news/msc-response-to-the-current-biology-article-2018genetic-detection-of-mislabeled-fish-from-a-certified-sustainable-fishery2019


There have previously been problems with the mislabelling of farmed Chilean sea bass as wild sea bass, which collects a much higher retail price: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/07/070730173024.htm


Proper tracking is important since it enables sensible consumer choices, and provides a market for fisheries with better management and fishing practices. The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) currently has 128 certified fisheries. Although clearly even MSC certification is not a complete guarantee of eco-friendly fish and anywhere along the supply chain things can go wrong, I would say that it is a good place to start. Inform your fish and seafood choices at http://www.msc.org/cook-eat-enjoy/fish-to-eat.

Looking after little fish.

This is an interesting story because it highlights the way in which animals are so interconnected and it demonstrates the importance of the smaller, and arguably less exciting, little fish, like sardines, anchovies and the even smaller crustaceans known as krill. These smaller species, known as forage species, often occupy a key position at the center of the food web. This means that they are a key link between the species low down in the food web (at a lower trophic postion) and those higher up (at a higher trophic position). Small fish and krill occur in really high numbers and are often densely packed since their natural instinct is to swarm together. They are eaten by a number of much larger predators, i.e. bigger fish, sea birds and even whales. Blue whales, for example, can eat around 2000 kg a day worth of krill during their 3-month feeding season. 


But these little chaps are also consumed by humans and so the concern is that the current levels of fishing are having severe knock-on effects on other groups, because of the important position of these little forage species in the food web. To look into this further, researchers at CSIRO's Wealth from Oceans Flagship (http://www.csiro.au/csiro/channel/_ca_dch2t.html) constructed mathematical models of food webs, which showed that current fishing levels may have produced a 60% decline in groups such as marine mammals and sea birds. They go on to recommend a 50% reduction in fishing rates, which would still give 80% of the maximum sustainable fishing yield.


Just a quick word about the maximum sustainable yield or MSY: it is the maximum number of fish that you can take without the number of new born fish (knowns as recruits) severely dropping, i.e. without unsustainable exploitation of the fishery.  


See the review article at Science Daily:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/08/110810093837.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciencedaily%2Fearth_climate%2Foceanography+%28ScienceDaily%3A+Earth+%26+Climate+News+--+Oceanography%29

Impacting even the deepest sea.

Unfortunately, the negative impacts of our activities appear to be reaching the deep ocean much faster that previously thought, according to a study by the Census of Marine Life (http://www.coml.org/).


The main impacts are marine litter and the accumulation of toxic plastics and plastic by-products, deep-sea fishing, and also climate change, in particular ocean acidification which could affect cold-water coral communities.


See review article at Science Daily: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/08/110801171300.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciencedaily%2Fearth_climate%2Foceanography+%28ScienceDaily%3A+Earth+%26+Climate+News+--+Oceanography%29

Trans-Pacific turtle migration.

A new study of leatherback turtle tracking reveals a staggering 10–12 month trans-Pacific migration route from the nesting sites in the Western Pacific (Indonesia) to foraging sites off the coast off California.


See the review article at Science Daily:  http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/07/110728103148.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciencedaily%2Fearth_climate%2Foceanography+%28ScienceDaily%3A+Earth+%26+Climate+News+--+Oceanography%29

See the journal article at Ecosphere: http://www.esajournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1890/ES11-00053.1

Bad news for big fish.

Bad news for big fish like tuna. Top researchers at the University of Miami and the United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA) have reviewed the IUCN Red List (http://www.iucnredlist.org/) for several (61) species of big ocean-going fish. The IUCN Red List is the official site where the conservation status of species are listed, e.g. 'least concern', 'vulnerable', 'endangered', 'extinct' etc. Based on the results of their study, they have added seven species of big fish to the 'threatened with extinction' category and four other species to the 'near threatened' category.

See the review article in Science Daily:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/07/110725091713.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciencedaily%2Fearth_climate%2Foceanography+%28ScienceDaily%3A+Earth+%26+Climate+News+--+Oceanography%29

or the academic article in Science:
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/333/6040/291.summary

Overfishing stats.

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) reports global fish production, from fishing and fish farming, is 142 million tonnes of fish, accounting for 44.9 million jobs. 

Excluding aquaculture, approximately 80 million tonnes of fish are caught from marine waters and 10 million tonnes from inland waters. These record global catches have been kept up for over a decade.

The FAO now estimates that:

- 53% of wild marine fish stocks are fully exploited (=bad)

- 28% are overexploited (=worse)

- 3% are depleted (=really really bad, may never recover)

- 1% is recovering (=not good, but some hope)

- 12% are moderately exploited (=ok)

- so only 3% of the world's marine fish stocks are underexploited (=good; but then if it's only 3% maybe its never that good).

Nobody should really be taking fish from any stock that is classified as fully exploited, overexploited, depleted or recovering. Which means that you can only fish from 15% of global marine fish stocks, compared to 40% in the 1970's.

Still, the highest catches in our history are being maintained and 80 million tonnes of fish are still being removed from our oceans every year.

(for the full FAO report see http://www.fao.org/docrep/013/i1820e/i1820e00.htm)