15
May 2003
Net losses: Industrialized fishing hits fish stocks
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(Cover:
swordfish photographed in Sardinia, Italy, by Norbert Wu.) |
Analysis of data from five ocean basins reveals a dramatic decline in numbers of large predatory fish (tuna, blue marlins, swordfish and others) since the advent of industrialized fishing. The world's oceans have lost over 90% of large predatory fish, with potentially severe consequences for the ecosystem. These findings provide indirect support for goals established at the UN's World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg last year. UN officials argued that three-quarters of the world's fisheries were fished to their sustainable limits or beyond, and made proposals for the restoration of depleted fisheries by 2015. Data on predatory fish are important as they are not dependent on datasets from commercial fisheries, which can be unreliable.
Rapid worldwide depletion of predatory fish communities
RANSOM A. MYERS & BORIS WORM
Nature 423,
280–283 (2003); doi:10.1038/nature01610
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