So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish

[Boerseun]

Originally Posted by hallenrm

I have lot more confidence in the Natures' ability to take care of such threats and contigencies.

Sadly, Nature doesn't give a hoot if any one particular species survives or not. There'd be no reason for Nature to step in and do anything about it.

[Zythryn]

Originally Posted by hallenrm

I smell a media propagated scare in all these news. ; just like global warming and ozone holes!

I have lot more confidence in the Natures' ability to take care of such threats and contigencies. After all, all these reports rest on extrapolations which assume that there is no possibility of change in the intervining period.

Poor choice of words. Any prediction does make some assumptions. As listed in the article I have read, this outlook predicts that the current trends of pollution and overfishing continues. However the forcast makes no claims about the possibility of change.
Of course if there is a change in the trends there will be a change in the outcome.

However, just judging from your first statement, I doubt that change will happen if people that can make those changes feel as you do.

[hallenrm]

Originally Posted by Boerseun

Sadly, Nature doesn't give a hoot if any one particular species survives or not. There'd be no reason for Nature to step in and do anything about it.

Fortunately, nature is never out of it, so the question of it stepping in never arises.

By the way, all such phenomena are in fact a result of human greed and desires. I believe that the situation has arisen mainly because there has been an increase in the demand for fish for food. Which is partly due to the propagation of the information through the media that consumption of fish is very good for health, and partly due to the increasing population of human beings who have been traditionally consumers of fish for food. Part of it is also because of the modern life styles, that cares two hoots for the wastage of food, because the affluent can afford to do so.

On the larger scale, the moot question is, why there is an increased demand for fish, while there has been very little effort spent to find alternate forms of food that have the benefits of eating fish. The only answer I can imagine, is that fish is really cheap in the market, because it is freely available. If it were to become costlier, as oil, its consumption and hence its extinction in nature would not be prophesized to occur so soon.

[pgrmdave]

Part of it is also because of the modern life styles, that cares two hoots for the wastage of food, because the affluent can afford to do so.

When was there a time when the affluent, which could always afford more than enough food, decided to not because they cared about wastage?

[Michaelangelica]

Originally Posted by Zythryn

Poor choice of words. Any prediction does make some assumptions. As listed in the article I have read, this outlook predicts that the current trends of pollution and overfishing continues. However the forcast makes no claims about the possibility of change.
Of course if there is a change in the trends there will be a change in the outcome.
.

And as Austrralia has shown change can happen.
Scuba divers tell me The Marine National Park near me teams with fish. When you get out of the park numbers drop dramatically.

Seafood is already expensive here $20 a K for anything good and the best is exported to Japan who seem prepared to, (and can) pay any price.

This is a cartoon on the topic
http://beyondthepunchline.blogspot.c...t-seafood.html

[Michaelangelica]

Originally Posted by Boerseun

Sadly, Nature doesn't give a hoot if any one particular species survives or not. There'd be no reason for Nature to step in and do anything about it.

Humans are nature.
We should give a hoot
We should step in and do something about it.


10 commandments could save world fisheries
mongabay.com
February 18, 2007
10 commandments could save world fisheries

Government subsidies drive deep-sea fish depletion
mongabay.com
February 18, 2007

Government subsidies drive deep-sea fish depletion

Recently Australia stopped the harvesting of the 'deep sea roughy' fish after discovering they were very long lived fish, thought to live up to 150 years, and did not sexually mature until they are 25-30 years old
Science fact sheet: Orange Roughy - delicacy from the deep
Last year an Oz navy ship chased a Pirate poacher ship all the way to Cape Town in heavy seas.

[TheFaithfulStone]

Originally Posted by ronthepon

I mean, we could eventually resort to rearing fish the same way as we do chicken.

Seriously, why don't we do this?

Take a big section of the ocean - "fence" it off and raise fish in it?

Works for everything else we eat on a massive industrialized scale.

TFS

[Jay-qu]

we have marine parks where it is forbidden to fish. Not quite like a trout farm, but im sure we could come up with something of the sort!

[pgrmdave]

There is one problem with the idea - current fishing cannot continue at the same pace and be profitable. The fewer fish there are, the harder it is to catch them. The harder it is to catch them, the fewer fish are caught each day. The fewer fish caught each day, the less supply there is for the consumer. The less supply there is, the higher the prices. If prices are high, people will buy less and less fish. Since people buy less fish, less fish need to be caught. This continues until it becomes unreasonable - when fish costs so much as to be a luxary, modern fishing won't be economically feasible.

[TheBigDog]

Originally Posted by pgrmdave

There is one problem with the idea - current fishing cannot continue at the same pace and be profitable. The fewer fish there are, the harder it is to catch them. The harder it is to catch them, the fewer fish are caught each day. The fewer fish caught each day, the less supply there is for the consumer. The less supply there is, the higher the prices. If prices are high, people will buy less and less fish. Since people buy less fish, less fish need to be caught. This continues until it becomes unreasonable - when fish costs so much as to be a luxary, modern fishing won't be economically feasible.

Capitalism - the great balancing force of the universe.

Bill