This really isn't news since it is well known but it is getting a little more air and newsprint time of late.

Over 90% of the fish are gone (caught) out of the oceans and the fishing fleets are struggling to catch the last fish. The world's fishing fleet is two and half times the size needed to catch the few fish left but many of the fleets are subsidized by governments to keep jobs and "ways of life" going. The few areas where overfishing has been stopped and the fish stocks allowed to breed are few and far between.

The same overall event happened to the "unlimited" codfish schools off the coast of New England. As the fish disappeared, the fishermen rushed in to get the last few fish and eliminated one of the greatest ocean resources in the world. The codfish did not come back.

It is estimated that the same event with happen all around the world in the next ten to twenty years and one billion people will lose their source of protein.

Although it is known exactly what needs to be done to save the fish stocks, the governments involved are not interested in shutting down the fishing fleets thinking that if they leave, someone else will just come in a take the catch.

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From the Los Angles Times

What is Causing the Loss of Sea Life?

The overabundance of fertilizers (nitrogen) and fossil fuels that are dumped into the ocean every day, compounded with the overfishing and complete wipe out of all marine life predators to the bacteria have made conditions prime for bacteria and algae. Not only are algal blooms harmful to marine life, they are also toxic to humans in direct contact, as many cause rashes, burning eyes and stinging throats, not to mention make water bodies off limits to tourists and residents.

Scientists are now saying that "we are pushing the oceans back to the dawn of evolution, a half-billion years ago when the oceans were ruled by jellyfish and bacteria" and "the depletion of fish allows the lowest forms of life to run rampant." Of note, the time period when these jellyfish and algae were dominant, didn't have conditions that could sustain human life.

No Predators for Jellyfish

The jellyfish are also gumming up the works outside of the ocean, such as fishing nets, intake valves on boats as well as conveyor belts in factories. There are so many jellyfish in fact that many fisheries have given up their normal staples and are just harvesting jellyfish. Predators of jellyfish, like sea-turtles, are all but gone and 90% of the big fish have disappeared over the last 50 years as well due to overfishing. Coral reefs, the rainforests of the seas, are almost completely wiped out globally thanks to algal blooms from farm and sewage runoff and excess nitrogen.

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And such goes the way of a species that was not smart enough to keep its own numbers in check!

Not when man is ****in' everything up!

This is so true, try and find real Orange Roughy sometime, its hard to get and when you do find real OR its hella expensive!

Asian Fishing fleets do not operate by any rules. They would strip our waters given the chance. Hell, Japanese demand for tuna makes them take them indiscriminately. Once they are gone they will move on to the next thing until that is gone. That is Asian Economics! Consume, not conserve!

Ok, umm. Whoever wrote this, did they take into account that 90% of the world's oceans remain unexplored? If the very first sentence is so blatantly inaccurate, I'm not very likely to believe anything written after it.

"Pumping Nitrogen in to the water" Really? You do realize 78% of our atmosphere is made up of nitrogen.

There is no inaccuracy. There are multiple sources. Read a little. Your comment about the ocean's being unexplored has nothing to do with Japanese long line fishing in them or tuna being almost completely gone. Find out how the fishing fleets use circular netting to catch every fish in the school.

To make it a little more clear, man had caught OVER ninety percent of all the predatory fish at the top of the food chain in ALL the oceans. Some areas are completely decimated. New techniques are being used, like dredging the bottom, to get the few fish remaining.

Here is the situation in 2003, where 90% of the big fish were gone in all the world's oceans.

Big-Fish Stocks Fall 90 Percent Since 1950, Study Says
National Geographic News
May 15, 2003

Only 10 percent of all large fish—both open ocean species including tuna, swordfish, marlin and the large groundfish such as cod, halibut, skates and flounder—are left in the sea, according to research published in today's issue of the scientific journal Nature.

"From giant blue marlin to mighty bluefin tuna, and from tropical groupers to Antarctic cod, industrial fishing has scoured the global ocean. There is no blue frontier left," said lead author Ransom Myers, a fisheries biologist based at Dalhousie University in Canada. "Since 1950, with the onset of industrialized fisheries, we have rapidly reduced the resource base to less than 10 percent—not just in some areas, not just for some stocks, but for entire communities of these large fish species from the tropics to the poles."

By 2006, Ninety percent of all the predatory fish which existed AFTER 1950 had been caught. Warnings were given that the problem was accelerating.

Now, the handwriting in on the wall. Nothing will be done to save most of the world's fisheries. It is currently estimated that the oceans will no longer be a viable source of food by 2050. Many fishing areas will be gone before that due to Asian fishing practices.

Now, there is a mad rush to catch the

Do you realize how much money the chemical industry makes producing nitrogen fertilizer because only a few plants can "fix" atmospheric nitrogen and make it available for growth? Millions of tons of nitrogen fertilizer are being "pumped" and sprayed over the crops that mostly just runs to the rivers after rainfall. This nitrogen is then "pumped" into the ocean to create huge algae blooms that kill fish.

Do you realize that ocean algae is just a plant that reacts to fertilizer just like a crop? Do you realize that the process of algae growth removes all the oxygen from the water in which the algae is growing although oxygen is 21% of the atmosphere? Do you realize fish cannot breath water that has no oxygen?

Do you realize this whole process is taught at high school level or lower?

And people wonder why the oceans are dying.

Ok, so 90% of several species are gone?

Typical recent news.

Massive California Fish Kill Connected to Hypoxia and Toxic Algae

A NCCOS administered study at the University of Southern California (USC) found a potential link between harmful algal blooms and hypoxia as the cause of a massive fish kill. On 8 March 2011, millions of dead fish (mostly Pacific sardine) were observed in King Harbor in the City of Redondo Beach, California. Through support from NCCOS’ Monitoring and Event Response for Harmful Algal Blooms (MERHAB) Program, Dr. David Caron’s USC research group has been monitoring this area of recurrent algal blooms since 2006. Their observations indicated that the immediate cause of the fish kill was depletion of dissolved oxygen, probably related to an influx of hypoxic coastal water. However, the group continues to investigate why the massive school of fish entered the harbor. Analyses of fish gut contents tested positive for the powerful algal neurotoxin, domoic acid, and algae collected from the nearshore coastal ocean had very high concentrations of the toxin. The findings support the idea that the fish ingested the toxin in coastal waters before entering the harbor. It is unclear at this time if ingestion of the toxin may have exacerbated the physiological stress brought on by hypoxia. The results support the development of forecast models to provide early warnings and enhance response capabilities to mitigate the effects of domoic acid, which causes a number of neurological disorders, and death, in animals and humans that consume contaminated fish.

Sea turtles continue to wash ashore along the Gulf, forcing the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) to scramble and figure out what is causing the spike. Last week, the Natural Resources Defense Council and The Huffington Post were first to publish blogs about the sea turtle deaths in Mississippi. Since then, the national media picked up the story. Last Friday, NMFS released a statement with some details about its investigation:

In the past few weeks, we've seen an increase in turtle strandings in the northern Gulf, primarily in Mississippi. The spring time is the typical time when turtle strandings in this region begin to increase, but the sharp increases in recent days are of concern to us….NOAA Fisheries is in contact with the states of MS and LA regarding current trawl and other fishery activity that can result in turtle by catch and mortality. In addition, tests will be done for biotoxins, such as those from harmful algae blooms, which are common in the Gulf. …All causes of death, including petroleum, will be investigated when possible based on decomposition. During a necropsy, the full GI tract is examined for product or evidence of oil ingestion. Additionally, samples are taken for PAH analysis. In addition, all turtles are being carefully examined for signs of external oiling.

Like the dolphin strandings this year, it's likely that many more turtles have died and will never be found. A recent study of dolphin deaths showed the true number of mortalities is probably 50 times what is recovered. As of Friday, NOAA says recent deaths of sea turtles, all of which are included on the Endangered Species list, include 6 in Alabama, 10 in Louisiana, and 47 in Mississippi. Make that at least 50 confirmed sea turtle deaths in Mississippi. This weekend, Pass Christian resident Shirley Tillman found three more dead turtles. Altogether, she has found nine this year. Over her more than 30 years in the community, she has never seen a dead turtle before. On Saturday, she took another walk on the beach, this time with a PBS television producer. Within an hour they found one turtle badly decomposed and hidden in marsh grass near Waveland. Shirley says she only discovered it because of the smell. On Sunday she went back to check on the turtle, which had been spray-painted orange for pick-up by authorities. That's when she was told there was yet another dead turtle on the beach nearby.

This is not good.

The oceans used to be filled with billions and billions of big fish that at smaller fish who ate smaller fish in a complicated food chain. Man has wiped out most of the upper part of the food chain such that the chemistry of the ocean is changing. They have wiped out most of the small fish too if they were at all useful, like sardines.

When the large schooling fish, like codfish, are knocked down to a certain level there isn't a comeback. The area off of Newfoundland was the greatest fishery in the world till we ruined it for the foreseeable future. We are now doing the same thing for tuna, salmon, etc. ... every large edible fish in the world.

The food chain is now broken so the food that the fish used to eat is growing to fill the oceans, like jellyfish.

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Scientists claim increasing world jellyfish population is bad sign for planet
by Rich Bowden - Aug 4 2008, 01:26



The growth of jellyfish populations throughout the world's oceans has been linked to global warming, overfishing of natural predators, and an increase in pollution that has depleted oxygen in coastal waters, say Spanish scientists.

Researchers at the Institute of Marine Sciences at the National Research Council in Barcelona have said the increase in jellyfish numbers from Spain to Australia, Japan and Hawaii is a sign of the declining health of the world's oceans.

“These jellyfish near shore are a message the sea is sending us saying, ‘Look how badly you are treating me,’” said Dr. Josep-María Gili, a leading jellyfish expert at the Council to the New York Times.

The scientists blame the overfishing of natural predators of the jellyfish (such as tuna and sharks), pollution, and a warming of the world's oceans partly due to global warming as the cause for the increase in numbers.

The National Science Foundation released a statement saying: “Human-caused stresses, including global warming and overfishing, are encouraging jellyfish surpluses in many tourist destinations and productive fisheries.”

The Foundation has listed Australia, the Gulf of Mexico, Hawaii, the Black Sea, Namibia, Britain, the Mediterranean, the Sea of Japan and the Yangtze estuary as the main problem areas.

“The problem on the beach is a social problem,” said Gili, referring to the problems of the numbers of jellyfish stinging swimmers in shallow waters. “We need to take care of it for our tourism industry. But the big problem is not on the beach. It’s what’s happening in the seas.”
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There are thousands of articles like this scatters over just the last several years.

.... and you think it is about "several species of fish"?

I absolutely believe it. The reality of humanitie's voracious appetite has been well-known since I was required to read Paul Erlichmann back in the 60s. Hell, it's been known since Malthus! Will we be left with soylent green as our only option?

i don't think it is quite that bad yet... i fish in the gulf all the time, and always catch plenty of fish... last time i went i went, about 3 months ago, me and me nephew caught 4 baby thresher sharks each, along with our usual yellow-tail, groupers, and flounders... i think the numbers of what the big fishing boats are bringing in may be down, but not nearly depleted...

I think that sharks will be the last of the fish to go. They are the least evolved of the fish family because they are the most adaptable.

they are one of the oldest and least changed species on the planet... they are survivors...

You are fishing in the area which was saved over the past thirty years by the Gulf Coast Conservation groups and the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. You must not have been fishing when "Blackened Redfish" became popular in restaurants and the commercial catch of redfish almost wiped out the population along the Texas coast.

Were you around when the Vietnamese transplanted fishing industry (from the Vietnam War era) on the Texas coast decimated the shrimp stocks and many other fish stocks till the same groups convinced Texas to take action?

As I stated in the text above, there are a few small managed fishing areas such as the Texas and Alaskan coasts, but the vast majority of the world's fisheries are in big trouble.

The big fishing boats are catching less than one tenth of what they used to catch... but they are still out there fishing.

You guys have a lot of first hand knowledge. I trust what you're saying.