The BC Royal Museum had an exhibit that noted the population of cod off the BC coast is now about 3% of what it was 100 years ago. To put that in perspective, imagine a 97% pay cut, or imagine getting 3% on an exam. It is a shocking drop in population. The population of large ocean fish, such as tuna, is estimated to have fallen 90% in the last 50 years. Fish catch in the UK is now 7% of what it was in 1920. As you look around the oceans, seas and rivers you see the same story over and over again: collapse.
Want to know the real reason to buy organic? Fertilizers from non-organic farming ends up in rivers turning estuaries into dead zones, over 300 of them world wide and some more than 100 miles across. It even happened in Esquimalt Lagoon, our friendly neighbourhood fish were dying because of a lack of oxygen in the water caused indirectly and in part by lawn fertilizer runoff. The ocean is absorbing CO2 from the atmosphere and becoming more acidic. This is expected to cause serious problems for all shellfish such as crab, shrimp, lobster and coral reefs.
What should we do? Large parts of the oceans need to become protected as fish sanctuaries. We need to stop using farm fertilizers that pollute the ocean. The fishing fleets out there are much too large and need to be cut, one million fishing boats is way too many. We need to stop fishing for animal feed purposes. Bottom trawling, a practice still employed thanks to a Canadian veto against banning it, should be banned. Only fish mature enough to have had the chance to breed should be allowed to be caught: some species are legally caught before they even reach breeding age. Fishing must be done sustainability or we risk losing it all. The Grand Banks off Newfoundland were closed over 15 years ago and remain so because there has been no recovery.
Can saving the oceans and the fish actually be achieved? No it cannot, not without your involvement. I joined and support Greenpeace. What you do is up to you, but do something.
The Guardian: Tuna Industry Slaughters Marine Life
BBC: Worlds ocean’s in shocking decline
The Economist: So long, and thanks for all the fish
Pacific Ocean Contains an Estimated 100 Million Tons of Garbage
New Scientist: Meadows of the sea in 'shocking' decline
Salmon.com: Overfishing continues at a shocking rate, as countries break one environmental promise after another
Daily Telegraph: Full horror of Japanese whaling exposed
BBC: Whale-watching more lucrative than whale hunting
The Times: New research has shown that repeated trawling has turned much of the sea bed around the UK into a barren wasteland
Science Daily: Caribbean Coral Reefs Flattened
Discovery: Giant jellyfish are taking over parts of the world's oceans due to overfishing
National Geographic: Seafood May Be Gone by 2048, Study Says
Tree Hugger: 85% of World's Oyster Reefs Already Gone, Many Functionally Extinct
The Guardian: Documents prove Trafigura ship dumped toxic waste in Ivory Coast; more than 30,000 people were affected by the poisonous cocktail
Science Blogs: US Army secretly dumped 64 million pounds of nerve and mustard agents into the sea, along with 400,000 chemical-filled bombs, land mines and rockets and more than 500 tons of radioactive waste
The Guardian: Eels in Crisis After 95% Decline in Last 25 Years
The Guardian: Imagine a world without seafood for supper. It's nearer than you think
The Guardian: Scientists call for 20-year fishing ban in a third of the world's oceans
The Telegraph: The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is twice the size of France
Tree Hugger: Image of the sea floor in the Western Baltic covered with dead or dying crabs, fish and clams killed by oxygen depletion - Climate Change Causing Ocean Dead Zones to Grow
Scientific American: Overfishing to wipe out bluefin tuna
Weather Channel: Fish populations shrinking globally due to climate change, threatening millions of jobs and the food source of many millions
Daily Mail: Hundreds of thousands of fish killed in Darling River
WWF: Nearly half of the world's recorded fish catch is unused, wasted or not accounted for
Blue Living: By 2050, our planet’s oceans could be too acidic for corals to reproduce or rebuild, and the $16 trillion ocean-based economy is in danger of being wiped out if things continue as they are
Times Herald: U.S. factory farms generated 1.4 billion tons of animal waste polluting waterways more than all other industrial sources
The Guardian: How the world's oceans are running out of fish
Bottom Trawling is so destructive it can be seen from space
World's Oceans Dying
Sea snail shells dissolve in increasingly acidified oceans
BBC: Nuclear Waste Being Dumped in the Ocean
Ocean Acidification: What's Happening To Our Oceans And Why
NASA: Phytoplankton, The Basis Of The Ocean's Food Chain In Serious Decline
The Guardian: Fish Disappearing From World's Oceans
The March Of The Penguins, Toward Extinction
Discover: World's Largest Dump: The Ocean
Half of BC Chinook Salmon Now Endangered
Thousands of ships fitted with cheat-devices to divert poisonous pollution into the sea
The Gulf Of Mexico 8000 Square Mile Dead Zone
Pacific Salmon Population Collapsing
Discover: North American Fish Under Threat
CNN: 100 Million Sharks Killed Every Year
The True Cost of Shrimp
New York Times: Collapse Of Salmon Stocks Endangers Pacific Fishery
Washington Post: Wild Salmon Endangered
The Independent: Britian's most valuable fish stock on the verge of collapse
Der Spiegel: Globalization Is Destroying The World's Oceans
New Scientist: Drift Nets Could Spell Extinction for Endangered Species
Reuters: Coastal Dead Zones Spreading
The Guardian: Last Chance for the Oceans?
Earth First: UK Fishermen Dump Catch To Avoid Quotas
Anchovy and Sardine Populations Decimated to Feed Pigs
Good and Bad Choices when Buying Fish
Rate of Decline of Fresh Water Fish Is "Staggering"
Great Whites Vanish
The Last Days Of Fish
Discovery: Human Acoustic 'Smog' Killing Whales
National Geographic: Over Fishing Puts Birds At Risk
Reuters: One-third of World Fish Catch Used for Animal Feed
Fertilizers an Increasing Threat to Sea Life
Nature: Marine Dead Zones set to Expand Rapidly
Yahoo News: Australia to Japan: You Don't Need to Kill 1000+ Whales to "Study" Them
WWF: Europe Sits on Damning Bluefin Tuna Report
New Scientist: Last Great US Fishery in Danger of Collapse
Smithsonian: Our Imperiled Oceans
And Finally, Some Good News
Planet Save: Brazil Establishes Whale Sanctuary
The Guardian: Australia Plans World’s Largest Marine ParkMontery Bay Aquarium: How to buy fish
