ChefJune
Master Chef
This is on Yahoo News this morning! Now, for all my friends who laugh at me when I mention that one fish or another is "endangered," y'all can stop laughing! this is HUGE!
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Fish may be off the menu by 2048 if ocean species continue to be lost at the present rate, a study has shown.
A major investigation of marine ecosystems around the world predicts their wholesale collapse in the next 40 years.
If nothing is done to reverse the trend, in a mere four decades, little sustainable fish or seafood will remain.
At this point, commercial fishing will no longer be viable. Cod and chips will become a fondly-remembered British tradition, consigned to history.
The extent of the crisis is revealed in one of the most wide-ranging and thorough studies of marine biodiversity trends ever conducted.
Researchers first analysed the results of 32 experiments that manipulated the fate of marine species on small local scales.
Next they tracked 1,000 years of change in species diversity across 12 coastal areas. In each one they looked at trends affecting between 30 and 80 economically and ecologically important species, drawing information from old archives, fishery records, sediment cores and archaeological data.
Then the team sifted through all the available catch records for 64 ocean-wide regions spanning the years 1950 to 2003. Collectively, these large marine ecosystems (LMEs) produced 83% of global fisheries yields over the past 50 years.
Finally, the scientists investigated the recovery of biodiversity in 48 marine reserves and areas closed to fishing.
Study leader Dr Boris Worm, from Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada, said: "Species have been disappearing from ocean ecosystems and this trend has recently been accelerating. Now we begin to see some of the consequences. For example, if the long-term trend continues, all fish and seafood species are projected to collapse within my lifetime - by 2048.
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Fish may be off the menu by 2048 if ocean species continue to be lost at the present rate, a study has shown.
A major investigation of marine ecosystems around the world predicts their wholesale collapse in the next 40 years.
If nothing is done to reverse the trend, in a mere four decades, little sustainable fish or seafood will remain.
At this point, commercial fishing will no longer be viable. Cod and chips will become a fondly-remembered British tradition, consigned to history.
The extent of the crisis is revealed in one of the most wide-ranging and thorough studies of marine biodiversity trends ever conducted.
Researchers first analysed the results of 32 experiments that manipulated the fate of marine species on small local scales.
Next they tracked 1,000 years of change in species diversity across 12 coastal areas. In each one they looked at trends affecting between 30 and 80 economically and ecologically important species, drawing information from old archives, fishery records, sediment cores and archaeological data.
Then the team sifted through all the available catch records for 64 ocean-wide regions spanning the years 1950 to 2003. Collectively, these large marine ecosystems (LMEs) produced 83% of global fisheries yields over the past 50 years.
Finally, the scientists investigated the recovery of biodiversity in 48 marine reserves and areas closed to fishing.
Study leader Dr Boris Worm, from Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada, said: "Species have been disappearing from ocean ecosystems and this trend has recently been accelerating. Now we begin to see some of the consequences. For example, if the long-term trend continues, all fish and seafood species are projected to collapse within my lifetime - by 2048.
