Don't understand the ban on shooting some fish species

[Lorenzoid]

I use a list I found here

Printable Consumer Guides with Seafood and Sushi Recommendations from the Seafood Watch Program at the Monterey Bay Aquarium

Monterey Bay Seafood Watch is where I look when I'm considering something I haven't purchased before.

Seafood is a major part of my diet. I have been eating seafood for close to five decades. Lately, I have been focusing lower on the food chain. I believe there is such a thing as sustainability, but we have done so much damage already that it's difficult for populations to recover to sustainable levels. If only we had been more judicious decades ago, we would not be in the position we are today.

 

[fmerkel]

I agree with most of this post and with your stance on sustainability and over fishing I was curious, do you eat seafood?

I am not trying to bash you but I have recently cut out certain seafood from my diet and was curious if other divers are doing this.

I use a list I found here

Printable Consumer Guides with Seafood and Sushi Recommendations from the Seafood Watch Program at the Monterey Bay Aquarium

I eat seafood but only very occasionally, usually social situations where making a fuss is more damaging than useful.

FWIW I've been diving 20 years, and volunteer at the Seattle Aquarium for 10+. They also use the seafood sustainability guide. Personally, (I emphasize that) I think they are in a situation where in order for them to do any good and survive they pretty much have to put forward that perspective. As a species that has harvested from the sea as long as we can remember the seas could deal with it until technology was brought to the catch process. Even as crude and limited as it was over a century ago we still almost wiped out the whales, and yet there are entire countries that still think this is a sustainable fishery. This is just stupid thinking.

There is no fishery, none, that have been able to successfully deal with the harvesting levels and environmental compromises we have brought down on them.

Note - Fish farming is not the answer (maybe Tilapia, but that's not a 'high end' fish with a lot of market appeal). For every pound of fish raised it takes 3# or more of caught seafood since most are predators. This just shifts the fishing burden to something else to wipe out.
Then you get into the whole business of disease, antibiotics in raising fish, escaped fish, cross breeding, competition for food, localized environmental contamination, etc. and you just have a different mess, not a solution. They also are not as nutritious.
Farm raised shrimp is a horror story.

 

[Vicko]

As someone who lives on the Mediterranean (the Adriatic) count yourself lucky that your scientist are counting the snapper that way around.

Around 30 years ago they allowed a new method of fishing with nets that decimated the populations of amberjack, snapper and bream, 20 years ago they collapsed our lobster fishery, now they reduced the average size of the sardine from 18 cm to 6cm. All the while citing research from paid off nut jobs no one in our scientific community considers valid.
Yesterday I spent 5 hours apnea spearfishing from 15 to 35 meters and I did not see a single fish over 0.3 kg, that's less then a pound. And I live on one of the better off islands in terms of fish population.

 

[redacted]

Is there even such a thing as sustainable seafood anymore?

I think they call them Bluefish.

 

[Rred]

If I recall correctly, for the past 15-20 years all commercial swordfish has been from the juvenile population because it has been so overharvested. Sometimes the limits seem crazy, sometimes the market seems crazy. (Red snapper being one of the most "faked" fish on the market, and fish fraud generally being something like 70% of the whole market anyway.)

I get tempted to carry little stickers to add to restaurant menus saying "Get it while you can! We proudly serve endangered species!"

 

[Anthony A.]

I think the moral of the story is.... lets all stop eating fish

Imagine how bountious and beautiful the oceans would be if man ate sustainable foods other than fish. Fisheries are in business because of demand. No demand, no more fisheries. Sealife will rebuild itself when man stops interfering with nature. Man is the only species on the planet that has the ability to destroy entire ecosystems and with the knowledge of doing it. Who was it again that said man is the most intelligent species

 

[Yancey M]

But a scientist told me that Red Snapper are functionally extinct in the Atlantic.

Yeah but in reality they're about as thick as fleas on a dog's a$$ on most wrecks around here. And they're not even scared. I kinda think they know they're safe.

 

[Lorenzoid]

. . . sustainable foods other than fish. . . .

Like what? Essentially all of our food requires nutrients from planet Earth. Fish can be farmed like any other animal, but as with any other farming there is an environmental cost. Even fertilizer is made from petroleum. The oceans simply need to be managed like any other resource on our planet.

 

[Anthony A.]

Greens

Contain all the nutrients and proteins a human needs.

 

[fmerkel]

The oceans simply need to be managed like any other resource on our planet.

Absolutely, but it isn't. It's being decimated by huge corporations with no greater aim than profit. Same thing is happening to farm agriculture. We can't keep poisoning the hell out of the ground and then propping it back up with fertilizer. Organic small scale farming has been shown to work, and work well.

FWIW a single AWARE and KNOWLEDGEABLE diver is probably one of the better ways to harvest fish. What you are competing with really is massive fish trawlers with nets miles long that take EVERYTHING in their path, and stupidly discard the by-catch.....because it's illegal. How wasteful and stupid is that?
They now have to use more technological tools, go deeper, wider, and longer than they ever have before. They are still losing ground and desirable species faster than they are replenished.

A young man I know who just graduated from Marine Biology got his first job as a surveyor on the ships in AK. His report on that experience is really disturbing. The claim is that this is a sustainable fishery. What is the government going to say, "Everybody stop for say about 20-50 years and we'll see what happens.?" That just won't happen.

There used to be salmon in abundance on the west coast. Now there are few. Same thing is happening in AK, and fast. Sustainable.....not likely unless a whole lot of people are willing to go broke and not eat fish, which also seems unlikely.

Sad, I loved to fish when I was a teen. It was mostly lake and river trout but even back in the 60's as a kid could tell that fishery was about long gone. All we could catch was skinny 8" hatchery trout most of the time. People pay thousands of dollars to go where the fishing is still pristine. You have to be freaking rich and dedicated to do that anymore.