Hi All
This is the worst news I have seen about our oceans in a long time, here are some quotes from the web link I am posting at the end.
Less than 1% of oceanic whitetip sharks--thought to have been the most common warm-water oceanic shark just fifty years ago--remain in the Gulf of Mexico today. "This tragedy is caused by continued overfishing and the demand for a single luxury item--sharkfin soup," says Dr. Ransom Myers a world-leading fisheries biologist based at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada.
Analysis of data from five ocean basins reveals a dramatic decline in numbers of large predatory fish (tuna, blue marlins, swordfish and others) since the advent of industrialized fishing. The world's oceans have lost over 90% of large predatory fish, with potentially severe consequences for the ecosystem. These findings provide indirect support for goals established at the UN's World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg last year. UN officials argued that three-quarters of the world's fisheries were fished to their sustainable limits or beyond, and made proposals for the restoration of depleted fisheries by 2015. Data on predatory fish are important as they are not dependent on datasets from commercial fisheries, which can be unreliable.
Shark populations in the Northwest Atlantic have declined dramatically in the last two decades. Using an extensive dataset from the pelagic longline fishery, Baum and colleages have detected declines ranging from 40% for mako sharks to over 90% for hammerhead sharks. The magnitude of these changes suggests that several species are in danger of large-scale extirpation. The authors call for new marine reserves and a reduction in fishing effort to halt these trends.
Come on we have got to do something about it, it is no good us all sitting in armchairs thinking someone else will do something, they will not, we as the diving community must help
Look at the website http://www.fmap.ca/news.php#3
This is the worst news I have seen about our oceans in a long time, here are some quotes from the web link I am posting at the end.
Less than 1% of oceanic whitetip sharks--thought to have been the most common warm-water oceanic shark just fifty years ago--remain in the Gulf of Mexico today. "This tragedy is caused by continued overfishing and the demand for a single luxury item--sharkfin soup," says Dr. Ransom Myers a world-leading fisheries biologist based at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada.
Analysis of data from five ocean basins reveals a dramatic decline in numbers of large predatory fish (tuna, blue marlins, swordfish and others) since the advent of industrialized fishing. The world's oceans have lost over 90% of large predatory fish, with potentially severe consequences for the ecosystem. These findings provide indirect support for goals established at the UN's World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg last year. UN officials argued that three-quarters of the world's fisheries were fished to their sustainable limits or beyond, and made proposals for the restoration of depleted fisheries by 2015. Data on predatory fish are important as they are not dependent on datasets from commercial fisheries, which can be unreliable.
Shark populations in the Northwest Atlantic have declined dramatically in the last two decades. Using an extensive dataset from the pelagic longline fishery, Baum and colleages have detected declines ranging from 40% for mako sharks to over 90% for hammerhead sharks. The magnitude of these changes suggests that several species are in danger of large-scale extirpation. The authors call for new marine reserves and a reduction in fishing effort to halt these trends.
Come on we have got to do something about it, it is no good us all sitting in armchairs thinking someone else will do something, they will not, we as the diving community must help
Look at the website http://www.fmap.ca/news.php#3
