No salmon for you.
I often hear about big news events via LJ, but here's one big item I haven't seen anyone talk about - the West Coast salmon fisheries have been all but shut down. Have people not heard about this?
Last week the Pacific Fishery Management Council ruled that all commercial salmon fishing in California and Oregon will be cancelled for the 2008 season. In addition, the Washington fishery will have its quota slashed by 80%. A limited amount of recreational fishing will be allowed in Oregon and Washington only.
This needed to be done because breeding stocks of Chinook and Coho salmon are at an all-time low. Some say this is because of dams blocking their breeding routes, but I'm sure that overfishing also contributes to the problem.
Overfishing has already caused a complete collapse of the north Atlantic cod fishery. Cod landings off Newfoundland went from a high of 800,000 tons annually in the late 60s, to almost zero in 1992. Similarly, the Nova Scotian cod fisheries experienced a 96% decline in the volume of cod caught between the 1850s and the present day. And that's just cod. One out of four marine fish stocks have been depleted worldwide, and predatory fish (including sharks) populations have declined by up to 90% over the last century due to poor fishing practices.
If you eat fish, there is one simple thing you can do to help: make sustainable choices when eating seafood. The Monterey Bay Aquarium's Seafood Watch program provides you with a downloadable, wallet-sized card to help you make the best seafood choices. Or point your mobile phone's browser to mobile.seafoodwatch.org to access the list.
I don't want to preach, but I love the ocean and the critters within so I figure it would be wrong for me to just watch them disappear without saying anything at all.
Last week the Pacific Fishery Management Council ruled that all commercial salmon fishing in California and Oregon will be cancelled for the 2008 season. In addition, the Washington fishery will have its quota slashed by 80%. A limited amount of recreational fishing will be allowed in Oregon and Washington only.
This needed to be done because breeding stocks of Chinook and Coho salmon are at an all-time low. Some say this is because of dams blocking their breeding routes, but I'm sure that overfishing also contributes to the problem.
Overfishing has already caused a complete collapse of the north Atlantic cod fishery. Cod landings off Newfoundland went from a high of 800,000 tons annually in the late 60s, to almost zero in 1992. Similarly, the Nova Scotian cod fisheries experienced a 96% decline in the volume of cod caught between the 1850s and the present day. And that's just cod. One out of four marine fish stocks have been depleted worldwide, and predatory fish (including sharks) populations have declined by up to 90% over the last century due to poor fishing practices.
If you eat fish, there is one simple thing you can do to help: make sustainable choices when eating seafood. The Monterey Bay Aquarium's Seafood Watch program provides you with a downloadable, wallet-sized card to help you make the best seafood choices. Or point your mobile phone's browser to mobile.seafoodwatch.org to access the list.
I don't want to preach, but I love the ocean and the critters within so I figure it would be wrong for me to just watch them disappear without saying anything at all.