Recent large-scale scientific studies paint a grim picture of the world's fish stocks, our biggest source of protein, and say a complete reorganisation of ocean ecosystems could be under way, with unknown global consequences.
The studies show only 10 per cent of all large fish ﾖ both open ocean species and groundfish ﾖ are left in the sea. And according to local experts the findings have serious implications for the future of Bahamian fisheries, which currently contribute some $70 million to our economy.
"I think we are quietly killing our fisheries," said University of Miami marine biologist Dr. Kathleen Sullivan-Sealey, who is married to a Bahamian. "These reports say what most scientists have been thinking for 20 years ﾖ we are sucking the life out of the oceans."
Bahamas Reef Environment Education Foundation chairman, (BREEF) Sir Nicholas Nuttall, agreed. "If we drive the tuna and the turtles, the groupers and the crawfish to extinction, the loss will be felt until the tide washes the last human footprints from a Bahamian beach."
Ransom Myers, a fisheries biologist at Dalhousie University in Canada, who worked on one of the studies, said that, "From giant blue marlin to mighty bluefin tuna, and from tropical groupers to Antarctic cod, industrial fishing has scoured the global ocean. There is no blue frontier left."
Three important studies have contributed to these startling conclusions. First, a two-and-a-half-year survey by the University of British Columbia, released last year, showed that the entire North Atlantic fishery was collapsing.
Over the past 50 years, the catch of preferred fish like cod, tuna, haddock, flounder and hake had decreased by more than half, even though the effort put into fishing had tripled.
"Within 10 years, we'll be talking about those fish as if they were a myth," said fisheries scientist Reg Watson in Vancouver, one of those who conducted the study.
The warning was confirmed just this year by the official closing of Canada's entire North Atlantic fishery, putting tens of thousands out of work in what was once one of the world's most lucrative fisheries.
Then a 10-year study by other Canadian scientists showed that the numbers of large predatory fish in global oceans have plummeted by 90 per cent in less than half a century, due to industrial-scale fishing.
"Not just in some areas, not just for some stocks, but for entire communities of large fish species from the tropics to the poles. The impact we have had on ocean ecosystems has been vastly underestimated," said co-author Boris Worm of Dalhousie.
The figures were for tuna, swordfish, marlin and shark and large bottom fish such as cod, halibut, skate and flounder. Catches had dramatically declined since the 1950s, reflecting a similar fall in fish populations.
The researchers collected data representing all major fisheries in the world, calculating population size and composition of large predatory fish communities from four continental shelves and nine oceanic systems, from the beginning of exploitation to the present.
One cause of over-exploitation, according to National Geographic marine biologist Sylvia Earle, was the billions of dollars governments spend subsidizing their fishing industries, trying to protect jobs and a way of life of communities.
"But what is not realized is that when the fish have gone, the way of life will come to an end anyway. What's happening is not sustainable," she said.
In some fisheries, industrial techniques have taken as little as a decade to reduce fish populations to 10 per cent of what they were previously, the study warned.
Most recently, a threeﾖyear study by the U.S.-based Pew Trust Oceans Commission took the most comprehensive look in more than 30 years at America's coastal waters. It recommended drastic government action to avoid a collapse of coastal marine ecosystems from overfishing, pollution and overdevelopment.
The report recommended a network of marine reserves, passage of a national ocean policy act, creation of an independent agency to streamline management, and the formation of special councils to bring fishermen, scientists and officials together to develop management plans.
"We have depleted the ocean to the point where we have to very seriously curtail the way we affect the ocean," said Jean Michel Cousteau, son of famed marine researcher Jacques Cousteau. "In many cases, the fish caught today are under such intense fishing pressure, they never even have the chance to reproduce… we have to understand how close to extinction some of these populations really are."
According to the Pew study, the worst-hit fish species need "a minimum reduction" of 50 per cent in mortality in order to have a chance of recovery.
The authors said they hoped the findings would prompt countries to honour a declaration most signed last summer at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in South Africa, which called for restoring fish stocks by 2015.
Pointing to the historical decline in the size and quantities of fish available regionally, Dr. Sullivan-Sealey, who has worked on several marine conservation projects in the Bahamas and Caribbean, recalled a 1928 National Geographic on fishing in the Florida Keys given to her by her grandfather.
"It showed photos of men sitting on a mountain of jewfish groupers ﾖ not one under 500 pounds. This was one day of fishing in the Keys. Today, the jewfish is gone because no one thought they could be wiped out. These studies should be taken seriously.
"Everyone in the Bahamas should go and talk to the oldest person they know about the size and number of fish caught in the old days. Then take a trip to Potters Cay and take a good look at the catch. Today we have smaller fish, and are eating fish the old folks would never bother with. It takes people longer to catch the same number of fish and the fish is more expensive," she said.
She cited several reasons why big fish, especially the Nassau grouper, will disappear from the Bahamas in our lifetime: people don't accept the impact they have on fish stocks; most fishing activities are unregulated; poaching is endemic' pollution is affecting near-shore areas; and wetlands and mangroves (which act as fish nurseries) are disappearing.
"One awful vision of the future could include an impoverished island chain with few fish. Our children will fail to see the beauty of island life andmove off to Florida, and Haitian refugees will move in to finish up on the tiny fish left behind. The conclusions of these long-term studies should be very frightening to us," she said.
Former minister of agriculture and fisheries and ambassador for the environment Earl Deveaux said grouper, conch and most localised fisheries in the Bahamas are under severe pressure from overfishing. Grouper and conch populations often do not recover when numbers reach below a minimum critical level.
"The Bahamas remains one of the few countries in the region still with options to protect current and future fish stocks," he said. "By establishing a network of marine reserves, such as the Exuma Cays Land and Sea Park, we can immediately arrest the decline and improve the overall health of our marine resources.
"The numbers for grouper and lobster landed this past season should not be taken as a trend. The long-term trend is down ﾖ smaller fish, fewer fish, harder to reach, smaller aggregations and more fishermen. We cannot wait any longer to act."
By Larry Smith, The Nassau Guardian
