New Scientist - Squid 'N Chips, Jellyfish Sushi - Preparing For Future Fisheries

[hatrack]

t's a Friday night in 2050. It's been a long week at work and even if you could be bothered to cook, there's nothing in the fridge. So what fast food will you pick up on your way home? How about some squid and chips? Perhaps an algae burger? And don't forget the crunchy fried jellyfish rings on the side. One thing's for sure: unless something changes soon, familiar favourites such as cod, haddock, hake and plaice will be off the menu. In fact, if we're not careful, an assortment of exotic alternatives will be all the ocean has left to offer us.

This may seem an extreme vision of the future, but marine biologists are alarmed by the imbalances that are appearing in marine ecosystems. The ocean is changing fast - too fast, it seems, for us to reliably predict the combined effects of overfishing, pollution and climate change. What is clear is that the changes, by and large, are not good news for our bellies. "We are entering a time of great uncertainty," says Boris Worm, of Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, and the Census of Marine Life project. "If we continue as we have been, in 50 years there may not be much left to take from the ocean."

Worm and an international team of ecologists have taken a comprehensive look at the state of the world's fisheries. Their results, published in the journal Science in 2006 (vol 314, p 787), make grim reading. In short, catches of wild fish are plummeting and the researchers predict that without steps to protect biodiversity, all current commercial fish and seafood species will collapse by 2050 (see graph).

If we do empty the oceans of fish, it will leave a gaping hole in our diet. Fish provide around 20 per cent of our intake of animal proteins, according to a 2007 estimate of the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). That means each of us wolfs down an average of 16.4 kilograms of fish per year. National figures vary widely, from virtually none in some landlocked nations like Afghanistan, to about 20 kilograms per person per year in the UK and US and a whopping 180 kilograms in the Maldives.

EDIT

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126981.900-jellyfish-sushi-seafoods-slimy-future.html

[MADem]

1. Squid is friken DELICIOUS. Of course, people like it better when it is called calamari.

Those scientists maybe had better work on cloning....

[rox63]

2. Sorry, I don't do tentacles...

Blech!

[MADem]

3. All the more for those of us who do! Octopus (tako) is delicious, too

and even more so fresh out of the sea, raw, with a little wasabe.

Ya feel kinda bad, because they're so smart...but ya get over it.

[MineralMan]

4. Squid 'n' Chips? I'll take a large order.

There's a restaurant in Morro Bay, CA that makes the dish, using small squid, complete with tentacles. Excellent stuff! Them as don't eat it is jus' plain dumb!

[phantom power]

5. It was a *joke* dammit.

:banghead:

[Nihil]

9. And we sometimes wonder ...

... why we are so much shit today?
:argh:

[tom_paine]

6. "The ocean's dying. The plankton's dying."

"Soylent Green is made out of people."

Welcome to the beginning of the future, my friends and fellow American Subjects.

[Javaman]

7. Sponge Bob, a poriferan way ahead of his time. nt

[eppur_se_muova]

8. Don't forget blue-green algae!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirulina_(dietary_supplement)