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Sep 6, 2023 · Update: This story was updated to include examples of positive and negative hatchery impacts on wild fish populations present in the 50 years of research reviewed in the study. For over 100 years, hatcheries have been producing fish in an effort to mitigate human impacts on the natural environment.
Across the world, the fisheries and aquaculture sector is a major source of employment. In 2018, an estimated 59.5 million people were engaged in the primary sector of fisheries and aquaculture (Table 12). In total, about 20.5 million people were employed in aquaculture and 39.0 million in fisheries, a slight increase from 2016.
Feb 8, 2022 · Percentage of global fish catch allocated to major hydrological/river basin 58 15. Production trends and the relative contribution to the global catch 59 16. Total and per capita apparent fish consumption by region and economic grouping, 2017 70 17. Projected fish production, 2030 166 18. Projected fish trade for human consumption 172 19.
- Overview
- Taking the ocean's temperature
- Mitigating warming impacts
- Feeding the planet
Over the past 80 years, a warming planet has disrupted critical fisheries worldwide--and many have declined precipitously.
A new study published Thursday in the journal Science outlines the impacts warming waters are having on commercially important fish species.
The world's fishing industry relies on what's called fisheries, the clusters of regional fish populations that people can catch economically. And on average, the researchers found that the numbers of fish in critical fisheries around the world have decreased by four percent since 1930.
Fisheries located in the Sea of Japan and the North Sea were the worst off. They experienced as much as a 35 percent drop in their numbers. Other fisheries, however, benefitted from warmer waters, and their populations grew, an expansion scientists warn could create unsustainable competition for resources.
To measure the effect of warming and overfishing, Free started by looking at temperature data from the past 80 years and comparing it to how productive a given fishery was during periods of higher-than-average temperatures. The team looked at 235 populations of 124 species of fish spread across 38 different regions.
Warmer waters can make some fisheries smaller by putting metabolic stress on the fish, making it harder for them to reproduce or find food. Warm waters can also cause zooplankton, essential fish food, to decline. The impacts on smaller organisms then have cascading impacts on the rest of the food chain.
In the North Sea and the Sea of Japan where they measured increased water temperature, scientists found overfishing had further made the fisheries even more vulnerable.
“It's like a one-two punch,” says study co-author Malin Pinsky, an ecologist at Rutgers. “If fishing already knocks them down, they're more likely to respond poorly when it's hot.”
Fisheries ecologist Will White from Oregon State University was not involved with Free and Pinsky's study, but he says their conclusions highlight the importance of managing fisheries.
“With a lot of fisheries off the West Coast, we have historically had pretty good fishery management, which has given us resilience,” says White.
From 2014 to 2016, the West Coast felt the deadly presence of a patch of warmer water called the “blob.” When it warmed Pacific waters, it killed off marine creatures like zooplankton that salmon feed on, jeopardizing the health of Oregon's lucrative salmon fisheries.
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“I'm not sure there's a way to manage our way out of that,” White says of acute ocean warming, but on a less dramatic, global scale, he says taking warming oceans into consideration should be an important fishery management tool.
If current population trends continue at the same rate, the world will need to double its food production by 2050. To compensate, world leaders are consistently looking toward fisheries to be a critical source of proteinfor millions of people.
In 2016, 171 million tons of fish were taken from the sea, and that number is expected to rise to 201 million over the next 10 years.
“Food security is a big concern,” says Pinsky. An estimated three billion people use fish as their primary source of protein.
“Beyond that,” Pinsky adds, “we also know that it has very important local impacts for those who make their livelihoods catching these fish.”
He thinks better management can help mitigate the impacts of warming. Establishing “no-take” zones, for instance, allow fish time to reproduce and regrow overfished populations.
Ultimately, Free says his study highlights the wide-ranging impacts of burning greenhouse gases. Unabated, he says some fisheries will likely continue their decline.
Mar 15, 2021 · In a 3.2 °C warmer world, 36% of the species have over half of their present-day geographic range exposed to climatic extremes beyond current levels (no dispersal assumption). This number reduces ...
- Valerio Barbarossa, Valerio Barbarossa, Valerio Barbarossa, Joyce Bosmans, Niko Wanders, Henry King,...
- 2021
Sep 29, 2019 · The scientists determined that the sustainable fish catch—the amount of fish that can be caught without decimating populations—could drop by as much as a quarter by the end of the century if ...
The breakdown of employment by region and the split between fisheries and fish farming is shown in the chart. More people are employed in wild catch than fish farming: a difference of 39 million to 21 million. Unsurprisingly, Asia is home to most of the world’s fishers and fish farmers.
