From the recent development it is seen that the Chinese, Japanese and Russian governments will not support a world measure to stop overfishing sharks and the United Nations will not unanimously protect the endangered Atlantic bluefin tuna, so now it’s up to the citizens of our planet to help nature. Fish is certainly an important source of low-fat protein and vitamins; Omega-3 fatty acids are brain food, reduce heart attacks and strokes, and slow the symptoms of arthritis and osteoporosis in humans.
It is no denying fact that overfishing has changed life under the sea. Northern cod, North Sea skate, marbled rock cod of Antarctica and bluefin tuna are fished out, like the great whales before them and they are not recovering. Researchers from the University of New Hampshire informed that sharks, rays and sea horses are on the road to extinction. East Coast cod has declined 96 percent over the past 150 years.
They also said that haddock, herring, mackerel, yellowtail flounder and winter flounder also have declined as much as cod populations. Fish biologists at the University of British Columbia discovered that the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), which has reported global catches yearly since 1950, in fact began to decline at the end of the 1980s.
The reason for the enormous and grossly unsustainable numbers was due to false reporting by China. Since 1988, the real decline has been at least 635,000 tonnes a year. Essentially, the sea is becoming empty of older fish and older fish are vitally important for reproduction. For example, plaice are harvested by the time they reach age six, yet they are able to live for 40 years. Extreme fishing pressures on cod and haddock have resulted in breeding one year earlier -a rare example of human-induced evolution.
