alt Hacker NewsThe numbers in question are quite wild[0]
> The NOAA assessment estimated the Pacific sardine biomass will be at 27,547 metric tons by the summer – significantly less than the 150,000 metric tons needed to reopen the fishery to commercial fishing. Any fishery at less than 50,000 metric tons is considered to be overfished. The assessment estimates the sardine biomass was around 1.8 million metric tons in 2006.
Haha, damn. Fishermen must have visibly noticed such a decline. 1,800,000 metric tons to 27,000 metric tons. Two orders of magnitude. Wow.
0: https://www.seafoodsource.com/news/environment-sustainabilit...
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The overfishing situation seems dire across many species. I read that Mitsubishi is deep-freezing tuna in anticipation of its extinction. I don't know if that's actually their motivation, but they are definitely involved in tuna procurement.
https://www.mitsubishicorp.com/jp/en/sustainability/social/s...
https://www.mitsubishicorp.com/jp/en/sustainability/social/s...
Portugal almost made some fisheries extinct, we had to severely curtain fishing and still sardines would show up in the markets. I think fishermen notice, but they’re also incentivised to continue fishing because the price starts going up?
We need to restart oceanic iron fertilization!
I can imagine fishermen noticing the change long before it showed up as an empty shelf at a supermarket
It's a terrible picture almost everywhere you look.
The Antarctic krill population is facing a similar decline due to influencer marketing (promoting Krill as a superior omega 3 supplement). Sardines and Krill are the foundation of the entire oceanic food ecosystems. This is not good.
That's what happened to the Atlantic cod fishery. The biologists kept warning of collapse, the relevant regulators didn't want to piss off the fishermen, and didn't institute necessary restrictions, and then the fishery collapsed.
The fishermen, of course, blamed the dab gum gubmbent for getting in their business. Anything but taking responsibility for their actions.
This is pretty horrible... looks like we'll be eating rabbits and insects in no time.
Some enterprising entrepreneur will realise there are still 27,547 metric tons left to sell, and capitalism will be saved!
And that is what remains of the Pacific sardine fishery. It used to be that sardines were plentiful all around Monterey, but during WWII fishermen used improved sensors to track down and remove all schools of sardines until they were gone. Since then attempts to reintroduce sardines to that stretch of California coast have all failed. This is a really huge loss to the whole ecosystem there.
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When a fishery crashes, it is dramatic and takes a long time to recover if ever. There's been plenty of fisheries like cod that one could not conceive being depleted but it has been now for decades.
Estimates of catches, mortality, existing stock are prone to error because we don't really know much about how fish live and their overall population. But once that crash happens it is known and too late. Cod crashed in 1992 and still hasn't recovered