UK Fish Stocks Now 10% Of Levels From 100 Yrs Ago - Skate,Angelfish Already Extinct, Cod Going Fast

[hatrack]

Fish stocks around Britain have been reduced to 10 per cent of what they were 100 years ago due to overfishing. Common skate and angel fish are already extinct while favourites like cod are in danger of being wiped out. The European Union has been trying to help fish stocks recover by introducing quotas for every country under the Common Fisheries Policy.

However scientists have said that unless the system is completely overhauled fish stocks will continue to deplete to the point of extinction by 2048, leaving consumers little option but to eat jellyfish or the small bony species left behind at the bottom of the ocean. New fishing quotas are to be set this week by Europe.

Callum Roberts, professor of marine conservation at the University of York, said the system is failing to work because ministers haev not heeded the advice of scientists. He said that quotas are consistently around a quarter higher than scientists advise, meaning fish stocks are unable to recover. "It's a waste of taxpayers' money to develop fisheries advice and science across Europe and then ignore it at the decision-making stage," he said.

Prof Roberts said that in the 1970s three-quarters of Europe's fish were in a healthy or slightly at risk state, but today more than half the EU's stocks were in danger. Another reason the quota system is not working is the problem of discard. An estimated one million tons of fish is dumped in the North Sea every year because it is over quota, the wrong species or too small.

EDIT

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/3776788/Jellyfish-on-the-menu-as-edible-fish-stocks-become-extinct.html

[DS1]

1. The Chinese will just sail in and ignore the quotas

Say goodbye to fish & chips :cry:

[Warpy]

2. I generally judge by price

and if it's cheap, I figure it's not overfished yet. I eat a lot of pollock.

Salmon is a rare treat and I usually cut a small piece into smaller ones and use it more as a flavoring than as a main event.

More often, though, you'll find me slaying the fatted tofu these days. Breaded with half and half grated Parmasean cheese and cornmeal and deep fried, it has a remarkably fishy taste and goes well with cocktail sauce and tartar sauce.

[JuniperLea]

3. Oh God! Not the Cod!

No wonder I'm not finding much cod at the grocer's. If the fishes die, we all die.

[GliderGuider]

4. Canadian cod has been "functionally extinct" since 1992.

Northern Cod stocks on the Canadian Grand Banks crashed over 15 years ago. Despite a virtually complete moratorium on cod fishing since then, they have not recovered.

I just made up the term "functionally extinct" to mean that while there may be individual fish left, there is no longer a significant or usable population. It carries a similar implication to the term "functionally illiterate".

[JuniperLea]

5. Good term

I'll remember where it was coined.

[hatrack]

6. Would that be the "commercially extinct" I've heard tell of . . .

Funny, but that phrase doesn't see to show up all that often anymore.

[Javaman]

7. Have you ever read the book, "Cod"? Great read. And you are right, they are

functionally extinct.

The stories from the fishermen 100+ years ago about them fishing the Cod. They wrote that the fish was so abundant back then, that the sea was thick with them. The fish were literally jumping right into their boats.