Food for the Masses | In the Magazine/Past Issues/April 2007 April 2007 Global Fisheries Crisis Photos

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Fish such as Atlantic bumpers are a crucial food source i...

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Fish such as Atlantic bumpers are a crucial food source in Senegal and elsewhere in Africa, where 200 million people depend largely on seafood for their animal protein. Worldwide, fish sustain one billion people, many of them poor. As pressure on stocks increases, the challenge for developing countries whose share of fish production is projected to increase to 81 percent by 2015 is to balance the need for revenue with the need for food.

Randy Olson/National Geographic Image Collection

Food for the Masses

Fish such as Atlantic bumpers are a crucial food source in Senegal and elsewhere in Africa, where 200 million people depend largely on seafood for their animal protein. Worldwide, fish sustain one billion people, many of them poor. As pressure on stocks increases, the challenge for developing countries whose share of fish production is projected to increase to 81 percent by 2015 is to balance the need for revenue with the need for food.

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To supply the world's sushi and sashimi markets, the magnificent giant bluefin tuna is fished in the Mediterranean at four times the sustainable rate. These bluefin are being fattened off Spain at one of 69 ranches that have sprung up in the Mediterranean in the past decade, demolishing stocks of the fish.

Novel aquaculture methods include deepwater cages supported by pillars operated by Snapperfarm, Inc., off Puerto Rico to grow cobia. With this open-ocean system, currents disperse excrement from the fish, but with farms in coastal shallows, waste builds up, polluting the waters. Aquaculture companies usually feed carnivorous fish smaller fish of other species, but Snapperfarm raises its cobia from fingerlings to 12-pound (5 kilograms) adults in a year on a diet of half grain, half fish meal and hopes eventually to eliminate fish from the feed. Aquaculture now contributes nearly 50 percent of the world's seafood, filling the void left by declining stocks in the wild.

Now banned in many countries, deep trawling with nets held open by heavy doors bulldozes the seabed and catches sea life indiscriminately, more than 50 percent of all discarded.

In a cascade of death, guitarfish, rays, and other bycatch are tossed from a shrimp boat in the Gulf of California. During the past decade, efforts to reduce bycatch have begun to pay off with better net and hook designs, pingers on nets to repel marine mammals, and streamers behind boats to frighten away seabirds.

Thoroughbreds of the seas, wild-caught yellowfin tuna one of seven major tuna species are cage-fed squid and sardines in the Gulf of California to improve the quality of their meat. Terry Morris, who runs the operation, says he thought yellowfin would be relatively easy to find. Boy, was I wrong.

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