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OUR SEAS ARE TURNING INTO DEAD ZONES, DO YOU CARE?

 
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thomas davison
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Joined: 03 Jun 2005
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PostPosted: Tue Jun 12, 2012 7:53 am    Post subject: OUR SEAS ARE TURNING INTO DEAD ZONES, DO YOU CARE? Reply with quote

Why are our fish shrinking? From ocean giants in the Fifties to tiddlers today, these pictures show the astonishing change in one fishing port's typical catch. The reason? We're turning our seas into 'dead zones'
By Philip Hoare
PUBLISHED: 00:43, 12 June 2012 | UPDATED: 08:08, 12 June 2012


Human life is bound to the sea. The sea feeds us, provides us with highways for our commerce, and gives us recreational pleasure. It even provides 50 per cent of the air we breathe. Without it, we would die.
But now, in the 21st century, its future is under catastrophic threat.
From its great whales to its tiny plankton, the very vitality of the sea is in serious danger. And if we don�t act now, it may be too late to do anything about it.
That�s the solemn message of probably the scariest book I�ve read in recent years. For anyone who loves the sea, Professor Callum Roberts� Ocean Of Life is a strident wake-up call; an urgent alert.
In the past 30 years alone, three-quarters of the world�s marine megafaunae � large animals such as whales, dolphins and sharks � have been lost and one-quarter of the coral reefs have died.
What a catch: Big game goliath grouper fish landed off Key West, Florida, by recreational fishermen in the 1950s
And in places like Northern Europe, there has been an astounding 99 per cent reduction in stocks of common fish such as skate. So serious is the decline that a new assessment by the European Commission warned yesterday that species such as cod, hake and mackerel will all but disappear in a decade.
For me, this is a personal tragedy. Ever since I was first aware of it, as a young boy growing up on the South coast, I�ve felt drawn to the sea. I even swim in it every day � summer and winter.
Many of us share this affinity, especially in the British Isles where most of us live within an hour or so�s drive of the coast. Yet what we do to the sea, and its creatures, shows how desperately ignorant we are of its fate.
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Professor Roberts, consultant to the BBC�s Blue Planet series and one of Britain�s most respected marine biologists, doesn�t mince his words.
'The oceans have changed more in the past 30 years than in all of human history before,' he says. His is a truly apocalyptic vision: a future just 40 or 50 years from now in which the oceans are full of 'dead zones' where nothing lives, and of other areas where the sea is full of slime and only jellyfish flourish.
1980s: Three decades later at the same spot the fish caught are a fraction of the size
As graphic evidence of this calamity, Professor Roberts shows pictures of fish landed in Key West, Florida, in the 1950s, where bare-chested big game fishermen pose with their enormous catch � fish with names like Goliath Groupers that dwarf the people on the quayside.
In the 1980s, at the same spot, the fish caught are a fraction their size, while today�s recreational fishermen at the same quay show off their catch of tiddlers.
Meanwhile, the latest research shows that today�s fishing fleets are landing just six per cent of the catch that they were taking 120 years ago.
Once, the seas off the fittingly-named Cape Cod and Newfoundland were so full you had only to lower a net for it to be filled. It was said you could walk on water because there were so many cod in the sea.
But then came electronic fish-finders and ever-bigger nets. By the end of the 20th century, the cod was almost extinct in those same waters, with fish such as the bluefin tuna about to follow. One quarter of fish species off the U.S. coast are below sustainable levels.
Now: Today the catches at the same spot are scanty and mere tiddlers by comparison to those caught in the 1950s at the same spot
Yet still we go on plundering fish as if the sea was inexhaustible. Indiscriminate trawling wrecks the sea bed. Nets miles-long catch sharks, seals and dolphins, leaving them to die an agonising death.
As Professor Roberts points out, the fishing fleets in the Gulf of Mexico kill more marine life in a single day than the oil spill of Deepwater Horizon did in many months.
It is a silent, invisible disaster. Sir David Attenborough warned this weekend that time is running out to save our seas. He called for the immediate designation of 127 conservation zones to protect 23,000 square miles of British offshore waters.
But even if it escapes the all-consuming sweep of the nets, there are plenty of other threats to oceanic life. Young seals playing with discarded plastic rings put their heads through them. As the seals grow, the �noose� slowly tightens around their necks. Not a nice way to die.
A �rubbish island� of plastic the size of Wales has formed in the Pacific Ocean, gathered there by prevailing winds and currents.
Albatross parents � already among the world�s most endangered birds because they become inadvertently hooked on long trawler lines � actively forage in this trash heap.
Pathetically, they then fly back to the nest to feed what they think are tasty morsels to their chicks, but which are in fact used cigarette lighters, bottle-caps, and the dreaded and ubiquitous plastic bags.
Off Cape Cod, where I�ve been watching humpback whales for 12 years now, I�ve been shocked at the way our actions impact on their lives. An astonishing 55 per cent of whales in Cape Cod Bay � the summer feeding grounds of these magnificent animals � are scarred from ship-strikes or entanglement in fishing gear.

I�ve seen the same effects in Sri Lanka, where even blue whales, the biggest animals on Earth, fall victim to container ships. This is roadkill on a massive scale.
Last year, off Cape Cod, I watched as a humpback raised its flukes (tail fin) to dive, and was appalled to see the entire right-hand side of its tail had been ripped off. The wound had a telltale zigzag edge � a sure sign of a bloody encounter with a ship�s propeller.
I�ve seen a whale trailing behind a commercial boat, trussed up by the nylon fishing line from its head to its tail. On that occasion, we were able to alert the whale rescue team of the Provincetown Centre for Coastal Studies. Using buoys to slow the whale down, they were able to cut it free using long-handled knives.
Peril: Ship-strikes and entanglement in fishing gear present a serious danger to sea creatures - including the blue whales, the biggest animals on Earth who fall victim to container ships
But imagine how many more such incidents go undetected. Hapless leviathans die out at sea, sinking to the bottom, leaving us none the wiser as to the results of our actions.
Even in play we affect the sea. Professor Roberts fixes on a particular bugbear of mine: jet skis.
The fact that anyone can ride one of these so-called �wet bikes� out into a pristine environment without any training or a licence astounds me. We�d never allow such behaviour on land. Why do we let it happen at sea?
As ever, Professor Roberts comes up with the killer fact here: one-quarter of the fuel-oil mix used by these noisy machines is spat back out into the water. They need urgent control.
And while I might moan about a peaceful afternoon being ruined, imagine what their noise does to animals such as whales and dolphins, which rely utterly on their sense of sound to socialise and feed.
The oceans are 100 times more noisy than they were in the 1950s, when marine explorer Jacques Cousteau wrote his book The Silent World about the hidden underwater world � a title that now sounds horribly ironic. Recordings of whale sounds show they literally have to shout to make themselves heard nowadays.
The physical nature of the sea itself is changing � and not for the better. Vast quantities of carbon dioxide produced since the Industrial Revolution have been absorbed by the oceans. Professor Roberts says the seas are turning acid with carbon dioxide, and that seashells are being damaged.
Meanwhile, warming seas lead to another destructive cycle. The hotter it gets, the less oxygen there is in the water, forcing fish and other species further towards the cooler Poles.
In February, I was taking a dip off the Isle of Wight when a day-boat came in with its catch. The owner told me how the water was two degrees warmer than it should be at that time of year, and he was catching species which shouldn�t have been there. Good news for lunatics like me who swim in the sea all-year round: but bad news for fish.
For new arrivals edge out the species already there, and resources are quickly depleted. Over the past 40 years, British scientists have charted the inexorable effects that the northwards migration of sand-eels � tiny, slithery bait fish � have on seabirds such as puffins and shearwaters which feed on them.
These fish, which I�ve seen gathered in shoals bigger than a football pitch, are going further north in search of their food � the zooplankton on which they feed. They take the birds with them to unsuitable territories, far from the nesting sites to which they had remained loyal for thousands of years.
The sea seems so powerful, so big, that it is almost inconceivable to imagine our actions can have any effect on it. The oceans cover 360 million square kilometres, with a volume of 1.33 billion cubic kilometres. If you flooded New York�s Central Park with water to the height of a 30-storey building, that would be about half a cubic kilometre.
The vast sea is more vulnerable than we think, though. Concentrated in what Moby Dick�s author Herman Melville called �the ocean�s skin� � the millimetre-thin microlayer that lies over the surface like a membrane � are billons of floating eggs, particles and plants.
This is a crucial zone for oceanic life. Scientists believe it might one day feed us with its algae as we try to sustain our ever-expanding population.
But it is also filled with the poisons we pump into the ocean, which rise to the surface and, in high winds, atomise in aerosol form to contaminate nearby land dwellers. It is truly ironic: the health-giving sea is throwing back our poison in our faces.
Only a fool would deny that we have set the balance of nature awry. So, what can we do?
Coast: Devon fishmongers are among those increasingly supplying clams, crayfish and sea bass that are responsibly sourced
We can start by eating only sustainably caught fish. Last week, I celebrated my birthday with a supper supplied by a fantastic Devon fishmonger: clams from Start Bay, crayfish from Newlyn, sea bass from the Channel � all responsibly sourced.
We can recycle and reuse our plastic bags if we need to use them at all. We can cut back on the use of phosphates via the detergents that contaminate our waterways.
But our individual efforts need to be backed up by national and international governments worldwide. Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall�s brilliant campaign against wasteful EU quotas, in which thousands of tons of fish are simply discarded each week, is a case in point.
Professor Roberts ends his book on a positive note by proposing solutions. Pre-eminent among them is the creation of Marine Protection Areas (MPAs) � no-take zones which allow fish populations to recover.
MPAs such as those in Lyme Bay off Devon and Lundy Island in the Bristol Channel have proved how effective they are.
But the professor bemoans the fact that a small nation such as Iceland can singlehandedly veto a worldwide ban on deepwater trawling � as it did at a UN General Assembly in 2006.
We cannot allow such rogue actions to determine our future.
Perhaps the salvation of the seas is within our grasp � but only if we wake up to what�s going on.
Future: The author hopes that the bottle-nosed dolphin's beauty and power will inspire us to preserve the sea for future generations as the alternative is unthinkable
As I write this, I�m watching bottle-nose dolphins in Spey Bay on the eastern Scottish coast, as a guest of the local Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society. This has got to be one of the great wildlife sights in Britain.
Pods of these highly intelligent animals surf across the bay, occasionally performing acrobatic backflips. Seals feed, and ospreys soar overhead. You�d be a hard-hearted person if your soul didn�t sing at such a sight.
It is this sheer beauty and power that must inspire us to preserve the sea for future generations. The alternative is unthinkable.
* Philip Hoare is artist-in-residence at the Marine Institute, Plymouth University. Callum Roberts� Ocean Of Life is published by Allen Lane, �20.

In return for our massive membership fee to the EU, we had to give the EU, THINK SPAIN, our fishing grounds - and they are milking them dry, like they have with everything British they have taken since we joined. I repeat - how has the UK benefited from its membership of this extremely expensive (for us anyway) club?

Just read this and it is scary. I will now go and read another article and forget about it. Why? Because we are powerless to do anything. No one is going to cap the amount of children we have. The human population is out of control, yet I keep reading about families with 4, 5, 15 children which is totally unecessary.
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2Anne



Joined: 04 May 2008
Posts: 399
Location: Norfolk

PostPosted: Tue Jun 12, 2012 10:37 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

The terrible cull of wildlife in the seas is related to one thing only.
Over demand. ie huge population hikes who wish to eat fish.
Unless the world controls its breeding things can only get worse and the oceans will become fished out like the Mediterranean.
Most of the Western world has reduced its breeding but the third world countries in Africa and Asia continue apace. What is worse they migrate to the West and continue their breeding there where they are funded by welfare.
Its so sad that this is happening. Soon there will be no wild animals either as they are eaten and lose their habitat due to population pressures.
When nature steps in and causes starving to these primitive peoples to cull their numbers the West provides food etc so the problem grows and grows.
Poor mother earth!!!
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