Why the concern about big ocean fish?
I thought there were plenty. Until recently, many people thought the same thing. They thought the oceans were full of big fish. They thought those fish would always be there for catching, selling, buying and eating. They thought big schools of other big fish were out there just waiting to be caught. They thought, as it turns out, wrong. In May, a study in the scientific journal Nature reported that 90 percent of the oceans’ big fish — cod, tuna and swordfish among them — are gone, devastated over the past 50 years by industrialized fishing. New technology — fish-finding sonar, factory ships, “longlines” that stretch for 50 miles — has helped fleets haul in more and more fish. People have caught the fish a lot faster than the fish have been able to reproduce. The study also found that the big fish that are left — the surviving 10 percent — are, on average, only one-half to one-fifth as big as they were 50 years ago. The fish aren’t getting to grow as old. How can we help? Can they
