Not long ago I spoke about filmmaker Rob Stewart’s newly released documentary Revolution and how important this film was. After reading a New York Times editorial, When Humans Declared a War on Fish, I was happy to see that Boris Worm, a marine biology and conservation professor at Dalhouise University co-authored the piece. Worm is featured in both Stewart’s films, (Sharkwater and Revolution) as a consultant on oceanic biology and ecology. After reading the article, I had to ask, is there really a war on fish and are aquarists contributing to it. During World War II nations across the globe poured ample resources to create vast new weapons of war. It’s not surprising, given the pacific front, that many of these weapons were aimed at high seas warfare. The period saw massive improvements to sonar, air to sea identification and ships capable of hauling large loads and traversing lots of watery terrain. After the war all this new technology needed applied to a civilian industry. Sonar could help fishermen detect large schools of fish, bringing their vessels within a few hundred yards of animals beneath the surface. In Japan, pilots trained to spot allied submarines from the sky could help detect fish schools or whales. Thin, nearly weightless monofilament line could be fashioned into invisible nets and powerful ships with onboard freezers could house a month’s worth of catch. As Boris Worm pointed out in the New York Times, weapons of war were re-purposed for a war on fish. 
Before the end of World War II global fish harvests totaled about 15 million metric tons, today they total over 85 million metric tons. With modern satellite imagery and GPS technology, worldwide marine fisheries have a more powerful arsenal than ever. One that is too powerful in fact. Scientists predict a global fisheries collapse in the next 50 years and many species have been fished to the brink of extinction. Interestingly enough, during World War II fish populations in world oceans surged, as the war prevented a lot of fishing activity in remote areas. After the war, commercial fishing exploded, literally. So does the collection of marine organisms for our aquariums contribute to this war on fish, or perhaps better referred to as a war on marine animals. Many collectors for the marine aquarium hobby aren’t privileged enough to have access to the vast technological reservoirs used in industrialized nation’s fishing fleets.… More:
The post The war on fish appeared first on reefs.com.