Thursday, May 15, 2003
Over Fishing serverly reducing fish stocks worldwide.
"Industrial whaling, for example, reduced many large whales by a factor of 10 or more in a relative short time frame, the North American bison was reduced from 30 million to less than 1,000 in a few decades, the passenger pigeon, from many billions to zero during the same time," Worm said. "I think we need to understand just how good we are at killing large numbers of animals."
Not only are the numbers of fish disappearing but the physical size of many fish is shrinking as barely any make it to a ripe old age. The average size of a sword fish is half the size of what they were before overfishing.
"Industrial whaling, for example, reduced many large whales by a factor of 10 or more in a relative short time frame, the North American bison was reduced from 30 million to less than 1,000 in a few decades, the passenger pigeon, from many billions to zero during the same time," Worm said. "I think we need to understand just how good we are at killing large numbers of animals."
Not only are the numbers of fish disappearing but the physical size of many fish is shrinking as barely any make it to a ripe old age. The average size of a sword fish is half the size of what they were before overfishing.
