Fishing For Solutions

The current issue of National Geographic has a special focus on the disturbing state of marine fisheries. Yes, yes... I know, there's a lot of grim news and prognoses coming from this environment I love so much. There certainly is no dearth of ocean threats, and part of the problem is that unlike terrestrial ecosystem destruction, ocean ecosystems are hidden. It all seems benign and problem-free from the surface. And it's hard to drive policy towards change when the public can't sense the dire need to turn up the heat on policy makers.

But what if you could visualize the situation by analogy? I can't recall who originally proposed this thought experiment, but imagine stringing a vast net on metallic wheels between two Land Rovers and sweeping across the African grassy plains in search of gazelle. The vehicles pursue herds of gazelle, sweeping hundreds into the rolling net. But in addition to gazelle, the nets indiscriminately catch and kill everything else in its path. Lions, giraffes, cheetahs, and African wild dogs fall victim to the nets. Rhinos, elephants, baboons, zebra, wildebeest, ground birds, geckos, lizards, snakes, and insects... anything in the path of the nets gets swept up.

In addition to collecting the gazelle and other life unlucky enough to get in the way, the net's metallic wheels crush and scrape away small trees, shrubs, and grass cover from the lush African plain leaving behind a torn and scarred landscape. After gathering the net, workers separate gazelle from the rest of the catch and haul them away to markets. The massive volume of non-target catch–elephants, zebra, lions, lizards and more–are discarded on massive mounds to rot under the African sun.

Hyperbole? Think again. I just described a terrestrial equivalent for bottom trawl fishing. Bottom trawls have steel doors designed to drag along the seafloor, keeping the mouth of the net open. The doors are connected to the fishing vessel by long bridles. The spread between trawl doors can range from 330–650 feet. A foot-rope forms the base of the net opening and it is often fixed with rolling disks of metal or rubber that enable the gear to roll or bounce over the seafloor. An average groundfish bottom trawl vessel can catch approximately 15 tons of fish in a single haul.

But trawling gear doesn't just capture the target fish species. Millions of baby fish and fish with no commercial value are also being accidentally caught ... and then discarded, usually dead, back into the ocean - along with dolphins, marine turtles, seabirds, sharks, corals, starfish, and many other marine species. This incidental capture of so-called "non-target species" is called bycatch. Bycatch is a major fisheries management problem and causing dramatic declines in populations of many marine animals.

The rolling wheels at the base of the net damage or destroy bottom habitat features such as deep-sea coral gardens, sponges, rocky ledges and pinnacles. These features comprise the living seafloor and provide critical refuge for juvenile fish and crab. Fish, especially juveniles, find shelter from deep-sea currents and predators in complex habitats. Bottom trawls are known to damage and destroy these habitats, removing refuges and food, and threatening fish populations and other marine life.

Contrast this devastating commercial fishing practice with that of the traditional fishers living in Newfoundland. That is, until the traditional fishers and their communities disappear. The National Geographic issue includes a stark report on the human casualties of unsustainable fishing. Fishing families in Newfoundland villages who have used hand lines to gather their bountiful catch for generations now struggle to survive the collapse of the cod populations that once sustained their communities. It's a story playing out in traditional US fishing families and communities throughout New England, the Mid-Atlantic, Gulf of Mexico, Pacific Northwest, and California coasts as well.

In the early '90's, I was fortunate enough to visit Newfoundland and travel north along the Gulf of St. Lawrence coast on a trek up to Gros Morne National Park and beyond. I recall seeing more moose than people on the entire journey. But I also recall, even then, the shuttered and deserted homes in the small, picturesque fishing village of Rocky Harbor and further north in Fleur de Lys. The death of offshore fish stocks as a result of exploitive and destructive fishing also means the death of a way of life that has an entirely different and as yet unclear impact on human history and cultural conservation. You would think that since this impact is visible, it might have been a call to action. You would think, huh?

Yet despite the bleak outlook, I have hope. Hope in the collective brain power and ingenuity of Daniel Pauly, Rod Fujita, and others looking for solutions. Hope in the outreach and awareness efforts by Mark Powell over at blogfish and the folks at Shifting Baselines. And honestly, given the alternative, hope seems the only viable option.