Popular seafood species see sharp decline across the world: Study

Popular seafood including orange roughy, common octopus and pink conch are among those species of fish and invertebrates that are in rapid decline across the globe. The latest one-of-a-kind research done by an international research initiative and a member of the Global Fisheries Cluster at the University of British Columbia showed a decrease in biomass, which is the weight of a given population in the water, after assessing more than 1,300 populations of sea animals along with the researchers at the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel and the University of Western Australia. The researchers have recorded “global declines, some sever” of many species that are most favourite kinds of seafood.

The lead author of the study and manager of the international research initiative Sea Around US, Maria ‘Deng’ Palomares said that the study is “first-ever” on a global scale that studies the elongated trends in the population biomass of the marine fish and invertebrates that are exploited for human consumption. When the researchers looked at such species and their population over the span of the last 60 years, they found ‘low biomass level’. 

Maria ‘Deng’ Palomares said, “This is the first-ever global study of long-term trends in the population biomass of exploited marine fish and invertebrates for all coastal areas on the planet.”

“When we looked at how the populations of major species have been doing in the past 60 years, we discovered that, at present, most of their biomasses are well below the level that can produce optimal catches,” she added. 

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‘Very bad’ category

As per the study published on Sea Around Us’ official website, of all the populations that were analysed by researchers, at least 82 per cent of them are below the level that can, in turn, produce maximum sustainable yields because the rate at which they have been taken out from the sea is more than what is regrown. The study even said that this finding also implies, “that fishers are catching less and less fish and invertebrates over time, even if they fish longer and harder.” Palomares said that some of these populations are currently in ‘very bad’ category.

“In fact, more than 8 per cent of these populations or about 87 populations are currently in the ‘very bad’ category, with biomass levels less than 20 per cent of the level that might maximize sustainable fisheries catches,” Palomares said.

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