#overfishing

Sawfish were once very common in their range, but are now amongst the most threatened marine fish.  Although they are technically rays, not sharks, sawfish fins are prized for sharkfin soup, and sawfish parts are often used in Chinese, African, South American, Mexican, and Indian traditional medicine.  They are also popular game fish, and their saws and teeth command high prices as souvenirs and trophies.  Because of this frequent overfishing and rising pollution rates, most species of sawfish are now critically endangered.

While the vaquita is not deliberately hunted by humans, its downfall has been the extensive fishing of the totoaba, a fish whose swim bladder is a delicacy in China.  Gill nets used to catch totoaba have quite literally massacred the vaquita - over 80% of their population disappeared between 2008 and 2015.

Government efforts to preserve the species were perfunctory - “vaquita-safe” nets proved nowhere near as effective as the old gill nets, fishermen rioted when a related fishery was shut down for fear of it being used as a cover for tatoaba poaching (ironic, as that fishery used safer nets), and compensatory monthly checks to men losing their livelihood were meager, sometimes less than a man could make in a single day’s fishing.  The export of tataobas was banned and a marine reserve established, but poaching and smuggling is rampant, and there is little incentive to stop it.  A single tatoaba bladder can bring in $20 000, while the fine for being caught poaching is about $500.  Even now, the controversial Sea Shepherd is one of the few ships patrolling for poachers, and they can do little but film and report them.  In the meantime, dead vaquita continue to be pulled from the waters.

The latest estimates say there may be only 12 vaquita left in the world.  If the vaquita goes extinct, it will be the first extinction of a marine mammal since the loss of the baijiin 2006.

Is action on climate change the only sure way to preserve the world’s coral reefs?

The majority of coral reefs around the world are not only threatened by global warming. Agriculture effluents such as pesticides, overfishing, untreated sewage, and siltation due to deforestation all contribute to the serious degradation of coral reefs such as the Great Barrier Reef of Australia.

The latest Food for Thought articlefromICES Journal of Marine Science explores building up resilience and adaption of social-ecological systems of coral reefs, by drastically reducing local stressors.

Imagine if whales roamed the land — if when we walked through our neighborhood forest, we saw them — majestic 40 foot long beings swimming among the trees, ruffling the leaves.

The short yet powerful video below by Gentleman Scholar brings this dream to life. Created for Whale and Dolphin Conservation(WDC), the video quietly conveys a message to us all – that if whales and other marine animals called land their home, then maybe they’d receive the attention and protection they deserve.

But because marine animals remain mostly unseen like the atrocities that affect them, such as pollution, overfishing, overhunting, and climate change, their widespread protection is nearly nonexistent.

Text vie One Green Planet