Popular seafood species in sharp decline around the world

Popular seafood species in sharp decline around the world

Popular seafood species in sharp decline around the world

Octopus at a fish market in Indonesia. Photo by Deng Palomares.

Fish market favourites such as orange roughy, common octopus and pink conch are among the species of fish and invertebrates in rapid decline around the world, according to new research.

In the first study of its kind, researchers from the Sea Around Us initiative at UBC, the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel and the University of Western Australia assessed the biomass —the weight of a given population in the water— of more than 1,300 fish and invertebrate populations. They discovered global declines, some severe, of many popularly consumed species.

Continue reading

Kicking off the FishBase and SeaLifeBase anniversary celebrations

Kicking off the FishBase and SeaLifeBase anniversary celebrations

The year 2020 marks the 30th anniversary of FishBase and 15th anniversary of SeaLifeBase, two online global biodiversity information systems that, together, provide biological and ecological information on more than 110,000 marine species.

To celebrate these milestones in the times of physical distancing, we are launching a year-long digital campaign that leads up to September 2020, when we celebrate these anniversaries, and to September 2021, when we hope to get together in person at a symposium to be held during the Annual FishBase Consortium Meeting.

Continue reading