Tag: overfishing

Jellyfish fisheries research awarded by the Vancouver Aquarium

Tuesday, February 21, 2017 was a great day for the Sea Around Us’ postdoctoral fellow Lucas Brotz.

During the celebration of the 22nd Annual Coastal Ocean Awards, the Vancouver Aquarium presented Lucas with the Michael A. Bigg Award for student research “for his exceptional contributions to the understanding of jellyfish in waters around the world.” Specifically, judges were impressed with his global catch reconstruction of jellyfish as food for humans.

For Lucas, this honour closes with a flourish a decade’s worth of work under Daniel Pauly’s guidance and, at the same time, opens up new opportunities to continue exploring the almost uncharted world of jellyfish.

LISTEN to Lucas explaining the “shocking findings” regarding the amounts of jellyfish people eat worldwide.

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IOF Seminar Series: Global Atlas of Marine Fisheries

On February 17, 2016 the Sea Around Us‘ Daniel Pauly and Dirk Zeller will be sharing their views on the importance of the Global Atlas of Marine Fisheries, the first book to provide accurate, country-by-country fishery data.

Their presentation is part of the IOF Seminar Series held every Friday at the Aquatic Ecosystems Research Laboratory 120, located at the University of British Columbia 2202 Main Mall, Vancouver. Continue reading →

Why did FAO choose to ignore the existence and trends of the reconstructed catch data?

Marine Policy recently published “Comments on FAOs State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture (SOFIA 2016),” authored by the Sea Around Us leaders Drs. Daniel Pauly and Dirk Zeller.

Both scientists expressed their concern over the implications for resource management and global food security of ignoring information aimed at filling the gaps that exist in the data reported by countries to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

They divide their observations into a few main points:

Can Brexit save the UK’s seas?

Photo by Chris Allen for Geograph, licenced under CC.

Photo by Chris Allen for Geograph, licensed under CC.

The British press was all over them.

The day after they received the Ocean Award in the Science category, the Sea Around Us leaders, Daniel Pauly and Dirk Zeller, were bombarded with questions regarding their findings on declining fish stocks and their catch reconstruction research method.

Talking to the BBC, Pauly explained that the decline is due to overfishing. He also said that, in most countries, real catch numbers are 50 per cent higher than what is actually reported by official bodies, while in Europe the figure shrinks to about 30 per cent. “What is not counted (in Europe) is the fish that is discarded -and quite a big amount of fish is being discarded-, and about 10 per cent that is caught illegally and is not counted,” he said.

The next question was expected: Can the UK design and implement better fishery policies once it leaves the European Union?

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