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Cod Caught in a Net, Gulf of Maine
Photograph by Bill Curtsinger
Cod and other commercial ground fish are caught in a net in the Gulf of Maine. Our appetite for fish is wreaking havoc on aquatic populations worldwide. The conservation group World Wildlife Fund predicts that if cod fisheries continue to be fished at current rates, there will be no cod left by 2022. "Seventy-five percent of fisheries are overfished," says marine biologist Enric Sala. "If nothing changes, all fisheries will have collapsed by 2050." The solution, says Sala—a National Geographic Society fellow—is involving all levels of society, from consumers to policy makers. "The solutions exist, we just need the political will to implement them at [a] large scale," he adds.
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Tuna Net, Southern Ocean
Photograph by Paul Sutherland
A purse seiner net is used to haul tuna to coastal feeding pens in what is sometimes called the Southern, or Antarctic, Ocean. Giant bluefin tuna, treasured for sushi, can grow to 12 feet (3.7 meters) in length, weigh 1,500 pounds (680 kilograms), and live for 30 years. They once migrated by the millions throughout the Atlantic Basin and the Mediterranean Sea, but are now experiencing significant declines. By the mid-1990s, stocks of southern bluefin tuna had been fished to between 6 and 12 percent of their original numbers in the South Pacific and Indian Oceans.
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Bluefin Tuna, Mediterranean
Photograph by Brian Skerry
Fishermen haul in a bluefin tuna caught in the old Mattanza method. The giant bluefin used to surge through the Straits of Gibraltar each spring, fanning out across the Mediterranean to spawn. Over millennia, fishermen devised a method of extending nets from shore to intercept the fish and funnel them into chambers, where they were slaughtered. Today, all but a dozen or so of the trap fisheries have closed, primarily due to lack of fish, but also because of coastal development and pollution.
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Tuna Sushi
Photograph by Justin Guariglia
Atlantic bluefin tuna caught in the Mediterranean and then fattened in offshore cages can often fetch up to $50,000 each in Japanese markets. The fish are prized for their buttery belly meat, considered some of the best sushi in the world.
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Hammerhead Shark, Mexico
Photograph by Brian Skerry
A hammerhead shark is fatally caught in a gill net in Mexico's Gulf of California. Nearly 40 million sharks are killed annually for their fins, which are considered a delicacy in Asia and prepared primarily in soups.
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Atlantic Codfish, Iceland
Photograph by Randy Olson
Once the base for the classic British meal of fish and chips, the Atlantic cod is found in the colder, northern part of the Atlantic Ocean. Commercial fisheries there operate year round, primarily harvesting with trawlers and gill nets. Cod can live up to 20 years and weigh more than 70 pounds (32 kilograms).
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Shark Fins, Mexico
Photograph by Brian Skerry
Fins of thresher sharks are cut off and collected on the shores of San Marcos Island, Mexico. Shark fin is used, primarily in Asia, to make shark fin soup—a delicacy widely consumed in China since at least the start of the Sung dynasty in A.D. 960. As incomes increase in Asia, the demand for shark fin grows.
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Megafish, Cambodia
Photograph by Andy Eames/AP
Fishermen pose with a giant carp caught in the Tonle Sap River in Cambodia. The fish was reeled in, then released, as part of the National Geographic Society's Megafishes Project—a three-year effort by National Geographic grantee Zeb Hogan to document the largest species of freshwater fish. All of Hogan's megafishes are at least 6.5 feet (2 meters) in length or 220 pounds (100 kilograms). Many of the species he studies are threatened or endangered due to overfishing, development, and pollution.
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Bycatch, Gulf of California
Photograph by Brian Skerry
Dead guitarfish, rays, and other species are tossed from a shrimp boat in the Gulf of California, Mexico. Tons of fish are thrown back to sea every year. International attention to wasteful fishing methods have resulted in relatively new net and hook designs, which prevent some bycatch. "Overfishing has been historically [the] oldest and [most] major threat to ocean life today," says National Geographic fellow Enric Sala. "And because of the mismanagement [and inefficiencies] of fisheries, the fishing industry loses $50 billion a year," according to a 2008 World Bank report, adds Sala.
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Fish Market, Tasmania
Photograph by Ian Waldie/Getty Images
Marine farming has rapidly expanded in Tasmania since the 1990s, with Atlantic salmon and rainbow trout being the most popular stocks. Strict quarantine controls on the importation of salmonid products help to protect the fish farming industry from serious diseases.
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Carp Farm, Poland
Photograph by Katarzyna Mala/AP
Fishermen catch tons of live carp at a fish farm near Warsaw, Poland. Farming fish remains a controversial practice, as diseases and parasites that plague fish raised in confined pens can often infect nearby wild stocks. However, in a world with limited fish supplies, farms also help to reduce pressures on natural populations.
Ocean Topics
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Acidification
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Ballard, Robert
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Bowermaster, Jon
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Cook-Wise
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De Rothschild, David
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Doubilet, David
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Earle, Sylvia
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Frozen Seafood Benefits
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Goodman, Beverly
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Habitat Destruction
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Invasive Species
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Kristof, Emory
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Marine Food Chain
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Marine Pollution
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Nicklen, Paul
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Norman, Brad
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Ocean Overview
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Overfishing
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Plastiki
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Pristine Seas Expeditions
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Sala, Enric
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Seafood Decision Guide
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Seafood Substitutions
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Sea Level Rise
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Sea Temperature Rise
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Seaver, Barton
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Sustainable Seafood
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Thys, Tierney
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Tips to Save the Ocean
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