What am I doing? Why? And a mini rant on fish (For Cass)

I am doing a thesis-like research project as a stipulation of a scholarship I receive. I will complete it in the Spring of 2010, when I am about to graduate. The goal of the program is to make me competitive for graduate school.

My research is motivated by my belief that the toll of commercial fishing, if it continues on its current path, will in our lifetimes, essentially render the ocean a fish-less bacteria filled wasteland of jellyfish. I want to try and help stop this from happening! I love the ocean and I love fish and I want to know that I contributed all that I could to solving this issue.

Currently, many estimates show 90% of the world's fish stocks to be depleted- and these don't come back over night. Some higher level species like tuna can live up to thirty years and because these fish are caught in such high numbers, the stocks are never given time to be replenished. I am sure everyone can imagine when any one thing is removed from an ecosystem it can have severe consequences. Now imagine removing thousands of species... bad news for everything on the planet.

It is almost impossible to regulate commercial fishing. Asian countries have a great appetite for fish and their fishing industry has shown little consideration for the future. How do you regulate what goes on in the vast expanse of international waters?

To me it would seem that killing the market for illegal fish and more strict regulations of species that are listed as being depleted would be a start, but who gets to make the rules and how would you enforce them? Large bluefin tuna are increasingly rare and can fetch up to $40,000 a fish in Asian markets. Not to say Asia is the only place at fault, as a planet we are decimating fish populations everywhere.

At the end of her book, Sea Change, an idol of mine, Sylvia Earle, compared commercial fishing with the fable about the goose that laid a golden egg every day. The farmer who owned the goose got greedy and decided to cut open the goose to get all its treasure at once and thus ended up with nothing but a useless dead goose and blood on his hands.

I work in a fisheries lab at TAMU-CC where we mostly study populations of fish that live in areas near the coast; such as redfish or flounder. These are important for local fishermen and tourism.

My specific project is assessing whether oyster reefs should qualify as protected habitat under the Magnuson-Stevens Act (1996) which protects essential fish habitat or "those waters and substrate necessary to fish for spawning, breeding, feeding, or growth to maturity".

It's important to protect areas where the baby fish live because without these areas, the fish populations cannot thrive- which is what I want to happen because I love to eat fish!

:)