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Archives for January 2016

January 2016

The status and future of bluefin tunas in our global ocean: The Bluefin Futures Symposium

by Guillermo Ortuño Crespo

For three days from January 18th to 20th, Monterey, California, has become an aggregation hotspot for more than 100 of the world’s foremost experts on the conservation and management of the three bluefin tuna species that inhabit our global ocean. The Bluefin Futures Symposium represents the first-ever international gathering of leading science, policy, industry and conservation leaders to address the current stock status, research efforts and management uncertainties, topics which hold the key to ensuring the future sustainability of harvesting these ocean predators.

Sea Around Us study finds 30 per cent of global fish catch is unreported

Countries drastically underreport the number of fish caught worldwide, and the numbers obscure a significant decline in the total catch.

The new estimate, released today in Nature Communications, puts the annual global catch at roughly 109 million metric tons, about 30 per cent higher than the 77 million officially reported in 2010 by more than 200 countries and territories. This means that 32 million metric tons of fish goes unreported every year, more than the weight of the entire population of the United States.

Climate change could cut First Nations fisheries’ catch in half

First Nations fisheries’ catch could decline by nearly 50 per cent by 2050, according to a new study examining the threat of climate change to the food and economic security of indigenous communities along coastal British Columbia, Canada.

“Climate change is likely to lead to declines in herring and salmon, which are among the most important species commercially, culturally, and nutritionally for First Nations,” said Lauren Weatherdon, who conducted the study when she was a UBC graduate student. “This could have large implications for communities who have been harvesting these fish and shellfish for millennia.”