"British stocks of wild sea bass are running dangerously low"

[Mr. X]

In the Daily Mail today

"Our taste for seabass put stocks in decline


British stocks of wild sea bass are running dangerously low because of soaring demand experts warned yesterday.

The has become fashionable thanks to the backing of celebrity chefs and its popularity with gastropub customers.

Sales have trebled in the last two years and the amoint landed on our shores has risen by 75%.

But the Bass Anglers' Sporing-fishing Society has called a halt to catching the species for three months during its spawning season.

John Leballieur, of the Society, said: 'I have never seen a period when the numbers of young bass have been so low for so long.

'Across the southern UK there has been a decline.'

Part of the problem is that seabass take seven years to reach breeding age.
Recent figures from Seafish, the marine fishing authority showed that sales of bass have more thn trebled since 2005 jumping from £7million to £22 million today.

The majority - 80,000 tons - is the farmed variety usually sold in supermarkets.

But the amount of wild sea bass landed of (sic) Britain's coast-line has also soared - from 407 tons in 2000 to 714 tons last year."

Just goes to show -- the sky really is falling.

World map, flag and country information on the Yahoo! Kids World Factbook

World Population

U.S. and World Population Clocks - POPClocks

[miles]

One of the largest threats is that other species stocks are dwindling and the consumer market now is looking for replacements.

Example - cod. The cod stocks are already low, many suppliers now battle to get stock and turn say to sea bass. Since its more freely available and probably cheaper too, demand then soars for that species.

This goes on until that specie is also decimated. Its a vicious circle, that'll continue until all our fish stocks have collapsed...........

[ADM]

They're currently marketing pollack hard and some of the chefs are suggesting we all try Mullet. Now how much damage can a single trawler do to the mullet stock!!!!! Goodbye all the mullet in no time flat if it takes off.

[foxfish]

Andy, people I have talked too thought I was silly voting in our last election for Lee Van K but he was the only single potensial who even suggested we look at fish stocks!! Nobody seems to care, least of all the people who could actually do something!

[ADM]

And even less those whose livings rely entirely on a stock of fish. Apologies if that seems harsh, but who else caught all the cod, herring etc etc

I didn't vote locally as in my district, there was no-one even remotely interested in anything other than lining their own pockets.

[Spaniard]

I know, why don't we target the Bass around our coasts just when they are at their most vunerable and whilst they are spawning? For good measure let's use pair trawlers just in case we can't hoover up enough of the buggers! Oh some muppets are already doing that aren't they?

If they want to target mullet then they can trawl all the sewage outlets, might catch a few Mersey trout. Or the commercial fishing boys could hang their arses out over the sides of their boats and get the rod and lines out.

[Mr. X]

Many good but worrying points.

Originally Posted by foxfish

...Nobody seems to care, least of all the people who could actually do something!

I could never understand that. But having watched that trawlerman program it is easy to see how they might put such considerations conveniently out of mind when they had £1m loans to pay on the big trawlers (& I think they only had a crew of maybe 4-6) and mouths to feed & mortgages to pay at home.