In Dead Water

heavily harvested fish populations, except, perhaps herring and similar fish that mature early in life. An investigation of over 90 different heavily harvested stocks have shown little, if any, recovery 15 years after 45–99% reduction in biomass (Hutch- ings, 2000). This is particularly true as most catch reductions are introduced far too late (Shertzer et al ., 2007). Indeed, ma-

rine extinctions may be significantly underrated (Casey and Meyers, 1998; Edgar et al ., 2005). More importantly in this context is not the direct global extinction of species, but the regional or local extinctions as abundance declines. Local and regional extinctions are far more common than global extinc- tions, particularly in a dynamic environment like the oceans.

100 Per cent of global catch

80

60

40

1950 2000 2004

20

0

0

2000

4000

6000

8000

10000

Depth

Figure 2. Estimated per cent of the global catch taken at depths for the years 1950, 2000 and 2004, which illustrates how fishers are moving further offshore (and often deeper) to catch fish.

100 Stocks (%)

crashed

80

over exploited

60

fully exploited

40

developing

20

underdeveloped

1950 0

1960

1970

1980

1990

2000

Figure 3. The state of the World’s fishery stocks.

17