From Readers

Your Letters and Comments

Eat Anchovies?

When I saw the cover of the latest issue, “10 Solutions to Save the Oceans” (July-Sept 2007), I could not wait to see what ideas would be presented. I felt almost sick to my stomach after seeing the first suggestion: Eat More Anchovies. The history of exploiting fish that are lower on the food chain is unequivocal. The sardine fishery of California still has not recovered from exploitation early in the twentieth century. The collapse of that fishery is one of the primary reasons why Steller’s sea lions declined rapidly throughout California. The Peruvian anchovy fishery has repeatedly collapsed and then somewhat recovered, only to collapse again.

Fishing lower on the food chain will result only in the starvation of thousands of marine mammals and millions of seabirds and predatory fish. If you want a real solution, how about this: Stop catching small fish and feeding them to livestock and farmed fish or grinding them up for fertilizer.

Brett Hartl

Portland, Oregon

Response from Martín Hall:

The reader is right to point out that if adequate management doesn’t accompany the solution, it won’t work. “Adequate” here is defined as having the necessary scientific information and the political will and means to put it into practice. In the case of anchovies and sardines, the oceanographic influence is very significant, and it has taken a fair amount of time to figure out how to handle it. Recent statistics (available on the websites listed below) show that in recent years things have been more stable (except for the 1997-98 El Niño event) for the examples the reader mentions.

Only an optimist thinks in terms of solutions, and I confess to being one; perhaps we are learning. If we learn to make fisheries more sustainable, then we can make better choices about how to use those catches. The solution the reader proposes is very similar in nature to the one I suggested in the article. We can produce more protein for humans if we eat the anchovies directly rather than use them to feed a chicken (or livestock or farmed fish) halfway across the world. Each time we add a trophic level, we lose the vast majority of the energy and nutrients from the product. Because the product for human consumption has a higher economic value, you can maintain the economic benefits of the fishery, employment, etc. This would allow you to maintain better control of the catches and even reduce the volumes when needed.

Even though the article mentions anchovies, the concept should be extended to other species in lower trophic levels, species that in some cases are not utilized for marketing reasons. Another important concept is to spread the impact of our human activities instead of concentrating them because of purely economic reasons. Of course, this requires that we also get human population growth under control; without this, no solution could work (same as without management).

If we continue increasing our pressure on higher trophic levels (salmon, cod, tuna, sharks, etc.), the oceanic ecosystems will change, and there is no reason to believe that these perturbed systems will be any better for seabirds, marine mammals, and other species. Thank you for your interest in the subject and for sharing your thoughts.

Data available at these websites:

(1) www.imarpe.gob.pe/imarpe/pelagicos/anch_mar07.pdf

(2) swr.nmfs.noaa.gov/fmd/bill/sarcalyr.htm

(3) www.fao.org/news/2001/011203-e.htm

Literature cited:

1. Hecky, R. et al. 2004. The nearshore phosphorus shunt: a consequence of ecosystem engineering by dreissenids in the Laurentian Great Lakes. Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences 61:1285-1293.
2. Whitman, R. et al. 2003. Occurrence of Escherichia coli and Enterococci in Cladophora (Chlorophyta) in nearshore water and beach sand of Lake Michigan. Applied and Environmental Microbiology 69:4714-4719.

3. Getchell, R. and P. Bowser. 2006. Ecology of type E botulism within dreissenid mussel beds. Aquatic Invaders 17:1-8.

Make It a Dozen

In the last issue’s “10 Solutions to Save the Oceans,” I noticed two big omissions. All your ideas focused mostly on saving the oceans by reducing fishing pressure; I would like to have seen more on nonfishing impacts and ecosystem services.

The logic behind the ten ideas is infallible: overexploitation is the primary threat to marine species, so we should work to lessen that threat. But the same logic points to other solutions that address both marine- and terrestrial-habitat degradation, which is the second-most prevalent threat to marine, estuarine, and diadromous species. To twist the classic metaphor, no ocean ecosystem is an island: it is impacted by myriad interactions with freshwater and terrestrial ecosystems and human activities. Consider red tides (dinoflagellate algal blooms) and anoxic dead zones: both are sometimes associated with the runoff of nutrients from land, and both kill large numbers of marine animals. Consider the so-called “trash vortex” of the North Pacific: millions of tons of plastic and other garbage that circulates from North America to Asia, killing thousands of seabirds, sea turtles, and other animals along the way. Ocean conservation must address threats other than fishing.

The ideas of ecosystem services (the direct and indirect benefits people derive from interactions with ecosystems) and ecosystem-based management highlight benefits of conservation. Neither idea is new, so perhaps they weren’t considered innovative; but these ideas have not yet come to fruition. Islands and terrestrial coasts are as dependent on the surrounding ecosystems as are human communities. The benefits we reap are not just fish, shellfish, kelp, etc.; these are coastal habitats for aquaculture, recreation, aesthetic enjoyment, and employment. Marine conservation will become mainstream only when its benefits are obvious to people. Educating people about the benefits they receive from a healthy marine environment is one way to help save the ocean.

Kai M.A. Chan

University of British Columbia, Vancouver

All About Fish

The cover story “10 Solutions to Save the Oceans” was really about fisheries, not the oceans. The invited thinkers were faithful to their fields of expertise, but it seems to me that the editors’ selection of contributors was biased toward fisheries issues. Consequently, the article does not consider global warming, pollution, and other forms of degradation. Global warming is one of the most serious problems of the ocean. Global warming is killing coral reefs and affecting ocean biodiversity in ways that are still unknown.

Leandro Castello

State University of New York