If you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.
We are emptying the oceans of fish faster than most species can repopulate themselves. Proven management practices such as conservative catch limits, restrictions on fishing days or gear, and closing certain areas to fishing for years at a time have helped some depleted stocks recover, however. Political will to impose best practices is the key. International waters are poorly policed. In many national waters, scientists establish sustainable limits, but then for commercial or political reasons, “regulators decide those are not commercially high enough and raise them,” says Boris Worm, a biologist at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Illegal fishing raises the catch totals even higher.
It’s Time to Stand Up for Science
If you enjoyed this article, I’d like to ask for your support. Scientific American has served as an advocate for science and industry for 180 years, and right now may be the most critical moment in that two-century history.
I’ve been a Scientific American subscriber since I was 12 years old, and it helped shape the way I look at the world. SciAm always educates and delights me, and inspires a sense of awe for our vast, beautiful universe. I hope it does that for you, too.
If you subscribe to Scientific American, you help ensure that our coverage is centered on meaningful research and discovery; that we have the resources to report on the decisions that threaten labs across the U.S.; and that we support both budding and working scientists at a time when the value of science itself too often goes unrecognized.
