And now there's a new study that indicates it's not just large, predatory fish like bluefin and shark that are suffering.
A Dec. 1 article in the journal BioScience finds that many migratory fish species in the North Atlantic are also seeing their numbers fall off a cliff, with populations declining by more than 95 percent since the late 19th century.
Researchers wrote that the combination of habitat loss, dam construction, urban sprawl, overfishing, pollution and climate change have caused the tremendous losses:
By the numbers:
- American shad, a highly valued food fish, was 10 times more plentiful in 1887 as it was in 1997. It's also a fish that had a pivotal role in the early years of the United States, as detailed by Pulitzer Prize-winning author John McPhee in The Founding Fish. (He notes that George Washington reeled in nearly 8,000 shad in 1771.)- Once-abundant allis shad plummeted by 99.9 percent in the Rhine River in the Netherlands between 1886 and 1933; and by 99.4 percent in the Minho River in Portugal between 1925 and 1988.
- European eel plunged 95.4 percent in the Ems River, which flows through the Netherlands and Germany; and by 99.5 percent in the Yser River in Belgium between 1974 and 2004.Declines were seen in every fish studied except for two: striped bass, which is already protected in North America, and lampreys, which were abundant in some rivers in France (as well as invasive in the Great Lakes).
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Click on the image below to watch a video documenting attempts to boost rare Atlantic sturgeon populations in the Chesapeake Bay.
Tags: Animals, Fish, Food, Marine Life, Oceans
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