Scientists at UBC used ecosystem models, underwater terrain maps, fish catch records, and statistical analysis to estimate the biomass of Atlantic fish [large PDF] at various points the last century.  David McCandless of the UK Guardian's Data Blog turned the resulting maps into this animated GIF: McCandless writes: These early accounts and data on the past abundance of fish help reveal the magnitude of today's fish stock declines which are otherwise abstract or invisible. They also help counter the phenomenon of "shifting environment baselines". This is when each generation views the environment they remember from their youth as "natural" and normal. Today that...

06 June, 2011
Halibut - large Contrarian reader LH who fished halibut in Alaska for eight years, the very place where Greg Easterbrook said Individual Transferable Quotas have created a sustainable fishery producing top quality fish. He writes:
Quotes, yes, definitely; Transferable, absolutely NO! Clearwater or some other fishing company would own them all either by outright purchase or yearly leasing. ITQ’s are the reason we have arm chair millionaires. [The quota owner] sits in his chair and collects $15,000 or more while someone else catches the fish. The money is in the paper not the fish... The most successfully managed fishery in the world is the Canadian lobster fishery. The resource is in good shape. One of the reasons: if you are licensed to catch it, then it is you who has to do so, full stop. Other factors are, of course, protection of the species by size, sex, harvest effort, and trap limits.
Ah, but some would say the Maritimes lobster industry represents an informal application of property rights to the fishery. In many lobster grounds, fishermen occupy individual “berths,” where they enjoy an exclusive right to set traps. These property rights have no basis in law, but they are rigidly enforced by community custom.
04 July, 2009

Greg Easterbrook thinks Individual Transferable Quotas (ITQs) hold the key to saving vanishing fish stocks. He makes the case in the current Atlantic, part of an article called 15 Ways to Fix the World. After describing a delicious halibut dinner in Girdwood, Alaska, he writes: Good restaurant? Yes, but even better fishery management. About a decade ago, the Alaskan halibut catch was switched from a system of “catch all you can” in a very short period, to a system of tradeable permits. Now halibut season does not happen over a few chaotic days marred by colliding boats and overlapping lines, followed...

03 July, 2009