How likely is overfishing to cause a loss of seafood?

Ok, I put this in the technology section, so bear with me. In the beginning of November, a report titled Overfishing May Harm Seafood Population broke with the news that seafood, all seafood, may be extinct by mid-century. In the article a claim is made:

Clambakes, crabcakes, swordfish steaks and even humble fish sticks could be little more than a fond memory in a few decades. If current trends of overfishing and pollution continue, the populations of just about all seafood face collapse by 2048, a team of ecologists and economists warns in a report in Friday’s issue of the journal Science.

Pretty startling, right?

When I read through the rest of the article I was a little surprised. How could they be sure the entire world’s population of seafood would be gone? Was this like the environmentalists that say all the trees would disappear due to logging? That stance has never made sense to me since a business relying on renewable resources is going to make sure they’re renewed.

What technology do they use to base their predictions on? It turns out none.

What stands out like a sore thumb are commercial fisheries where fish, shrimp, lobsters and more are grown like a crop. They don’t live in the wild and they have strict growing control systems. How could these possibly go belly up?

I popped over to Wikipedia to look up overfishing and came away with a better understanding of what people are worried about.  To me it seemed stupid to be concerned about all seafood around the world.

Luckily, the Seattle Times took a look at this and found the voice of reason in  Ray Hilborn, a University of Washington professor of aquatic and fishery sciences. He said:

It’s just mind-boggling stupid.

I’m worried about some areas of the world — like Africa — but other areas of the world have figured out how to do effective fishery management.

For example, most of the harvests in the North Pacific off Alaska — where most Seattle fleets fish — are not in sharp decline.

Ding.

Rather than causing alarm and undue panic maybe the researches could have looked a little closer to regional issues rather than a blanket global cause.

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