Daniel Pauly – Vanishing Fish - Updated Aug 8, 2020

Daniel Pauly is the Nobel Prize level scientist from UBC who has done the Sea Around Us program/document/computer systems that put together global fish catches from 1950 to 2010. He has just had a new book out, that summarizes his stellar career and catch stats: Vanishing Fish – Shifting Baselines and the Future of Global Fisheries.

This book moves rapidly over five decades and all over the world where he has lived and worked in the fishery stats world, particularly the tropics. He has somehow managed to live several lives in multiple places with his greatest achievement to put different scientific areas together that had little previous interaction, figure out computer models to track catches and execute them. He has done several different modelling systems over the years, the Sea Around Us being where you can enter his world: http://www.seaaroundus.org/. It has nifty graphics on its home page. Go take a look.

Other issues included his term ‘shifting baselines’, the tendency of each new generation, in his case, science people, to consider what came before them as the baseline, rather than go back to the beginning to see how much really has been lost. An example would be east coast cod over the centuries, as interestingly put together by Mark Kurlansky, in Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World. The 500-year history is a cool read, which includes how black people ‘came’ to America, sugar plantations, and rum.

Shifting baselines means that each new generation has a faulty picture of where the fish resource was, and thus whatever solutions they have are wrong. 

Historically, fishing has had three major features: utilizing near shore waters and moving out until they drop into the abyss; developing different methods of fisheries to exploit deeper and deeper water, and the species found there; and moving into uglier species once the catch of what was wanted could no longer be caught, and further and further away from home port.

Along with this there were a whole range of problems with the stats, and putting the stats together: commercial fishing demersal trawling methods destroyed the ocean floor, or benthos; ignoring discards; ignoring artisanal and sport fisheries; and, vast over reported catch from China, which lead to higher and false estimates of fish abundance. Along with this are the distorting effects of subsidies for fleets, tropical countries that were decades behind in the science and governance structures of Europe and North America.

Additionally, fleets were developed with billion-dollar bank projects. They then moved all around the globe catching other people’s and global fish. EEZs means ‘exclusive economic zones’, meaning 200 miles offshore, in both Canada and the States, but now up to 270 nations. ‘Agreements’ which allowed distant fleets to plunder African, Ghana for instance, stocks lead to crashing numbers around the world. And fuel subsidies have distorted effort.

An example of how specific the coalesced global stats could be, Pauly’s project determined that Norway had destroyed the Jack Mackerel stocks off Chile, and on far Pacific, pelagic stocks of the same species. Here is the graph of that collapse:

The Sea Around Us determined that 19 of 20 global fish stocks of ‘reduction’ fisheries were collapsing, poorly managed, or both. It is the reason, after trashing them, fish farm companies now have to move to single cell algae, maggots, soybean and other materials to feed their carnivorous salmon.

Pauly points out that so-called ‘reduction’ fisheries destroyed distant stocks to make feed for agricultural species like cows, hogs, chickens, fish. Yes, even species that had never eaten a fish, have been stuffed with them, rather than catching these small, pelagics for third world humans. They are instead used to fatten up ‘meat’ for first world mouths, since only they can afford them.

The other kind of fisheries are for ‘direct human consumption’ and the sad commentary is that fully 25% of all global fish are for reduction fisheries. An additional 25% are discards, meaning unwanted fish that are killed while catching the intended target and are simply dumped overboard, rather than be required to be landed for human use. And more recently, ‘high grading’ which is the reprehensible turfing of dead target fish already caught, when the fishing boat comes in contact with larger members of the target species. Terrible.

Moving back to Pauly: the list of brought together subjects includes meshing ecology with biology, subjects that a non-specialist would think were always meshed, but not so. Pauly attended conferences around the world and worked in more places than all the rest of us put together. Perhaps his single best quality, is that he has a mind that can see what conceptual outcome is required, find a way to add together the various fields, including developing and meshing technical languages, rigorizing the data, holes and figuring out data that don’t exist.

Pauly is well connected with other scientists, which allows him to work with tons of distant people with good minds. The references number 702 and an alarming number bear his name. I say alarming because how come the rest of us haven’t done the same?... probably not a good thought train to move along the many miles. Or laziness, at least that has the shifting baseline of our sloth, as in the definition of a rationalization includes that it has to be made in our favour.

Pauly makes short forays into North American fisheries subjects, NOAA and DFO. He covers the Miller, Viral Signature work, so important to the Cohen Commission third session, which Cohen reconvened to cover disease. She showed that PRV, er, a Viral Signature affected up to 90% of Fraser sockeye, so badly that they failed to spawn, even if they made it back to their tributary. In other words: “The smoking gun.” The look on her face, when coaxed to say the words, is indelible in the mind.

Additionally, he went with Alexandra Morton to catch salmon fry in the Broughton Archipelago in shallow bays near shorelines. In 2001, for example, the escapement fell from, as I recall, 1,470,000 pink salmon to just exceeding 100,000, an absolute collapse. Pauly then, briefly mentions that he was alarmed to be in a meeting with DFO scientists, who, were trashing her personally saying she had ‘spiked’ the lice data.

Pauly also discusses ITQs, individual vessel quotas, TAC, total allowable catch, and how DFO uses those concepts and stats to divvy up potential catch among commercial, sport and First Nations. Anybody on the SFI, SFAB, WSAC, PSC and other technical committees would benefit from this book.

Vanishing Fish is clear, direct, succinct. It has an unmistakeable self authenticizing tone. Pauly comes across as a unique mind, with unique contacts, putting together unique minds and subject matters. It would be nice if there were many more of him. If would do humanity good. Read this book.

Vanishing Fish is from Greystone Books. Buy it here: https://www.amazon.ca/Vanishing-Fish-Shifting-Baselines-Fisheries/dp/1771643986/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=Vanishing+Fish%2C+Pauly&qid=1561927154&s=gateway&sr=8-1. 

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Subsequent to this review, Pauly did a review of global fish for the Narwhal. See it here:  https://thenarwhal.ca/aquacalypse-now-end-fish/?fbclid=IwAR0iN3rOq_ZWFRw1jDb75SKJbLrfrNoowjqWqqsZihCjn-Rj0CEgpu7v2uI&utm_source=Watershed+Watch+Email+List&utm_campaign=25d15bea09-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2019_08_21_10_23&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_405944b1b5-25d15bea09-166907249&mc_cid=25d15bea09&mc_eid=5777c92bcd.

Here is a new, 2020 report on this subject- Until the Seas Run Dry: https://www.ciwf.org.uk/research/species-fish/until-the-seas-run-dry/?fbclid=IwAR11vhy5N1Vbx29HIpx83zXy_F9qd4Lx1fr-sCp_QV5pHNDQhd4l5d-NJTI.

Indigenous People Negatively Affected by Fish Farms/Fisheries, Updated May 19, 2017

Finally, someone has put together the stats on how much seafood is eaten by coastal indigenous people around the world. It is 2.1 million metric tonnes: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0166681.

This is as useful a document as The Sea Around Us report that summed the global take of fish stocks used for fish farms. Note that Daniel Pauly, UBC, is part of both of these huge studies.

Here is the abstract:

"Coastal Indigenous peoples rely on ocean resources and are highly vulnerable to ecosystem and economic change. Their challenges have been observed and recognized at local and regional scales, yet there are no global-scale analyses to inform international policies. We compile available data for over 1,900 coastal Indigenous communities around the world representing 27 million people across 87 countries. Based on available data at local and regional levels, we estimate a total global yearly seafood consumption of 2.1 million (1.5 million–2.8 million) metric tonnes by coastal Indigenous peoples, equal to around 2% of global yearly commercial fisheries catch. Results reflect the crucial role of seafood for these communities; on average, consumption per capita is 15 times higher than non-Indigenous country populations. These findings contribute to an urgently needed sense of scale to coastal Indigenous issues, and will hopefully prompt increased recognition and directed research regarding the marine knowledge and resource needs of Indigenous peoples. Marine resources are crucial to the continued existence of coastal Indigenous peoples, and their needs must be explicitly incorporated into management policies."

Here is the global picture:

 

The problems are many, and the declining health and population of indigenous people are results:

"Indigenous groups include some 370 million people, 5% of the global population, and an overwhelming number exist in precarious socioeconomic and political conditions [1]. Along the world’s oceans, coastal Indigenous peoples (CIPs) share vital links to marine ecosystems that conserve their cultural heritage and underpin food sovereignty (the right to define and access healthy and culturally-appropriate food [2]). At the same time, these strong links make them particularly vulnerable to challenges—including declines of coastal marine fish populations [3,4], climate change [5], pollution, and multi-scale social-economic dynamics [6,7]—that affect their fishing practices [8–10]."

Fish farms decimating global fish stocks of forage fish is among the largest problems facing these people.

October 2016, Most Popular Posts on Fish Farm News - Nov 1, 2016

The most popular posts for the global audience of this site, Fish Farm News, in October 2016 are:

1. 158 Different On-Land Fish Farms Around the world: http://fishfarmnews.blogspot.ca/2016/05/152-different-on-land-fish-farm-systems.html. The post is now up to 161 on-land farm systems, comprising some 20,000 around the world.

2. Worker Job Numbers World Wide, Marine Harvest Handbook 2016: http://fishfarmnews.blogspot.ca/2016/09/worker-job-numbers-worldwide-marine.html. Marine Harvest says that job numbers are low because there is a high amount of automation. You heard it here first.

3. Fish Farms Kill Billions of Wild Fish - 5.76 Billion for an Industry the size of BC's; this means that fish farms around the world kill trillions of forage fish and slamonids:  http://fishfarmnews.blogspot.ca/2016/10/fish-farms-kill-billions-of-wild-fish.html.

4. Global Fish Reduction To Fish Meal and Fish Oil - Daniel Pauly/Tim Cashion: http://fishfarmnews.blogspot.ca/2016/09/global-fish-reduction-to-fishmeal-and.html. A seminal document in the Sea Around Us report, massive work to detail who caught what from 1950 to 2010. An impressive report.

5. Times Colonist - New Research Will Help Salmon: http://fishfarmnews.blogspot.ca/2016/08/times-colonist-new-research-will-help.html. In one sentence: there is no reason to believe that DFO will do anything about farmed salmon based on a suggestion of money for research. After all, you will recall the post on the damaging foi letters showing that DFO and the CFIA looked for a lab that would give them negative responses for disease. And my Environmental Petition to the AG received mush as an answer. I know because I used to write such mush for government.

6. Fish Farms Kill Billions of Fish: http://fishfarmnews.blogspot.ca/2016/09/fish-farms-kill-billions-of-fish.html. Fish farms kill trillions of wild fish and have ruinously fished down 19 of the top 20 stocks of forage fish for fish meal and fish oil.

7. August 2016 - Most Popular Posts on Fish Farm News, Sept 1, 2016: http://fishfarmnews.blogspot.ca/2016/09/august-2016-most-popular-posts-on-fish.html.

8. On Land Fish Farms Shoving In Ocean Ones Aside: http://fishfarmnews.blogspot.ca/2016/09/on-land-fish-farns-shoving-in-ocean.html.

9. Viral Signature, Fraser Sockeye - Dr. Kristi Miller: http://fishfarmnews.blogspot.ca/2016/10/viral-signature-fraser-sockeye-dr.html.

10. PRV Present in 80% of Farmed Salmon - GD Marty: http://fishfarmnews.blogspot.ca/2016/10/prv-present-in-80.html. This virus has been shown to cause HSMI - if we ignore a semantic issue - a deadly disease, imported from Norway. Yes, that is 80% of fish farm fish have PRV. It really is that bad.

11. Trudeau Government in Court over Fish Farm Diseases:  http://fishfarmnews.blogspot.ca/2016/10/trudeau-government-in-court-over-fish.html. Trudeau/Harper, doesn't look like there is any difference when it comes to fish farm environmental damage. Trudeau is now in court.

12. Everyone Against In-Ocean Fish Farms - Except DFO, the CFIA and Fish Farms: http://fishfarmnews.blogspot.ca/2016/10/everyone-against-in-ocean-fish-farms.html. The question is: how long we have to wait until DFO takes fish farms out of our ocean? This is not a science question, as there are 100,000 pages of negative science on the internet about the damage. Google: fish farm environmental damage and you will be reading for weeks. These people work for us, with our money but do not do what we want - get fish farms out of our ocean.

If you are looking to read the articles that the global audience to Fish Farm News thinks are the most important in the preceding month, look on the first of the month following that month and you will find the list with the web links.

Fish Farms Kill Billions of Wild Fish - Updated Stats - 5.76 Billion Dead Forage Fish per Harvest for a Fish Farm Industry the Size of BC's, Updated Oct 6, 2016

Now, to bring all the posts I have done together and figure out a reasonable estimate of the forage fish killed to feed fish farm fish. The global catch of forage fish is about 20Million metric tonnes per year.

There are many sources that say the ratio of fish in fish out for kgs of forage feed to 1 kg of a farm salmon is 5 to 1. You will find it in this document, for example: http://fishfarmnews.blogspot.ca/2016/08/jack-mackerel-fish-farms-buffalo.html.

That post gives you the catch in Chilean Jack Mackerel over the decades until it collapsed. Look at the graph: http://fishfarmnews.blogspot.ca/2016/08/jack-mackerel-fish-farms-buffalo.html. Norwegian fish farm companies did most of the catching, and along with poor management and closely held quotas, this vast resource has been largely destroyed. In the Sea Around Us document, Norway is listed as the country that fished it down. See: http://www.seaaroundus.org/doc/publications/books-and-reports/2016/End_Use_Reconstruction_Report.pdf.

The BC fish farmers claim that the FIFO ratio is less than 1 to 1, meaning more farmed fish out than forage fish in. This is a very deceptive way of talking because it fails to mention that the reason for the ratio is not efficient conversion, but decimation of the forage fish stocks around the globe by fish farms and they having no choice but to turn to vegetable sources for protein and energy.

The Sea Around Us document, 2016, says that reduction fisheries have largely destroyed (or the stocks are poorly managed in) 19 out of the top 20 stocks, including the jack mackerel off Chile, and now, the anchovetta stocks off Peru and Chile.

At a 5kg conversion rate, the huge loss of forage fish is dramatically shown by the following calculation: number of forage fish per kg X 5kg conversion rate X 5 kg salmon growth X average fish farm number of 600,000 fish X 85 farms in a BC-sized industry. For more background, go here: http://fishfarmnews.blogspot.ca/2016/09/post-3-forage-fish-fish-farm-feed-stats.html.

And the numbers are 282 fish killed per fish farm fish,169.5 Million killed fish per farm, and 14.4 billion fish killed to feed all the farms in an industry the size of BC's.

These staggering numbers would prevail today if there were many fish stocks left to plunder, but there aren't and vegetables have been used, and of course, the conversion rate for forage fish necessarily had to come down. Do go to the NOFIMA report, the research arm of fish farms in Norway, and read the section on conversion rates (p27 - 32). It is very convoluted: https://www.nofima.no/filearchive/rapport-53-2011_5.pdf. The other constituents include fish guts and factory waste, chicken feathers, and in some countries excrement. (I asked EWOS feed company six times to confirm they used no excrement, and they failed to respond).

The Sea Around Us document on reduction fisheries is: http://www.seaaroundus.org/doc/publications/books-and-reports/2016/End_Use_Reconstruction_Report.pdf.

In a personal communication from The Sea Around Us, the people who put the best stats together for reduction fisheries from 1950 to 2010 say a rate of 1.7- to 2.4-kg for fish meal and fish oil is most likely. They are the people in the know on this subject. So I simply took the average, or 2.0 kg in, to 1 kg out.

Correcting for this most believable conversion rate, the estimates are still staggering, but less. The calculation is 11.3 forage fish/kg X 2 kg conversion rate X 5 kg of salmon growth before harvest X 600,000 average fish per farm X 85 operating farms in a BC-sized industry.

The revised figures are still staggering, and this is after fish stocks have been decimated: 113 forage fish killed per farmed salmon; 67.8 million forage fish killed to bring one farm to harvest; and 5.76 billion forage fish killed to bring all farms to harvest in a BC-sized industry.

Please note that I will go back and adjust the half dozen posts on this subject on this blog where my preliminary higher figures were used.

To put these figures in context, based on an 85,000 metric tonnes harvest and 1Million metric tonnes harvest per year in Norway, an industry the size of BC's is less than 8.5% of the Norwegian industry. Hard to believe but true. And then there are the Faroes, Scotland, Iceland, Chile, Tasmania, New Zealand, Australia, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, Denmark, Finland, Russia and... . In other words: trillions of forage fish killed.

Fish Farms are Floating Pig Farms - Daniel Pauly, UBC

"The conditions of traditional salmon farms can only be compared to a floating pig farm," says the University of British Columbia's Daniel Pauly, a renowned marine biologist. "Some people argue that every farmed salmon has a wild counterpart that's dead." June, 2015.

(Here is a reference for the pig farm comment: http://www.onegreenplanet.org/animalsandnature/fish-the-new-factory-farmed-animals/. )

This is why I have said that fish farms exist in the ocean so they can use it as a free, open sewer. This seems harsh language, but it’s not, compared with what Daniel Pauly says.

But there is more.  We subsidize fish farms $1.64 million to use our ocean as a free open sewer.  In Norway, they pay $1.69 Million just for a licence. In BC they pay $5000. So we subsidize fish farms to the tune of $1.65 Million just to set up shop in our ocean  and pollute it. Not smart.

And how much does that sewage damage cost? My preliminary estimate, using the conservative conversion rate of 10 fish for the sewage of 1 human being, comes out at the very large subsidy of: $10.4 Billion. We BC taxpayers pay this much for the industry as it is today. And they want to expand? (See the Oct 2014, Index, on this site, for the link to the calculation).

I don’t think so. The people of BC, understandably, want fish farms on land or they can go back to Norway.

I should add that at other conversion rates, the already astronomical sewage cost to BC taxpayers, exceeds $31 Billion. That is how bad fish farms are. Hmm. Now I see why Daniel Pauly says they are floating pig farms.

And, how big is that licence subsidy you ask? Well, at $1.65 M per farm, and 130 licences in BC, the licencing subsidy comes in at a whopping $214.5 Million in BC alone. That is in addition to the sewage figure. Fish farms don't make much money and don't result in many jobs, and still we subsidize them to the point where their revenue (from BC Stats) of $400 M comprises only 3.8 % of the environmental damage they cause just from being in our oceans. This does not make sense