Fish No Chips.

A title with humour but a sad story, plus its one about fish by way of a change from birds.

This is the Blue Fin Tuna a fish which carries with it the same old sad story about over fishing which not only drives down the size of stocks but pushes up the price at the same time. High prices means those in the fishing industry will continue to fish and these are the people who claim there are plenty of fish in the sea....until they are all gone.

But these fish were not just present in exotic and far off places, I've just been looking at a photograph of some happy recreational fishermen off the coast of Scarborough in the 1930's with a boat full of Blue Fin Tuna caught with rods. Observations of this species in the North Sea dating back to the early 1900's when they were recorded feeding on small fish falling from the nets as they were hauled in by trawlers of the day. A sport fishery grew up in the 1930's catching up to 80 fish a year, but a commercial fishery - not British incidentally - grew to 200 boats landing over 10,000 tonnes a year during the 1950's and by the 60's the catches collapsed and the abundance to date is still too low to support either recreational or commercial fishing.

It never fails to be stupid this ability to 'hoover up' fish stocks to the point of extinction and its the fishing industry which needs the restraint for its own long term interests and the survival of the wildlife on which it crucially depends upon. We're really not treating this planet as though we mean to stay on it are we.

Fish2blog....maybe just this once!

I've edited this post as it has become blatantly obvious the title should have been....'Chips No Fish'