Got Any Tuna

Go Fish! because we've depleted our oceans, thank you very much!

Oh, hi, Diary. Two Canadian scientists are reporting that the world's fish population is being decimated by commercial fishing practices. ("Key Ocean Fish Species Ravaged, Study Finds," by Rick Weiss in today's Washington Post.) It seems that worldwide species numbers have dropped 90% in the last 50 years for such seafood staples as cod, tuna, swordfish, and marlin. So much for the infinite ocean, huh? But what can you expect when the piscatorial industry uses 60-mile-long fishing lines filled with thousands of hooks? That's the nautical equivalent of deer hunters raking a game preserve with machine-gun fire before going in to haul out the carcasses. In both cases, of course, you also kill off a lot of innocent bestial bystanders. Nor is the industrial angler simply depleting target populations: 25% of the haul these days is believed to be comprised of commercially undesirable species, which are "typically killed and tossed back to sea."

Mea culpa, of course. I mean, I, too, have hauled in my share of fish during my maritime childhood in the riverside town of Seaford, Virginia (striped bass, flounder, pogies, the occasional alewife). But I only used one fishing hook at a time, thank you very much, and at the end of a 60-foot-long line, not a 60-mile one. Besides, I suffered my unwanted "bycatch" to live whenever possible by removing it gently from my hook and depositing it carefully back into the bounding main (ofttimes accompanying the gesture with the whimsical admonition to "be free!") Nor was this act of mercy as simple as it may sound, especially when you'd snagged one of those carbuncular toadfish with the eerily human-like teeth, which the ungrateful freak would irrevocably fasten on the first probing digit to enter its slimy maw, albeit on a mission of mercy, namely the removal of the (hopefully only partially swallowed) hook.

The irony is devastating, of course (or at least vaguely disconcerting): I had just begun eating more fish with a view toward lowering my cholesterol -- plus, I had been recently cheered by a scientific report claiming that fish don't feel pain, from fish hooks and whatnot (although I continue to harbor misgivings on that score, wary lest I embrace an anthropomorphically biased conscience sop) : And now, just when I thought it was morally safe to drop anchor at Chesapeake Bay Seafood and batten on one those all-you-can-eat Lunch Buffets, along comes researchers Myers and Worm to scold me, in effect, for eating too much fish. "We are really too good at killing these things," says Myers. And I'm like, "Okay, fine. I won't eat any more fish. Are you happy now?" (Of course, I could always sate my appetite on mollusks, but I expect the crab and lobster population is under similar stress these days thanks to the commercial greed of what poet Anne Finch once all-too-perceptively referred to as "Tyrant Man.")

Oh, well: this was a stupid idea making salmon bake anyway. I'm not even a huge salmon fan -- but until I read this morning's newspaper, I thought it was "the right thing to do" from a dietary standpoint. Now come to find out there are devastating social consequences to such a proceeding, namely the depletion of the world's oceans! (What's that saying: eat locally, decimate globally?) No problem: I'll visit the Olive Garden today instead and order spaghetti with meatballs and a salad with bread sticks. I've got to give the fish a break for a while, let them rebuild their numbers at long last. My life upon it, I've been eating too many of them lately, judging by this Canadian research. (Of course, it never occurred to me to keep count, but statistics are statistics: somebody's definitely overdoing it.) When Messieurs Myers and Worm give the "all clear," then maybe I'll batten my hatches on some more nautical fare, but meanwhile I'll thank Captain Gorton and company not to catch any more fish on MY account. The idea, depleting the world's oceans like that! Humph!