The Last Days of Wild Fish

Has anything worse ever happened to the world's ecosystems than a carnivorous ape becoming the dominant species?

Humans have driven countless animals to extinction over the centuries. These days it's often to do to our relentless exploitation of the Earth's resources that destroys habitat. But in the distant past, and now with fish, we are doing so to feed our appetite for meat.

Wild fish populations will reach total collapse in the next 50 years. The world's increasing appetite for meat dooms nearly every species of any size in the world.

Fish populations can come back pretty easily if we leave them alone for a short time. In protected areas, this has been proven. But we aren't going to do that.

I've heard outrage over Africans eating wild monkeys. When activists try to educate Africans about not doing that, the response is, "It's not our fault that bonobos are so tasty." People have responded to those comments in ways that paint Africans as nearly savage. But there is no difference between eating a monkey and fish. Humans are driving both to extinction.

As to the argument that we can just farm fish--that's true to an extent. But it only works so long as the technology and energy resources exist to move these fish around. If the oil economy collapses, and if our technology can no longer save us from our environmental destruction, the fish farm enterprises will end and who knows how long it will take for the oceans to have fish again.