The Big Fish Eat The Little Fish

Source: Decline of the Empire

Look fish. The fish eat the fish food, and the shark eats the fish, and nobody eats the shark
   — from E.T. The Extraterrestrial

Recently we’ve seen yet another warning that the world’s fisheries are in big trouble. This time, scientists are focusing on forage fish, which are small fish like Peruvian anchoveta (anchovies), Atlantic menhaden and Pacific sardines. In their study Little Fish, Big Impact, the Lenfest Forage Fish Task Force recommends that we cut our global small fish catch in half to preserve ocean ecosystems (food webs). Science Daily gives us the story in Experts Recommend Halving Global Fishing for Crucial Prey Species.

Fishing for herring, anchovy, and other “forage fish” in general should be cut in half globally to account for their critical role as food for larger species, recommends an expert group of marine scientists in a recent report. The Lenfest Forage Fish Task Force conducted the most comprehensive worldwide analysis of the science and management of forage fish populations to date. Its report, Little Fish, Big Impact: Managing a crucial link in ocean food webs, concluded that in most ecosystems at least twice as many of these species should be left in the ocean as conventional practice.

A thriving marine ecosystem relies on plenty of forage fish. These small schooling fish are a crucial link in ocean food webs because they eat tiny plants and animals, called plankton, and are preyed upon by animals such as penguins, whales, seals, puffins, and dolphins. They are primary food sources for many commercially and recreationally valuable fish found around North America, such as salmon, tuna, striped bass, and cod. The task force estimated that, globally, forage fish are twice as valuable in the water as in a net — contributing US$11.3 billion by serving as food for other commercially important fish. This is more than double the US$5.6 billion they generate as direct catch.

Note well that these scientists said these forage fish have more economic value in the water than they do in the various uses we put them too. How do we use them?

These species play a growing role in the everyday lives of industrialized nations. Their demand in recent decades has greatly increased for use as fish meal and fish oil to feed farmed fish, pigs, and chickens that people consume on a regular basis. Fish oil is also used in nutritional supplements for humans.

“Traditionally we have been managing fisheries for forage species in a manner that cannot sustain the food webs, or some of the industries, they support,” says Dr. Ellen K. Pikitch of the Institute for Ocean Conservation Science at Stony Brook University, who convened and led the Lenfest Forage Fish Task Force. “As three-fourths of marine ecosystems in our study have predators highly dependent on forage fish, it is economically and biologically imperative that we develop smarter management for these small but significant species.”

I do not blame these scientists for trotting out the economic argument to support their recommendations, which will not be followed in any case. They’re just trying to get someone to listen to them. The big fish eat the little fish, as do penguins, whales and other marine mammals. One would think that our ocean food webs would have inherent value in so far as we’ve only got this one Earth to live on. But nobody wants to hear that.

If I had been on the Lenfest Forage Fish Task Force, I would have emphasized the ongoing threat to what environmentalists call charismatic megafauna. They do some of that in the video below, though not in the study summary linked in above. In the oceans, these megafauna are the lovable, big predator species which eat the little fish. Wikipedia is useful here.

Charismatic megafauna are large animal species with widespread popular appeal that environmental activists use to achieve conservation goals well beyond just those species. Prominent examples include the lion, tiger, California condor, bald eagle, giant panda, harp seal, and humpback whale.

And Humboldt penguins (left). And polar bears. And sea otters. And big sharks. Morgan Freeman does not narrate documentaries about sardines. Humpback whales are very popular. Atlantic menhaden are not.

In Steven Spielberg’s happy movie E.T., young Henry Thomas tells the cute, saucer-eyed (charismatic) extraterrestrial that the fish eat the fish food, and the shark eats the fish, and nobody eats the shark. But of course that’s not true. In fact, humans eat the sharks, or at least kill them for their fins.

Sardines and the like are the “primary food sources for many commercially and recreationally valuable fish found around North America.” If you’re trying to get the humans to pay attention, it’s always a good idea to show them a picture of a baby penguin or a fuzzy polar bear cub, and warn them in no uncertain terms that wicked humans—not them, of course—are killing these animals off.

Oh, no! We’ve got to stop those evil men! These penguins, look at them, they’re so cute!

The humans get all weepy and teary-eyed then.

Bonus Video — from the Lenfest Forage Fish Task Force

Read more at Decline of the Empire