Clambakes, crabcakes, swordfish steaks and even humble fish sticks could be little more than a fond memory in a few decades.
If current trends of overfishing and pollution continue, by 2050 the populations of just about all seafood face collapse, defined as 90 percent depletion, a team of ecologists and economists warns in a study published in Friday’s issue of the journal Science.
“Whether we looked at tide pools or studies over the entire world’s ocean, we saw the same picture emerging. In losing species we lose the productivity and stability of entire ecosystems,” said lead author Boris Worm of Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada.
“I was shocked and disturbed by how consistent these trends are — beyond anything we suspected,” Worm said.
When ocean species collapse, it makes the ocean itself weaker and less able to recover from shocks like global climate change, Worm said.
