Worldwide more than 2.6 billion people get most of their protein from fish.  Getting most of your protein from fish might not be the case for most in the United States, but the U.S. is the third largest global consumer of fish and shellfish behind Japan and China.  With seafood being such a popular food choice, overfishing has become a large problem over the last 20 years.  Overfishing can be defined as fishing with a sufficiently high intensity to reduce the breeding stock levels to such an extent that they will no longer support a sufficient quantity of fish for sport or commercial harvest.

Major fish stocks around the world could collapse within decades due to global warming, pollution and overfishing.  Scientists have presented numerous reports over the years cataloging the decline of marine ecosystems and the ominous collapse of global fisheries. A species collapse means the total mass of fish  has fallen below 10 percent of original levels.  Scientists have put out the year 2048 as the as the year when 90% of the world's edible species will be gone if poor fisheries management is continued.  Worldwide, fishing fleets are two to three times as large as needed to take present day catches of fish and other marine species and as what our oceans can sustainably support.

Proper fisheries management can be achieved with the proper tools, like restrictions on gear like nets so that smaller, younger fish can escape; limits on the total allowable catch; closing some areas to fishing; certifying fisheries as sustainable; offering shares of the total allowable catch to each person who fishes in a specified area.  A large problem in commercial fishing is bycatch.  25% of sea creatures caught in fishing gear are bycatch, unwanted or unintentional catch that are tossed out or killed.  Bycatch is a large contributor to overfishing.

Currently 63 percent of fish stocks worldwide need to be rebuilt, which is actually a better number than it was 5-10 years ago.  Fishing rates everywhere need to drop to at least a healthy level called maximum sustainable yield, which is the greatest amount of fish that can be harvested without depleting the population in the long term.

To learn more about the overfishing problem in the U.S. watch this very informative video:

What Can You Do?

Look for the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) certified sustainable seafood label on fish you purchase at the market or at a restaurant.  Another eco-label to look for is the Friend of the Sea label on seafood products.

There are also seafood guides usually put out my non-profits like the Environmental Defense Fund and the Monterey Bay Aquarium which help consumers make informed choices about their seafood purchases.  The guides are divided into three

categories:   best choice, good alternatives, and seafood to avoid.  Best choices are abundant, well managed and caught or farmed in environmentally friendly ways, like farmed oysters, wild Alaskan salmon, and U.S. farmed catfish.  Good alternatives are an option, but there are concerns with how they're caught or farmed or with the health of their habitat due to other human impacts. Some good alternatives are wild sea scallops, U.S. swordfish, and U.S. mahi mahi. Seafood to avoid for now are the items that are caught or farmed in ways that harm other marine life or the environment like Chilean sea bass, imported shrimp, and farmed salmon.  Check out the Monterey Bay Aquarium's Seafood Watch Pocket Guides for a full list of does and don't in seafood consumption.