Sharks, tuna, billfish, and other top marine predators have generally been considered the most vulnerable to population collapse, having experienced massive declines in the past decades due to overfishing. But a recent study done at Stanford university suggests that smaller fish are just as vulnerable:

“Analyzing over 200 scientific assessments of fisheries around the globe, the team found that populations of small fish such as sardines and anchovies were at least as likely to have collapsed at some point in the last 50 years as stocks of large fish.”

Small fish like sardines reproduce and mature more rapidly than large fish, so, theoretically, their populations can recover from collapse more quickly. But one of the study’s researchers cites the collapse of the sardine fishery in Monterey bay, which took decades to recover, as an example of this not always being the case. To their surprise, researchers found that in the last 50 years, small species “were almost twice as likely to have suffered a major decline.”

The conclusion is hardly surprising: “all species of fishes can collapse once humans decide to eat or use them.”

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Last month saw the release of “Reefs at Risk Revisited”, the most detailed and comprehensive analysis yet of the state of the world’s coral reefs. There are some bright spots, but overall, the findings are grim:

“75 percent of the world’s coral reefs are currently threatened by local and global pressures. For the first time, the analysis includes threats from climate change, including warming seas and rising ocean acidification. The report shows that local pressures— such as overfishing, coastal development, and pollution— pose the most immediate and direct risks, threatening more than 60 percent of coral reefs today.”

New in this report is a look at how ongoing reef degradation will impact countries that are dependent on economic benefits derived from coral reefs: providing food, sustaining livelihoods, supporting tourism, protecting coasts, and even helping to prevent disease. It identifies 27 of the most vulnerable nations with Haiti, Grenada, Philippines, Comoros, Vanuatu, Tanzania, Kiribati, Fiji, and Indonesia being at the top of the list.

If the pressures on reefs are left unchecked, more than 90 percent of reefs will be threatened by 2030 and nearly all reefs will be at risk by 2050. Read more at Reefs…

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This month’s Naked Oceans podcast delves deep into one of the five major threats the oceans face, and one that has been getting considerable attention lately – overfishing. With the success of the Fish Fight campaign in the UK, which is drawing the public’s attention to fishing discards at sea – it’s estimated that anywhere from 40% to 60% of the total catch in the North Sea is discarded – momentum around the issue of fishery mismanagement is growing.

Naked Oceans looks into the system behind the Marine Stewardship Council certification that helps consumers make sustainable choices in the supermarket, and they examine the factors which make a fishery sustainable in the first place. They also look at a new study that demonstrates just how beneficial MPAs (Marine Protected Areas) can be to the ocean around them, by supplying fish larvae that drift out and can re-seed areas over 100 miles away.

Another recurring theme is the need to provide alternatives to local populations when it comes to making a living from the sea, and this usually means ecotourism. Helen Scales talks with Manta researcher Andrea Marshall about fishing pressures manta populations are facing, the…

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Save Our Seas is proud to announce that Outdoor Photographer Magazine has named SOSF Chief Photographer, Thomas P. Peschak as one of the 30 most influential nature photographers in the world. He is being recognized for his hard-hitting reportage work on shark fisheries and his inspirational documentations of our planets last pristine ocean realms. This recognition is a great way to finish off a very busy 2010 for Peschak and the SOSF Conservation Photography Unit.

Conservation photography expeditions to Sri Lanka, Oman, United Arab Emirates, Canada, South Africa and the Maldives have kept him in the field for more than 300 days.

Photo (Left): The cover of the Lost World book

Amongst dozens of conservation feature magazine articles in publications such as BBC Wildlife, WEND, Africa Geographic, Virginia Quarterly Review and others, a major highlight of 2010 was the publication of the book LOST WORLD: The Marine realm of Aldabra. With a foreword penned by the President of the Seychelles, this book garnered great reviews and is well on its way to becoming an important tool to ensure that Aldabra remains one of the most pristine marine environments in the Indian Ocean. Images from the expedition received awards…

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An ICCAT (International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas) meeting is underway in Paris this week. The major item on the agenda is the future of Atlantic bluefin tuna, which has been overfished and mismanaged to the point where, unless quotas are drastically reduced (and actually enforced – see this exposé on the $4 billion black market in bluefin), stocks may be fished to commercial extinction soon. While the European Commissioner for fisheries, Maria Damanaki, has called for a reduction of catch levels by more than half, this stance has been dismissed by France and other countries with a vested interest in keeping quotas at the current level.

After the unsuccessful attempt to get bluefin listed under CITES Appendix I earlier this year, which would have led to a fishing ban, the ongoing ICCAT meeting is a “last stand” of sorts for the species. Many EU members, including Germany, support a “zero catch” policy, at least for a few years, to allow for bluefin stocks to recover. Even Japan, the target market for most bluefin, is throwing its weight behind measures to preserve the fishery: Mitsubishi, which in addition to making cars controls most bluefin trade in Japan,…

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On the Conservation Photography blog, SOSF Chief Photographer Thomas P. Peschak and SOSF project leader Guy Stevens have written an illuminating post on manta ray tourism in the Maldives. Mantas are big business on the islands, where tourism is the primary driver of the economy. Recent years have seen an explosion of divers and snorekelers coming to witness the unique and massive (see photo above) feeding aggregations of these animals. With, as Tom and Guy write, “many hundreds of divers” visiting the most popular sites ever day, the pressures being exerted on manta populations are growing.

Thanks in part to Tom and Guy’s work, which culminated in the publication of a story in National Geographic Magazine on Hanifaru Bay, a major manta feeding aggregation site, the Maldives government has taken the important step of declaring the bay a marine reserve, limiting its further unchecked development as a tourist attraction. Unfortunately the marine reserve lacks adequate inforcement as yet, with the government turning down an offer by SOSF to sponsor a patrol boat to police the reserve for 2010 and beyond.

Tom and Guy were on their way to Sri Lanka last week to document the large local…

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The Cape Eleuthera Institute has recently initiated a new research program investigating the diversity and abundance of deep ocean sharks living in the Bahamas. The program has had a really great start with the team capturing twenty-five animals from six different species in the first three days including some really fascinating deep ocean sharks like the incredibly rare Springer’s sawtail catshark - only described in 1998 and very few records of it anywhere in the world!

Humans know virtually nothing about the species that inhabit the deep ocean realm and this is especially true of deep ocean sharks.  As commercial fisheries are turning their attention to the deep many of these deep-water sharks are being exploited without any understanding of their biology and ecology. Read the full account of this incredible research expedition including some more great photos on the CEI project page.

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