Where Are All the Fish?

3,500,000 TONS 3,500,000 TONS NO MORE FISH IN THE SEA 3,000,000 People eat a lot of fish. In fact, per capita fish consumption has nearly doubled In the last 50 years. The problem is that there may not be any more fisk if we keep catching and consuming them at this rate. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations measures how many of each species of each fish were caught each year. Using these numbers, we can see how some fish catches have peaked, meaning that there are simply not enough fish left to catch. Other fish's catch numbers are still rising, meaning that demand for that fish is increasing: if we keep fishing the way we are, those populations will also start to TONS 3,1 3.000.000 TONS 2,500,000 TONS 2,500,000 TONS 2,000,000 TONS drop and potentially die out. 2,000,000 ATLANTIC COD TONS 1,500,000 TONS 1,500,000 TONS 1,000,000 TONS ALBACORE TUNA 1,000,000 TONS 500,000 TONS 500,000 TONS SWORDFISH 2007 2002 HADDOCK 1997 PATAGONIAN TOOTHFISH 1992 1987 1982 1977 1972 1967 1962 1957 1952 SPECIES / YEAR 1952 1957 1962 1967 1972 1977 1982 1987 1992 1997 2002 2007 ATLANTIC COD 2,467,216 2,545,954 3,013,837 3,201,009 2,727,559 2,271,320 2,254,716 2,070,596 1,185,017 1,375,079 903,211 774,188 ALBACORE TUNA 121,281 192,616 261,426 233,990 422,130 567,868 563,996 879,827 1,079,534 1,177,407 *1,359,704 1,009,628 HADDOCK 344,755 530,688 547,494 485,670 * 552,866 404,303 423,103 397,894 207,815 334, 105 270,299 339,230 PATAGONIAN TOOTHFISH* 1,178 1,153 8,641 39,836 30,175 42,076 24,726 SWORDFISH 17,561 19.138 30,889 34,419 26,569 31,280 40,322 64,949 83,037 99,212 *109,707 109.271 * CHILEAN SEABASS * PEAK YEAR SOURCE The Food And Agriculture Organization of the United Nations