West Coast Publishing Ocean 2014 affirmative page

Overfishing/ Fish loss- A/T “Species Resilient”

Loss of fish populations causes ripples of destabilization- ocean species are not resilient once we reach a “tipping point”

Philip Ross, MA Journalism and writer for the International Business Times, January 14 2014, “Overfishing Causes Ecosystems To ‘Unravel,’ Fish Populations Can’t Recover After ‘Tipping Points’ Reached”, Accessed April 29, 2014, http://www.ibtimes.com/overfishing-causes-ecosystems-unravel-fish-populations-cant-recover-after-tipping-points-reached
As improvements in technology and large-scale fishing methods have made commercial fishing more efficient, faster and more profitable, fish populationsaround the world have suffered. Starting in the early 1800s, humans have harvested several species of fish to the brink of extinction. Overfishing is an ecological disaster that affects entire ecosystems, and a new study highlights this point in bright, neon color. Researchers in the U.S. analyzed fisheries data from around the globe, examining the cumulative effect that occurs when overfishing depletes a particular population. The results of their investigation, described in a paper published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in December, underscore the effect that eliminating one species has on the ecosystem as a whole. When one fish is no longer there, the entire ecosystem changes, researchers contend, and once that “tipping point” has been reached, the species can no longer bounce back. “You don’t realize how interdependent species are until it all unravels,” Felicia Coleman, director of the Florida State University Coastal and Marine Laboratory and a co-author on the study, said in a statement. The authors noted one particular example of ecosystem collapse that occurred off the coast of Namibia in southwest Africa. In the 1970s, the northern Benguela ecosystem completely changed as stocks of anchovy and sardines plummeted. With anchovy and sardines on the way out, bearded goby and jellyfish stepped in to take their place. Which animals suffered the most? It was actually the populations of African penguins and Cape gannets that bore the brunt of overfishing in the region. The birds couldn’t survive on goby and jellyfish, and as a result, their numbers declined by 77 percent and 94 percent, respectively. "When you put all these examples together, you realize there really is something important going on in the world's ecosystems," Joseph Travis, a biological science professor at Florida State University and one of the study’s co-authors, said in a statement. "It's easy to write off one case study. But, when you string them all together as this paper does, I think you come away with a compelling case that tipping points are real, we've crossed them in many ecosystems, and we'll cross more of them unless we can get this problem under control." Part of the problem, scientists say, is consumer ignorance about the fish they eat and where it comes from. Also, researchers warn that the fishing industry needs a massive overhaul, otherwise the world’s food supply will collapse. “What we have today are multinational fleets of roving bandits that conduct serial depletions and move to more productive grounds,” Robert Steneck from the University of Maine and a co-author of the study told Quartz. “People in the U.S. are insulated from the reality of overfishing by seeing fish well stocked in their grocery stores.” “Overfishing and environmental change have triggered many severe and unexpected consequences,” the authors note in the study. “As existing communities have collapsed, new ones have become established, fundamentally transforming ecosystems to those that are often less productive for fisheries, more prone to cycles of booms and busts, and thus less manageable.”

Overfishing/ Species Loss- “Tipping Point”

Fish population decline pushes us over a “tipping point” which the ocean ecosystem can’t recover from

Florida State University, researchers at FSU, January 7, 2014, “Snowball effect of overfishing highlighted”, Accessed May 3, 2014, http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/01/140107163737.htm
Florida State University researchers have spearheaded a major review of fisheries research that examines the domino effect that occurs when too many fish are harvested from one habitat. The loss of a major species from an ecosystem can have unintended consequences because of the connections between that species and others in the system. Moreover, these changes often occur rapidly and unexpectedly, and are difficult to reverse. "You don't realize how interdependent species are until it all unravels," said Felicia Coleman, director of the Florida State University Coastal and Marine Laboratory and a co-author on the study. Coleman and her co-authors, led by FSU biology professor Joe Travis, examined case studies of several distressed ecosystems that had been thoroughly changed over the years because of overfishing. For example, in the Northern Benguela ecosystem off Namibia, stocks of sardine and anchovy collapsed in the 1970s from overfishing and were replaced by bearded goby and jellyfish. But the bearded goby and jellyfish are far less energy-rich than a sardine or anchovy, which meant that their populations were not an adequate food source for other sea animals in the region such as penguins, gannets and hake, which had fed on the sardines and anchovies. African penguins and Cape gannets have declined by 77 percent and 94 percent respectively. Cape hake and deep-water hake production plummeted from 725,000 metric tons in 1972, to 110,000 metric tons in 1990. And the population of Cape fur seals has fluctuated dramatically. "When you put all these examples together, you realize there really is something important going on in the world's ecosystems," Travis said. "It's easy to write off one case study. But, when you string them all together as this paper does, I think you come away with a compelling case that tipping points are real, we've crossed them in many ecosystems, and we'll cross more of them unless we can get this problem under control." The full study appears in the Dec. 23 issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Travis and Coleman and their colleagues are hoping that their research will accelerate changes in how fisheries scientists approach these ecosystem problems and how fisheries managers integrate system issues into their efforts. They hope that more effort will be devoted to understanding the key linkages among species that set up tipping points in ecosystems and that managers look for data that can show when a system might be approaching its tipping point. "It's a lot easier to back up to avoid a tipping point before you get to it than it is to find a way to return once you've crossed it" said Travis.