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How China’s Expanding Fishing Fleet Is Depleting the World’s Oceans

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Re: How China’s Expanding Fishing Fleet Is Depleting the World’s Oceans

#181

Post by rdtwo »

scythe wrote: post #127
oblio wrote: post #2

We badly need some sort of industrial fish farming at a large scale. Oceanic fishing at this point is basically like hunting gathering at an industrial scale: we just catch whatever we can and who cares if it grows back, not our problem, "nature" will take care of it. The same way we seed, till, etc., we should be doing the same thing with oceans and "hunting" aka fishing should only be allowed as a hobby. In a somew…

Aquaculture is huge in Asia. China produces 61% of all of the farmed fish in the world: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquaculture#/media/File:Global... What we need is to reduce the popularity of consuming "predator" fish species -- there is an abundant supply of forage fish, but these are often caught and fed to farmed fish! Sardines and herring aren't popular today, but they'd be a lot more appetizing and sustainab…

But they are also overfished and under pressure

Re: How China’s Expanding Fishing Fleet Is Depleting the World’s Oceans

#182

Post by giancarlostoro »

usrusr wrote: post #169
giancarlostoro wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They should farm the prey too then? I still wonder where those mice that pet snakes eat come from. Never had a pet snake so I don't know much about them.

If you continue that line of thought long enough you end up declaring the entirety of the world's oceans one big fish farm and truly sustainable fishing that doesn't deplete populations your method of farming.

The alternative is farming fish you can feed other things you can grow instead. Ultimately artificial meats and what have you will be the ultimate goal to sustain the whole system.

Re: How China’s Expanding Fishing Fleet Is Depleting the World’s Oceans

#183

Post by freeopinion »

Being completely ignorant of the fishing industry, these numbers of vessels seem crazy high. I had no idea.

Let's say the Chinese have 15-20,000. What percentage is that of the entire industry? Are there 100,000 distant-water vessels active in the world? Or only 25,000 total?

If the Chinese represent 20% of the world industry, but are trying to feed 18% of the world's population, that doesn't seem outrageous. But if they represent 50% of the world industry, then my eyebrows go up.

At the same time, if the US represents 10% of the industry and 4% of world population, or if UK represents 3% of the industry but Almost all of the numbers above are made up. I don't know what they really are. That's my point. I'm reluctant to grab my pitchfork with my current level of ignorance.

Re: How China’s Expanding Fishing Fleet Is Depleting the World’s Oceans

#184

Post by hungryhobo »

libertine wrote: post #176
hungryhobo wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are basing your entire observation on an inaccurate translation.

Eh, my observation is about a recurring behavior from China. Could it be an inaccurate translation? Yes. Is China abusing their fishing fleets and actively try to dismiss that? Yes. Is China actively implicated in lies and deception, and are observed doing it? Yes.

Sorry there are a lot of emotions in your comment but very little substance.

>Eh, my observation is about a recurring behavior from China

Can you clarify which behaviour you are referring to? It's been pointed out that the Chinese goal was to stabilize their fishing fleet size to around 3000, which given their normal growth focused policies seemed like some thing worthy of planning. And not propaganda as the parent comment was implying

Re: How China’s Expanding Fishing Fleet Is Depleting the World’s Oceans

#185

Post by Alupis »

evancox100 wrote: post #17

Anyone else catch this? First: “The Chinese government says its distant-water fishing fleet, or those vessels that travel far from China’s coast, numbers roughly 2,600, but other research, such as this study by the Overseas Development Institute (ODI), puts this number closer to 17,000”. Several paragraphs later: “More recently, the Chinese government has stopped calling for an expansion of its distant-water fishing…

As with all numbers coming out of the CCP - a healthy dose of skepticism is required. Just like with the Soviet Union's Politburo - all stats and numbers are curated to fit the public face the CCP wishes to present for global consumption.

A good rule of thumb when dealing with the CCP - multiply or divided all publicly-released stats and numbers by 10 to get closer to reality.

Re: How China’s Expanding Fishing Fleet Is Depleting the World’s Oceans

#186

Post by LargoLasskhyfv »

magicsmoke wrote: post #89
tidenly wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a uniquely western thing to pontificate about how enlightened we are about animal welfare while simultaneously funding the majority of the global meat industry - maybe. While it's true some Asian countries eat animals "taboo" to eat in "the west", large parts of these industries comes from countries pulled out of the brink of famines just a few generations ago and many young people/adults in the developed parts…

A lot of those animals that became taboo to eat in the West was due to industrialization making pork, beef, and poultry cheaper than other meats and driving them out of the market, and cultural attitudes following afterwards to make them taboo. The "west" ate plenty of strange meats at the dawn of the industrial revolution. Hot dogs sausages often had dog meat in them while they were native to Germany, and you could…

Cats too! "Dachhase / roof bunny" was a thing during WWII.

Re: How China’s Expanding Fishing Fleet Is Depleting the World’s Oceans

#187

Post by seanmcdirmid »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #145
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do farmed salmon eat, and is that better used for something else?

Dunno. Maybe less efficient use of the same feedstock? Further, now they're putting oil in Salmon feedstock so they have imaginary dietary advantages i.e. Omega-3 fatty acid, which farm-raised salmon don't have much of normally. So add that cost to raising salmon.

It might make sense, especially for where salmon farms are usually placed, or it might be overly destructive in terms of resources and environment. The analysis needs to be done before we can make a conclusion about it, but I'm sure other parties have already come to the conclusion they want.

Re: How China’s Expanding Fishing Fleet Is Depleting the World’s Oceans

#188

Post by seanmcdirmid »

Maximus9000 wrote: post #160
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ya. I’m not sure why you are being downvoted but with animals you always get out less than you put in. Plants are the same way, but can grab other inputs (solar, minerals from the ground). Animal husbandry is a great way of converting inputs unfit for human consumption (animal feed) into something that is (meat) but it’s never very efficient.

> Animal husbandry is a great way of converting inputs unfit for human consumption (animal feed) into something that is (meat) but it’s never very efficient. Ideally, yes. In practice, we feed animals mostly things that we ourselves could eat ourselves - like corn, soy, and grains. Sure, you can find cute examples of cattle eating grass on rocky soil... but around 99% of animals are not grown that way... they are gro…

Soy isn't very appetizing to humans in large quantities, so if it wasn't for animal feed, we wouldn't' grow nearly as much as it. Likewise for corn, which is a not so great staple for humans, and often just used as a sugar substitute. Yes, we can live on animal feed, but we can't really thrive on it, and a lot of land is only suited to such.

Meat is still a useful medium for converting what humans can't consume very well to something they can. Especially pigs, which in much of the world are used as recyclers (not in the west anymore, due to safety issues, and probably not for long in the undeveloped world, but they have bigger problems to worry about).

Re: How China’s Expanding Fishing Fleet Is Depleting the World’s Oceans

#189

Post by scythe »

rdtwo wrote: post #181
scythe wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aquaculture is huge in Asia. China produces 61% of all of the farmed fish in the world: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquaculture#/media/File:Global... What we need is to reduce the popularity of consuming "predator" fish species -- there is an abundant supply of forage fish, but these are often caught and fed to farmed fish! Sardines and herring aren't popular today, but they'd be a lot more appetizing and sustainab…

But they are also overfished and under pressure

They are overfished largely in order to be fed to other animals. Similarly we clear too much land to farm corn but we do it because it gets fed to animals. But nobody would refer to this to argue against eating corn.

I don't know how to quantify the potential sustainable yield of forage fish vs. the human diet, but I know that eating small fish is more sustainable than feeding them to larger fish and eating those.

Re: How China’s Expanding Fishing Fleet Is Depleting the World’s Oceans

#190

Post by La1n »

Alupis wrote: post #185
evancox100 wrote: post #17

Anyone else catch this? First: “The Chinese government says its distant-water fishing fleet, or those vessels that travel far from China’s coast, numbers roughly 2,600, but other research, such as this study by the Overseas Development Institute (ODI), puts this number closer to 17,000”. Several paragraphs later: “More recently, the Chinese government has stopped calling for an expansion of its distant-water fishing…

As with all numbers coming out of the CCP - a healthy dose of skepticism is required. Just like with the Soviet Union's Politburo - all stats and numbers are curated to fit the public face the CCP wishes to present for global consumption. A good rule of thumb when dealing with the CCP - multiply or divided all publicly-released stats and numbers by 10 to get closer to reality.

Your previous comment that said this is flagged and dead. It's not good practice to repost it, even if you add a bit of text that is still not fact based.
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