If there was any doubt that we are farming the seas...these unbelievable photographs are of a throng of Chinese shrimp trawlers near the mouth of the Yangtse River--FROM SPACE. They were published today in Nature and hit the press.
Kyle Van Houtan, a conservation biologist with Duke University, discovered the technique to zoom in on the trawlers. He and shifting baselines' own Daniel Pauly are now working with the satellite data to quantify how much sediment is churned up by fishing.
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This seems to be a real problem. The amount of fish in that area that would disapear would be tremendous and unfortunate. We should adress this issue and get it fixed as soon as possible.
I first saw this image during a talk by Dr. Pauly at the "Fish Forever" event in Vancouver, where Dr. Pauly and Dr. Suzuki addressed the issue of overfishing and sustainable seafood consumption. The audience's reaction to the photos were horrific: gasps and groans filled the room. Hopefully as images such as this one continue to flood the media, the world will understand the current plight of our oceans and do something to change it.
I think people differ greatly on this issue. For example, if it were completely unidentifiable as my own, I would have no problem with a picture of my naked ass being posted on the Internet. Others would be absolutely horrified by the prospect.