Hong Kong's ghostly seas warn of looming global tragedy

HONG KONG, Oct 29 (AFP) Oct 29, 2009

The live fish facing death in the glass tanks in Hong Kong’s famous seafood restaurants tell a strange and haunting tale of a looming global tragedy. At the heart of their story is the bizarre fact that there are more fine fish swimming in the tiny tanks than there are in the surrounding sea. Having overfished and polluted its own waters to the point where they are home mainly to great ghosts of the past, Hong Kong now imports up to 90 percent of its seafood. The problem with that, scientists say, is that Hong Kong is a microcosm of a marine disaster in which wild fish are being eaten out of existence worldwide. “It is a sign of what is happening in most of the fisheries in the world,” says Guillermo Moreno, head of global environment group WWF’s marine programme in Hong Kong. “It’s a scary panorama.” … “The average size of fish now caught in these bottom trawls is about 10 grammes” — about one third of an ounce or the weight of a small coin — Professor Yvonne Sadovy of Hong Kong University told AFP. “To put this into some kind of context, Hong Kong was a famous fishing centre in the past and we had incredibly productive and species-rich ground fisheries.” WWF says that “Hong Kong waters were incredibly rich just decades ago with manta rays, hammerhead sharks, giant grouper and croakers taller than a man. In less than a lifetime Hong Kong has lost them all.” …

Hong Kong’s ghostly seas warn of looming global tragedy via Apocadocs