Graph of the Day: Abundance of Five Fish Species, 1952-2007
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 fish 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 drop and potentially die out. Our latest Transparency is a look at catch numbers of some of the most popular fish in the world. A collaboration between GOOD and Timko & Klick.
