Ross, you're dead right to highlight the dangers of over-fishing.

The only humphead wrasse I've ever seen were in Jordan (where people don't
fish much) and off an obscure island in Madagascar.

Otherwise, they're dead.

Whenever I travel from my island to the mainland, there's a guy on the
boat with a couple of foam boxes with live fish, destined (eventually) for
the Chinese market.

They are usually Serranidae - Sea Basses, Coral Trout, etc. These are very
scattered, being top predators on the reef itself, and as such, need a
large territory - maybe only one for every 50 metres of reef.

When you've disposed of the one who patrols that 50m, the rest of
the 'food pyramid' below him goes quite unexpectedly wrong.

It's a bit like going into a foreign country, and ridding it of a
dictator. All sorts of repressed horrors turn up.

Then you have the problem that, if you've already eaten all the top
predator fish, you have to go for the next largest ones, like parrotfish
(molmol). They're the ones who graze on the algae on the reef, and keep
them in check, so the coral has a chance.

When they're gone, the faster-growing algae can swamp the coral, and the
sea urchins move in. When they've finished, there's not a lot more left
than bare dead rock.

But we are being a little hypocritical. It was us, after all, who so
depleted the fabulous Grand Banks of cod, that cod-fishing there has had
to be banned. The first explorers there talked about leaning out of their
boats and catching cod by hand. Now, there's nothing left.

And we don't hear much about the local fishermen of West Africa (Senegal,
etc) whose livelyhood is being hoovered up by European-subsidised
fishermen.

regards

Richard Parker
Siargao Island, The Philippines.

My website at www.coconutstudio.com is about the island and its people,
coastal early humans, fishing, coconuts, bananas and whatever took my
fancy at the time.

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