The destruction of life in the oceans has progressed farther than anyone had suspected, according to a new report in Science magazine. The world's catch of ocean fish peaked in 1989 and has been declining since. Typical is the Grand Banks fishery off the shallow coast of Newfoundland in the north Atlantic. There, after 350 years of commercial exploitation, the haddock, cod and flounder have all but disappeared and the fishery was officially closed a few years ago. New Technologies Don Tyson, the Arkansas chicken magnate and supporter of Bill Clinton, has gone into the fishing business in a big way.
Commercial fishing can be very profitable if conducted on a grand scale.
In 1992, Tyson bought the Arctic-Alaska Fisheries Company, and three other fishing companies. These trawlers pull nylon nets thousands of feet long through the water, capturing everything in their path 400 tons of fish at a single netting. Approximately 40 percent of what these super-trawlers catch is considered trash and is ground up and thrown back into the ocean. Trawlers are now using technology developed by the military to fish waters as deep as a mile, catching species that few would have considered edible or useful a decade ago. Now that the shallow fisheries are in serious decline, trawl nets fitted with wheels and rollers are dragged across the bottom of the deep oceans, removing everything of any size.