WILD

Fish Digestive Systems, Bony Fish Excrement and Why You Really Need to Care

We can now add yet another item to the long list of creative ways in which we are undermining our planet and ourselves: creating a serious problem by over-extracting a natural resource, and then compounding that problem in unintended and unanticipated ways…

We’ve known for a long time that we are drastically overfishing our oceans, and we’ve known for a long time that many fisheries are now crashing, or on the verge of collapse. We know that lower fish stocks will have consequences for global food supplies, and in particular that poor coastal communities in developing countries will be among the first to pay the price. Now we have an additional dimension to worry about.

Apparently bony fish excrement accounts for 3-15% of the calcium carbonate in the oceans (plankton account for most of the rest), and calcium carbonate is a key factor in absorbing carbon dioxide, reducing the acidity of our oceans, and maintaining marine life, including coral reefs. So by removing too many fish from the ocean we are also increasing our vulnerability to global warming, which will in turn further reduce marine life, creating a negative feedback loop. The tragedy is that once again, poor coastal communities will be the first to suffer the consequences – not just in the decreased availability of their primary food and protein source, but also as a result of rising sea levels and extreme weather patterns.

Want to read more climate change?  Check out this blog dedicated entirely to climate change issues.

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