Word: fishelis
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...Bering Sea ecosystem. Spanning the oceanic divide between the U.S. and Russia, it is one of the richest and most commercially productive marine environments on earth, teeming with pollack and halibut, fur seals and Steller's sea lions, horn puffins and murres. The seals and seabirds depend on catching fish, and so do humans. More than 2,000 boats from the U.S., Russia, Japan, Norway, China, Poland and the Koreas haul in an annual catch worth roughly $1 billion. The portion taken off the shores of Alaska alone amounts to one-half the sea life caught by commercial fishing vessels...
...will the bounty last? Since the majority of the world's fisheries are in a state of collapse, as too many boats chase too few fish, conservationists fear the same fate for the Bering Sea, the last great refuge of marine abundance. Competition among countries for the rights to fish certain sectors of the sea is already fierce and could turn violent, as it has elsewhere in the world. The Russians have severely depleted fish stocks in their zone, and the international area open to all boats, called the Doughnut Hole, has been nearly stripped of commercial fish...
...species is more important to man and beast than pollack, the No. 1 ingredient of frozen fish sticks and the fish items served by chains like Burger King and Long John Silver. Each year the Bering Sea yields 4 billion lbs. of this bottom-dwelling creature, making the pollack business the biggest fish harvest in the world...
...pollack harvest may be huge, but that doesn't mean the fish is still abundant everywhere. If commercial fishermen overfish a spot near nursing sea lions, both mothers and pups can starve. That's why the Trustees for Alaska, a public interest law firm, has sued the U.S. government for failing to protect areas vital to endangered marine mammals. The group's litigation director, Peter Van Tuyn, points out that in southeast Alaskan waters, where there is little industrial fishing of pollack, the sea lion population has held up relatively well. And fur seals in the Pribilofs have done better...
Less fortunate are other creatures that get in the fishermen's way. Dorothy Childers, executive director of the Alaska Marine Conservation Council, notes that fishing boats aiming to catch pollack dump halibut and salmon over the side and that the value of wasted fish in the Bering Sea is equivalent to 25% of the revenues from the entire fishery. Many trawlers drag nets and other gear across the sea floor, destroying the habitat of all the animals that live on the bottom. International agreements restrict the size of fishing nets, but environmental groups like the World Wildlife Fund urge stronger...