What Happens When We Fish the Ocean’s Food Supply?

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One of the biggest problem in ocean
fishing isn't just overfishing

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predators, but removing the food
those predators need to survive.

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This is the How to Protect the Ocean
podcast, your weekday ocean news update.

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If you care about staying informed
on the ocean every weekday, hit

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that follow button right now so
you do not miss tomorrow's episode.

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And this week, we're gonna be talking
about forage fish, and today in

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particular, we're gonna be talking
about a question that's becoming more

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important in marine conservation.

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What happens when humans start heavily
fishing the base of the ocean food web?

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I'm not talking about plankton.

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I'm talking about the things that
feed on plankton, and that's

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forage fish because that's exactly
what's happening with forage fish.

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These are species like sardines,
anchovies, herring, and capelin.

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Small fish, right?

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Huge importance and incredibly
massive industrial value.

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A surprising amount of forage
fish caught globally does not go

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directly to human dinner plates.

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Instead, many are processed
into fish meal and fish oils.

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You know, the fish oils that everybody
tells you to get omega fatty acids?

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It's a great way to get that, but how
much of these fish are being taken out

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compared to what's being left to run
the actual ecosystem and keep things

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stable and allow for fisheries of those
predators to be sustainable as well.

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The products that are created are then
used for aquaculture, livestock feed,

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pet food, and dietary supplements.

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That means that tiny fish that naturally
feed whales, tuna, salmon, sea birds,

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and cod are increasingly being
redirected into industrial supply chains.

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This type of fishing is often called
reduction fishing because the

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fish are reduced into ingredients.

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Now, fisheries managers do set
quotas and catch limits, but critics

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argue that traditional fisheries
management sometimes focuses too

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heavily on the target species itself.

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In other words, fisheries managers
are asking, "Can this fish population

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survive fishing pressure?" Instead
of asking, " Can the ecosystem

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survive losing this much food?

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And that distinction
actually matters quite a bit.

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Marine ecosystems are
deeply interconnected.

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You can't remove a major food
source without consequences.

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One major example is seabirds.

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We talked a little bit
about them yesterday.

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But researchers have documented
breeding failures in some seabirds

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populations during periods
of low forage fish abundance.

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The parents of these seabirds
literally could not find enough

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food to bring back to their chicks.

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Another example involves Atlantic cod.

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Historically, cod populations
depended heavily on forage fish.

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When those food webs become disrupted,
recovery becomes much harder.

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And this is one reason some scientists
argue we should stop viewing

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fisheries as isolated industries.

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The ocean is not a collection
of separate compartments.

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You can't just have salmon over
here, cod over here, tuna over here.

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It's a connected energy system.

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And forage fish sit near
the center of that system.

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There's also an efficiency question here.

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Think about it this way.

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We catch wild fish, they
turn them into feed.

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We feed them to farm fish or livestock,
then humans eat the final product.

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That can become a little bit of an
inefficient use of ocean protein,

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especially when ecosystems are
already under stress from warming

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oceans, habitat loss, and pollution.

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And climate change, of course,
adds another layer of risk, like

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probably the biggest layer of risk,
making everything else even worse.

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Marine heatwaves can reduce plankton
production, and that affects forage

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fish because that's their primary
food, which affects predators

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higher up in the food chain.

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So pressure compounds quite quickly.

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Now, one thing that I find really
interesting, we're gonna cover it

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in the later episodes, is the fact
that we don't communicate this a lot.

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Forage fish are not on
the topics of everybody in

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fisheries or anybody in oceans.

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We often think of it, if you're a
scientist, you think of them, yeah,

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they're an important part of the food web,
and they need to be managed appropriately.

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But a lot of times they don't get
managed appropriately, and there's

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not a lot of pressure on governments
from the people who vote them in

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there, vote these representatives
in there to do that because

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there's not a lot of communication.

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And communication is really important
in science and conservation in

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general, and we don't do enough science
communication and because it's hard.

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And we're not incentivized to do it.

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We're not paid extra to do it.

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A lot of scientists have other
things that they have to do.

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They have to publish in journals
that are hidden behind paywalls,

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but it can't get out to the public.

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And it's difficult for them to do
it 'cause they're so busy managing

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students and everything like that.

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And so what we do is we have
people to do that for you, science

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communicators, who have done a
great job in doing it in the past.

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And one of those people is a person
that I work-- is, is a company that

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I work for, Pisces Ocean, who's
a sponsor of this episode, who we

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value the fact that we need to talk
more about fish like forage fish.

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And then we value the fact that this
is an important part of the ecosystem,

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and we wanna make sure that people
get that message out there quickly,

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not just to their own constituents,
but also broaden that message.

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And we can do that at Pisces by
either help you running campaigns,

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strategize for those campaigns.

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And it's okay, like I know a lot of
nonprofits don't have a ton of money

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to hire a consulting firm to do that.

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We do have a program called Pisces
Points where you can try and

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get, like, if you want us to run
a campaign, we can run a campaign.

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If you would later on want us
to run social media or make

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some posts or something like
that, we have that all for you.

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We just require a strategy session
before that and a wayfinder,

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what we call a wayfinder.

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So speaking of wayfinder, why don't
you go to the website right now,

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piscesoceans.ca for that wayfinder
and be able to see what you need help

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in, and we can help you in that area.

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So go to piscesoceans.ca.

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I'll put the link in the show notes,
and you'll be able to get access to it.

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Let's get back to the episode going
back to what happens next in

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terms of how do we manage this.

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This is where ecosystem-based fisheries
management plays a really important role.

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Instead of managing fish species
independently, scientists and policymakers

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are increasingly trying to manage
ecosystems as connected systems.

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That means leaving enough forage fish
in the water for those predators, not

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just to sustain individual fisheries.

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Some fisheries are beginning to
adopt a precautionary approach, so

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catch limits may be lowered when
predator populations struggle.

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Managers may close fisheries seasonally
during sensitive feeding periods.

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And researchers are improving ecosystem
models to better predict ripple effects.

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But this is still a difficult balance
to act because forage fish fisheries

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support jobs and industries too.

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That means policymakers often face
competing pressures between economic

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interests and ecosystem health.

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That's not something that
you wanna have to balance.

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And honestly, like, this debate is
probably going to intensify over

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the next decade because as climate
stress increases, resilient

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ecosystems become more valuable,
and healthy oceans need redundancy.

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They need that abundance.

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They need functioning food webs.

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They need diversity to just stabilize
the system, and that starts with

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protecting those foundational species.

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Even when you talk about diversity in
forage fish species, you still wanna

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have a diversity of forage fish species
in that particular habitat or ecosystem.

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' Cause if you don't, then if that
species declines, your predatory

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species are gonna decline right away.

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But if you have a diversity of
forage fish species, now you can

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actually see, you know, if one falls
off or declines a little bit, the

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predators can switch to the others
while the one population increases.

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So if herring drops off, anchovies
can go higher or what have you, right?

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If they're in the same space.

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Now, we may be catching the exact
fish the ocean needs most, right?

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We can forage fish.

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And protecting predators means very
little if we fail to protect the food

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that keeps those predators alive.

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I want you to understand how
much of a fundamental shift

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this is in terms of management.

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Because even back when I was working for
Department of Fisheries and Oceans, they

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changed the Fisheries Act in Canada.

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And when they changed it,
they changed like, let's just

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manage the fishing species.

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So if there's been an industrialized
fishing species or commercialized

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fishing species or even an indigenous
fishing species that has been

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established for the last 30 years,
we are going to manage that.

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We're not going to
manage their food source.

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We're just going to manage those species.

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Well, you can't just manage
those fishery species being like,

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can we catch enough of them?

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That's great.

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Are there enough that we can catch?

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We don't care about the
rest of the ecosystem.

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That's what that policy essentially said.

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And then when that government left
and the other government came in to

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say, hey, look, you know what?

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We're going to rebuild the Fisheries
Act to make it even stronger

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and to remove that silly policy
change and bring back the fish

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habitat part of managing fisheries.

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That became a lot stronger because
now we are looking at food sources,

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we're looking at habitat sources,
we're looking at a lot of different

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things that affect these fish.

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Other outside pressures, marine
pollution, climate change,

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overfishing, all that kind of stuff
makes a difference in the way that

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we manage these fishery species.

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So protecting predators, as I said before,
it means very little if we fail to protect

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the food that keeps these predators alive.

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And that's what really matters.

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And that's what I want you to
take home from this episode.

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And of course, if you know someone who
is interested in this type of stuff or

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you know a researcher who's interested in
forage fish and they would like to come

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on and talk more about forage fish here on
the podcast, please share this episode.

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And of course, don't forget to
follow this podcast, the How to

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Protect the Ocean podcast, so you
can get your next weekday update.

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And of course, Friday, in a couple of
days, we are going to be talking to Jack

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Daly from Oceana Canada all about their
new report in Canada about forage fish.

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It's a really great report.

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I want you to take a look at it.

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We're going to dive deep into it.

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And this is kind of prepping you
for understanding how important

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forage fish are for that interview.

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So thank you so much for joining
me on today's episode of the How

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to Protect the Ocean podcast.

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I'm your host, Andrew Lewin.

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We'll talk to you tomorrow and have
a great day and happy conservation.