In a Perfect Ocean: The State of Fisheries and Ecosystems in the North Atlantic Ocean Volume 1

This is a Pew Foundation funded comprehensive, scientific, data based report on the state of the North Atlantic Ocean fisheries. It takes in not only a consensus on the various fish types and their depleted numbers, but also ocean ecology damage effecting spawning areas, over-fishing by type methods and too many boats, disparities in derived fish protein gained vs energy spent to harvest, pollution, negative effects of government subsidies, boat buy-back and destruction schemes to reduce the size and numbers of fleets, fishing rules enforcement or lack there of , etc. There are many graphs, references, and notes for further research- in a nutshell, this is bible for fisheries research. This study concludes with several recommendations for reviving the health and productivity of the oceans with a caveat that there is little time left to implement them. As abundantly described, the oceans are in a dismal state affairs and the time to act was yesterday. A call for a new ethic in ocean conservancy and resource management is in order. Daniel Pauly coined the popular concept of "Shifting Base-lines" to describe historical and current trends in ocean health and this term has now been embraced and spread throughout just about all disciplines to measure and describe change over time. Indeed, everything from fish numbers over time, availability of resources to one's waste-line changes. A very useful tool in describing the vagaries and impact of change over time! UPDATE: In the April, 2007 National Geographic Magazine, there is an alarming and lengthy series on the dismal state of the World's ocean fisheries "The Global Fish Crisis". Complete with good text, research data and those famous NGM photos.