A third of global fishing goes unreported, UBC researchers find

Nearly a thirdof fish caught in the world's oceansgoes unreported, according to newresearch from UBC'sThe Sea Around Us project.

Each year, the UN releases official capture reports outlining how much marine life each country has fished through the calendar year. In 2015,81.2 million tonnes were reported to have been harvested from the ocean.

But researchers saythe official numbers don't paint a complete picture.

"Fiftypercentmore fish wereactuallytaken out,werecaughtby fisheries around theworld, than theofficiallyreporteddata that countries provide actually would suggest," saidDirkZeller, asenior scientist and executive director for the Sea Around Us project at UBC.

The research initiative assesses the impact of fisheries onmarine ecosystems.

Research conductedby the group concluded that as much as120 million tonneswas fished from the oceans in 2015. Zeller saidthe numbers show that the planet's fish stocks are under threat.

Restructuring data

Zeller is part of a team of nearly 400 scientists and researchers who worked to compile the new data, which is featured in a new online interactive graphic.

He saidthe team was able to uncover the unreported fishing activity by restructuring the official data provided by the UN with external data, such as university studies, nutritional surveys, and local knowledge.

Piecing together the data took 10 years, but he saidit has given them a greater sense ofthe immense pressure commercial fishing has put on fish populations.

"Catches around the world peaked around themid-1990s [and] that's been declining steadily byabout1 to1.2 million tonnes per year ever since," he said, adding that the number of boats and fishermen on the water have increased in the same time period.

"So if you combine that, more and more fisherman, catching less and less and less that is a sign ofoverfishing."

Missing Catch

Zeller saidmany fish stocksare on the brink of collapse and bringing them back to healthy levels isn't easy.

"If you take a fish population and you deplete it substantially to averysmall percentage of its original version ... then you create a situation where these fish might not be able torecover even if you stop harvesting it, purelybecause its place in the ecosystem might have changed."

Zeller and members from The Sea Around Us team recently capturedthe global overfishing crisis in a new documentary, titledAn Ocean Mystery:The Missing Catch, which will screen at UBC's Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries on April 28.

The devastation of fish stocks is on full display.

"If you go toVietnamor China, you will find that thetrawlersthere theycatchstuffthat anyone in the Westernworld, or even China itself, [wouldn't eat]."

"It's basically slime,sledge, tiny little fish,or juveniles."

With files from CBC's BC Almanac