An academic expert in marine biology sounded the alarm in Chile over what he described as clear proof that hake has been exploited beyond sustainability limits, reported environmental magazine VeoVerde.
Sebastian Lopez, from Andres Bello university, said current sizes available were a signal that the species have been excessively fished during the past decades.
“Some 50 years ago, it was possible to find a 70 centimetre-size hake in the market. Then, 20 years ago, the maximum size fell to 50cm-6-cm, and today fish are 30cm long at most,” Lopez said.
The expert emphasized that this is the consequence of fishing companies capturing ever younger fish of the species, to a point in which a considerable part of the fish population will not be able to reach sexual maturity.
It is then that sustainability of the species enters an irreversible decline phase unless radical measures are implemented.
An indirect effect of suffering overfishing is the change in feeding patterns in the species and the drop in quality of egg production, Lopez said.
“Personally, I believe it is time to begin discussions about the exhaustion of the hake stock, and how rapidly the hake fishing companies would be hit,” he explained.
According to Lopez, fishing companies have become larger and their methods of capture use better technologies, and their vessels have higher storage levels. Catch numbers have increased year after year.
The alternative, Lopez said, would be to manage the fishing stocks in the same way other developed countries have, to recover the species with success.