Friday, February 4, 2011

Good morning,

A few weeks ago I made mention of the dangerously reduced
populations of certain food fish, namely Pacific salmon.
Some populations are down to less than 10 percent of their
historical numbers.

And the culprit is very simply over-fishing.

This is not a unique story. A new study has just been pub-
lished which reveals that oysters are functionally extinct.
The reasons are disease and, once again, overharvesting.

How many species can human kind wipe out before we seal our
own fate? Scroll down for some frightening numbers.

Thanks for reading,

Your Living Green editor

Email the Editor


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A wide-ranging survey, published in BioScience, the journal
of the American Institute of Biological Sciences, compares
the past and present condition of oyster reefs around the
globe.

The international team of researchers led by Michael Beck
of the Nature Conservancy and the University of California
found that more than 90 percent of former reefs have been
lost in most of the "bays" and ecoregions where the prized
mollusks were formerly abundant.

In many places, such as the Wadden Sea in Europe and
Narragansett Bay, oysters are rated "functionally extinct,"
with fewer than 1 percent of former reefs persisting.

Oysters provide important ecosystem services, such as water
filtration, as well as food for people.

Is our appetite so insatiable that we have to wipe oysters
out of existence? The next time you're at a fancy restaurant,
skip the oysters. Demand is what drives the profit in
harvesting this species to extinction.