"Jellyfish on the menu..."

"...as edible fish stocks become extinct"

From the telegraph.co.uk

Fish stocks around Britain have been reduced to 10 per cent of what they were 100 years ago due to overfishing. Common skate and angel fish are already extinct while favourites like cod are in danger of being wiped out.

The European Union has been trying to help fish stocks recover by introducing quotas for every country under the Common Fisheries Policy.

However scientists have said that unless the system is completely overhauled fish stocks will continue to deplete to the point of extinction by 2048, leaving consumers little option but to eat jellyfish or the small bony species left behind at the bottom of the ocean.

New fishing quotas are to be set this week by Europe.

Callum Roberts, professor of marine conservation at the University of York, said the system is failing to work because ministers haev not heeded the advice of scientists. He said that quotas are consistently around a quarter higher than scientists advise, meaning fish stocks are unable to recover.

"It's a waste of taxpayers' money to develop fisheries advice and science across Europe and then ignore it at the decision-making stage," he said.

Prof Roberts said that in the 1970s three-quarters of Europe's fish were in a healthy or slightly at risk state, but today more than half the EU's stocks were in danger. Another reason the quota system is not working is the problem of discard. An estimated one million tons of fish is dumped in the North Sea every year because it is over quota, the wrong species or too small.

He said that unless the system is improved, fish stocks in UK waters could dwindle to the point of extinction within decades.
"If we do not change our ways we will have less and less to catch... so jelly fish could end up on the menu as opposed to cod in our fish and chips," he said...