Last week I read an article stating there were 'Only 50 years left' for sea fish, and I've been thinking about this ever since. My first thought was shock. Can you imagine if this is actually true and we overfish the ocean completely? The second thought was an unusual one for me: pessimism. We probably will reduce populations to levels from which they cannot recover. We'll eat all the fish. I'm not confident about our ability to restrain ourselves and allow fish populations to recover to sustainable levels.
Then I started thinking about how my memories are so filled with fish, from eating bluefish for dinner as a child on Nantucket (and hating it) to digging soft-shelled clams on Cape Cod. Eating swordfish with my grandparents for a special treat. Enjoying fish and chips at the take-out spot in my old neighborhood. Collecting mussels and steaming them with my cousin. Going out in a friend's boat for stripers. The sweet taste of those first bay scallops of the season.
I tried to imagine a world in which my grandchildren wouldn't have any of those experiences and I got so sad. Of all the global warming/humans destroying their habitat news, this is the most distressing to me. And I don't know what to do about but simply hope it's not true.