In 2011 an eminent fisheries scientist at the University of Washington, Ray Hilborn, published an op-ed piece in the New York times on the status of global fish stocks, entitled "Let Us Eat Fish". In this piece Hilborn argued that the previous claims of serious declines in fish stocks were exaggerated and that instead many commercial fish stocks were indeed stable and not in decline. If you have noticed any of the debates in the media over the state of the world's marine environment and in particular the impacts of fishing you might perhaps be raising an eyebrow at these claims.... and one might argue that you would be right in doing so. In fact in publishing this editorial piece, Hilborn sparked off an avid on line debate in which fellow fisheries scientists, conservationists and others participated in. The debate over the statements published by Hilborn initially took place over email. As a graduate student who's research area is not directly linked to global fisheries I may not have had the opportunity to follow the debate through the email string had the director of the UBC Fisheries Centre, Dr. Rashid Sumali not copied in the Fisheries Centre mailing list address into the email stream. Suddenly everyone in the Fisheries Centre was able to follow this intriguing debate, between some of the top fisheries scientists around. The debate itself has since led to a paper being written, perhaps bringing things full circle in the sense that harnessing the power of social media has allowed for the issue of overfishing to be furthered in the scientific literature.
So you may be wondering why I am rabbiting on about how great it was to be allowed to follow the debate, so what right? What is the point if a debate as important as this is just conducted over email? And here is the neat part.... this debate is now available on line for all to see and even participate in themselves! This is perhaps a really good example of where a scientific debate that is so pertinent to everyone, (or at least those of us that like sea food and the marine environment) can be removed from the "ivory tower" of academia and brought into the wider world.
Should such migration of scientific debate from the constrains of the ivory tower be encouraged? I think so.
Let us eat fish, R. Hilborn, New York Times
Sea Monster - forum on fish, food and people where you can read and participate in the debate that took place in response to Ray Hilborn's New York piece.
Paper on over-fishingRebuilding Global Fisheries, Worm et al. 2009. Science. 325 (578-585)
Paper written as a result of the Sea Monster fisheries debate:
The overfishing debate: an eco-evolutionary perspective, Palkovacs (in press). TREE.
So you may be wondering why I am rabbiting on about how great it was to be allowed to follow the debate, so what right? What is the point if a debate as important as this is just conducted over email? And here is the neat part.... this debate is now available on line for all to see and even participate in themselves! This is perhaps a really good example of where a scientific debate that is so pertinent to everyone, (or at least those of us that like sea food and the marine environment) can be removed from the "ivory tower" of academia and brought into the wider world.
Should such migration of scientific debate from the constrains of the ivory tower be encouraged? I think so.
Let us eat fish, R. Hilborn, New York Times
Sea Monster - forum on fish, food and people where you can read and participate in the debate that took place in response to Ray Hilborn's New York piece.
Paper on over-fishingRebuilding Global Fisheries, Worm et al. 2009. Science. 325 (578-585)
Paper written as a result of the Sea Monster fisheries debate:
The overfishing debate: an eco-evolutionary perspective, Palkovacs (in press). TREE.
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