Fish, fishing, and the stuff in your grocer's freezer

[wombat_socho]

Interesting post at Maggie's Farm this morning which mentions the problems caused by overfishing in the Atlantic and a possible case for the Feds getting involved. One of the things my ex-GF the oceanographer was involved in (albeit peripherally) was the issue of aquaculture, and if you have even a slight awareness of how commercial fishing operations have managed to replicate the classic "tragedy of the commons" problem, this is something you should be interested in as well. Commercial fish farming is already being done with some species (which is why we're ass-deep in affordable shrimp, in case you haven't been paying attention lately) and there's really no reason why it shouldn't be done for cod and other whitefish as well. The problem, of course, is political, and it may take a disaster on a par with the collapse of the New England whaling industry to get peoples' attention focused on putting the Grand Banks off limits and getting some fish farms set up in New England, Newfoundland, Iceland, and some of these other places where fish really is the chicken of the sea.