This seems to happen a lot and not just in the ocean. Population dynamics are complex. Things often seem inexhaustible until they're not and that changes has a nasty habit of happening almost overnight. Look at the Passenger Pigeon, the Alaskan King Crab, bison, various whale species (some may never recover from the whaling industry), cod, etc.
I think this is exacerbated by it being hard to tell what exactly is in the ocean. With land animals it tends to be somewhat more obvious.
Some governmental oddities haven't helped here. Britain really screwed up in how it joined the EU (then the EEC) in the 1970s with the CFP (Common Fisheries Policy) [1], which is (now) a textbook case of the tragedy of the commons.
Norway didn't join. And they're swimming in oil wealth. Not that I think oil fields would've become a common resource (the North Sea oil fields aren't AFAIK).
And then there's the insatiable appetite of the Japanese for bluefin tuna that will probably drive the fish to extinction in a matter of decades at most.
IMHO all of these resource problems stem from the fact that there are simply too many of us and we're unable to live within our means.
Did you read the article?
To me a change of practices would be far more preferable to eugenics, which itself is a horrendously ugly option and a proxy for stupidity. Even with 90% of the population murdered, who's to say the same problems wouldn't reappear some time further in the future when the population reaches current levels again.
To me, the OP's statement read as "we have too many people for the resources/practices we have at the moment", which means a change of practices is most likely our best (only?) option.
"More than 80% of the fish has disappeared from your oceans. Your children, when they are your age, will not be able to see wild fish. The oceans will be completely empty in 30 years. Unless..... YOU stop eating fish now AND please vote for political parties that will stop subsidizing the fishing industry." http://www.thebestofrawfood.com/Raw-Food-blog.html#Stop-Eati...
Myself, I personally would just ban fish farms globally. They are polluting, don't provide healthy fish for consumption and require smaller wild caught fish to maintain.
I might add: I'd also place a ban on all Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations as unhealthy, cruel, environmentally unfriendly (requiring cleared land growing GMOs for feeds) and perhaps unnecessary. Although, some are better than others such as those that feed sprouted grasses rather than grains.
Animals should live in their natural habitats. First and foremost we should adapt to them and serve them, not them to us. Domestication can only go so far, and ironically as we overly domesticate animals, so we ourselves become domesticated and consumed without even knowing it.
Also, good luck banning them globally. We don't have a world government just yet.
Lastly, refusing to eat any fish seems somewhat silly, unless you are willing to give up meat entirely. Our various other farmed meat sources really aren't that much better, and there are responsible fish options available. Just do some research.
World government worries me as it would threaten Israel (let alone everything else it deems bad) because it would become a scapegoat and distraction from its own evils. So I just ban certain fish in my own mind.
I think feeding the population now has become a form of population control anyhow. Did you see the latest French study on GMO? Irradiated and pesticide laden food takes its toll not only humans but animals and bees (colony collapse disorder) too. I'd suggest moving to biodynamic farming methods gradually. Such food is more nutritious anyhow. For your interest, I can stop my appetite dead in its tracks with a zinc supplement, (that's soil depletion for you.)
And how many would this kill?
Don't bother if you are from the UK...
The article essentially points out extreme overfishing, examples of extinction already occurring, and outlines some conservation efforts. Suggests that we may be the last generation to fish from our oceans.
Ahi ⊆ Tuna : Ahi is a kind of Tuna
These would then serve as "reservoirs" of marine life.
While the prohibitions aren't as clear cut as what you said, they are definitely in that spirit http://montereybay.noaa.gov/intro/mp/regs.html#prohibitions
"Entire species of marine life will never be seen in the Anthropocene (the Age of Man), let alone tasted, if we do not curb our insatiable voracity for fish. Last year, global fish consumption hit a record high of 17 kg (37 pounds) per person per year, even though global fish stocks have continued to decline. On average, people eat four times as much fish now than they did in 1950."
This news report is consistent with many other studies I have seen of this issue since the 1980s. The Grand Banks cod fishery
http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/watkins/grandbanks.htm
which seemed inexhaustible as recently as my own young adulthood, has collapsed. Many species of ocean-going fish have largely disappeared from the human diet in many countries, not because people no longer like those varieties of fish, but because those varieties of fish are no longer readily available.
U.S. seafood catch at 17-year high
"Last year's increase, up 23% by weight over 2010 levels, is evidence that fish populations are rebuilding. Still, a number of fisheries remain in trouble."
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-seafood-20120920,0,261...
Then they discovered that improvements in technology were letting them more efficiently catch the few remaining fish, and there were suddenly no more fish left.
Therefore an increase in fish being caught is not necessarily evidence that populations are being managed sustainably. It could merely be evidence that they are being managed less carefully. (Good for now, worse in the long run.)
http://www.montereybayaquarium.org/cr/seafoodwatch.Aspx
Just because fish is farmed doesn't make it healthy. A high density pen will have high concentrations of everything.
The last few years the salmon season was halted in California. Between low water for spawning and lots of fishing the catches were going down and few fish were returning to spawn. Now they have recovered somewhat and California is getting a better idea of what the population can support. Meanwhile it gets very expensive to eat fish.
Its for this reason I doubt that fish stocks will go completely extinct. Unlike land stocks where it 'cost' zero to wait for game to go by, fish require that you be in a boat to go get them. That costs money. If the return becomes so uncertain that you don't know if you will make or lose money on the outing, rational actors will stop playing.
Most of the mass extinction / exhaustion theories I've read are based on predicting a systemic collapse rather than the last fish of a particular type is removed manually. What is not clear is whether or not these systemic collapses actually occur. Localized food chains have some great examples (like coral reefs dying due to trawling and then losing the entire ecosystem sort of like the rain forest becoming farmland) but the deep sea stocks are much more difficult to kill off in that way.
