PRESS-NEWS.org - Press Release Distribution
PRESS RELEASES DISTRIBUTION

Chinese foreign fisheries catch 12 times more than reported: UBC research

2013-04-03
(Press-News.org) Chinese fishing boats catch about US$11.5 billion worth of fish from beyond their country's own waters each year – and most of it goes unreported, according to a new study led by fisheries scientists at the University of British Columbia.

The paper, recently published in the journal Fish and Fisheries, estimates that China's foreign catch is 12 times larger than the catch it reports to the United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organization, an international agency that keeps track of global fisheries catches.

Using a new method that analyzes the type of fishing vessels used by Chinese operators around the world and their catch capacity, the UBC-led research team estimates Chinese foreign fishing at 4.6 million tonnes per year, taken from the waters of at least 90 countries – including 3.1 million tonnes from African waters, mainly West Africa.

NB: A map illustrating where and how much Chinese vessels currently fish beyond their own waters, and a summary of the study are available at https://www.dropbox.com/sh/my2f7sq7c1qeu9o/hENm7semHN

"China hasn't been forthcoming about its fisheries catches," says Dirk Zeller, Senior Research Fellow with UBC's Sea Around Us Project and the study's co-author. "While not reporting catches doesn't necessarily mean the fishing is illegal – there could be agreements between these countries and China that allow fishing – we simply don't know for sure as this information just isn't available."

"We need to know how many fish have been taken from the ocean in order to figure out what we can catch in the future," says Daniel Pauly, principal investigator of UBC's Sea Around Us Project and the study's lead author.

"Countries need to realize the importance of accurately recording and reporting their catches and step up to the plate, or there will be no fish left for our children."

BACKGROUND | UNREPORTED CHINESE CATCHES

About the study

To calculate a more realistic value of the Chinese foreign catches, the team of 20 researchers used a new method consisting of analysing scholarly articles, news reports and expert knowledge to estimate the number and types of Chinese vessels fishing in other countries' waters. This information is then combined with published data on the amount of catch per vessel type to estimate total catch.

While the new method contains uncertainties, it provides crucial information when official reports alone are insufficient or untrustworthy. It may soon be used to calculate the catches of other countries that fish around the world, such as Spain. Foreign catch information offers a valuable resource for fisheries managers, particularly in developing nations, where most of the foreign fishing occurs.

### CONTACT

Dirk Zeller
UBC Fisheries Centre
Cell: 778.835.3475
E-mail: d.zeller@fisheries.ubc.ca Lisa Boonzaier
UBC Fisheries Centre (communications)
Cell: 604.367.4988
E-mail: l.boonzaier@fisheries.ubc.ca END


ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Quantum cryptography: On wings of light

2013-04-03
Physicists from Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet (LMU) in Munich have, for the first time, successfully transmitted a secure quantum code through the atmosphere from an aircraft to a ground station. Can worldwide communication ever be fully secure? Quantum physicists believe they can provide secret keys using quantum cryptography via satellite. Unlike communication based on classical bits, quantum cryptography employs the quantum states of single light quanta (photons) for the exchange of data. Heisenberg's uncertainty principle limits the precision with which the position ...

Light tsunami in a superconductor

2013-04-03
In their latest experiment, Prof. Andrea Cavalleri from the Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter at the Hamburg-based Center for Free-Electron Laser Science (CFEL) and Dr. Michael Gensch from the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) investigated together with other colleagues from the HZDR, the United Kingdom, and Japan if and how superconductivity can be systematically controlled. The objective of their research is to improve the usability of superconducting materials for such new technologies as, for example, the processing of information. ...

NYSCF scientists develop new protocol to ready induced pluripotent stem cell clinical application

2013-04-03
NEW YORK, NY (April 3, 2013) – A team of New York Stem Cell Foundation (NYSCF) Research Institute scientists led by David Kahler, PhD, NYSCF Director of Laboratory Automation, have developed a new way to generate induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cell lines from human fibroblasts, acquired from both healthy and diseased donors. Reported in PLOS ONE, this cell-sorting method consistently selects the highest quality, standardized iPS cells, representing a major step forward for drug discovery and the development of cell therapies. Employing a breakthrough method developed ...

Papyrus plant detox for slaughterhouses

2013-04-03
Humans have used the papyrus sedge for millennia. The Ancient Egyptians wrote on it, it can be made into highly buoyant boats, it is grown for ornamentation and parts can even be eaten. Now, writing in the International Journal of Environmental Technology and Management, researchers in Uganda have demonstrated that growing papyrus can be used to soak up toxins and other noxious residues from abattoir effluent. Robinson Odong, Frank Kansiime, John Omara and Joseph Kyambadde of Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda, investigated a range of macrophyte plants grown in so-called ...

Targeting mental defeat among pain patients could prevent anxiety and depression

2013-04-03
A new study of Hong Kong chronic pain patients suggests that targeting feelings of mental defeat could prevent severe depression, anxiety and interference with daily activities. The concept of mental defeat has previously been associated with post-traumatic stress disorder, but the new study applies it to the experience of chronic pain. Mental defeat occurs when pain patients view their pain as an 'enemy' which takes over their life and removes their autonomy and identity. The study, published in the Clinical Journal of Pain, analysed three groups of individuals living ...

Physicists decipher social cohesion issues

2013-04-03
Migrations happen for a reason, not randomly. A new study, based on computer simulation, attempts to explain the effect of so-called directional migration – migration for a reason – on cooperative behaviours and social cohesion. These results appear in a study about to be published in EPJ B by Hongyan Cheng from Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications and colleagues. The authors devised a computer simulation of what they refer to as selfish individuals – those who are mainly concerned with their own interests, to the exclusion of the interests of others. In ...

LSUHSC research identifies co-factors critical to PTSD development

2013-04-03
New Orleans, LA – Research led by Ya-Ping Tang, MD, PhD, Associate Professor of Cell Biology and Anatomy at LSU Health Sciences Center New Orleans, has found that the action of a specific gene occurring during exposure to adolescent trauma is critical for the development of adult-onset Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD.) The findings are published in PNAS Online Early Edition the week of April 1-5, 2013. "This is the first study to show that a timely manipulation of a certain neurotransmitter system in the brain during the stage of trauma exposure is potentially an ...

The evolutionary consequences of infidelity

2013-04-03
This press release is available in German. In the bird world, male and female blue tits are hard to distinguish for the human observer. However, in the UV-range, visible to birds, the male is much more colourful. A closer look at the monogamous mating system of these birds again reveals that all is not what it seems: in every second nest there are chicks that are not related to the care-giving father. An already mated male can increase the number of his offspring by siring extra-pair offspring in other nests than the one he cares for with his mate. Emmi Schlicht and ...

Medical enigma probed by Hebrew University researchers

2013-04-03
Jerusalem, April 3, 2013 – The same factor in our immune system that is instrumental in enabling us to fight off severe and dangerous inflammatory ailments is also a player in doing the opposite at a later stage, causing the suppression of our immune response. Why and how this happens and what can be done to mediate this process for the benefit of mankind is the subject of an article published online in the journal Immunity by Ph.D. student Moshe Sade-Feldman and Prof. Michal Baniyash of the Lautenberg Center for General and Tumor Immunology at the Institute for Medical ...

Largest class survey reveals polarised UK society and the rise of new groups

2013-04-03
The largest survey of the British class system ever carried out has revealed a new structure of seven social divisions, ranging from an "advantaged and privileged" elite to a large "precariat" of poor and deprived people. The British Sociological Association's annual conference in London heard today [Wednesday 3 April 2013] that the survey, of over 150,000 people, revealed a collapse in the number of traditional working class, and the rise of five new classes. Professor Mike Savage, of the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), and Professor Fiona Devine, ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

Researchers develop polarization photodetector mimicking desert ant

Superconducting qubit baths give clean simulation of quantum transport

Astronomers witness the in situ spheroid formation in distant submillimetre-bright galaxies

Effects of bamboo invasion on forest structures and diameter–height allometries

Ultrasonication as a tool for directing cell growth and orientation

Lessons from Earth's hottest epoch in the last 65 million years: How global warming could shrink the tropics' rain belt

Independent rice paddy methane model validated for global applications: Study highlights emission mitigation potential

Infertility linked to onset of systemic autoimmune rheumatic disease after childbirth

Researchers use data from citizen scientists to uncover the mysteries of a blue low-latitude aurora

Possible colon cancer vaccine target uncovered in bacteria

Eating dark chocolate linked with reduced risk of type 2 diabetes

Eating dark but not milk chocolate linked to reduced risk of type 2 diabetes

End food and drink industry’s infiltration of UK children’s education, say experts

Concerns over potential harms of tests advertised directly to consumers

War in Lebanon has turned a decade of education crisis into a catastrophe - report

Spotted lanternflies in the US are living longer—and cities may be helping them spread

Slingshot spiders listen to fire off ballistic webs when they hear mosquitoes within range

SwRI-led study explores risks of chemical exposure from household products

X-ray vision: Seeing through the mystery of an X-ray emissions mechanism

AI fact checks can increase belief in false headlines

Poor health outcomes—including early deaths—linger for decades for those who lived in ‘redlined’ neighborhoods

Abnormal prenatal blood test results could indicate hidden maternal cancers

Study finds people on anti-obesity medications cut both weight and alcohol consumption

ETSU secures $900k defense grant

ETSU researcher earns grant to build flood dashboard using generative AI

AI-enabled analysis of images meant to catch one disease can reveal others

Key objections to collecting immigration status data in national health surveys

Clinical trial of device aims to induce ovulation in women with polycystic ovary syndrome

Natural ‘biopesticide’ against malaria mosquitoes successful in early field tests

NSF-Piedmont Triad Regenerative Medicine Engine (PTRME) awards $2.5 million in grants to drive economic growth

[Press-News.org] Chinese foreign fisheries catch 12 times more than reported: UBC research