Transparency: Where Are All the Fish?

I don’t think that’s quite how ’supply and demand’ works in the food industry. If it did then we’d all be paying top dollar for buffalo steaks.

Wrong: ”Yes, but if fish become more rare, their price will go up and people will eat less fish.”. -This comment fails to factor in the fact that commercial fishing is a highly subsidized industry.  Government subsidies keep these industries running even when they are no longer economically viable.Joel Cordero

Great graphic – but a grossly inaccurate interpretation of the data.  Reductions in world catch of those species primarily result from increased regulations on fishing effort or direct catch limits to rebuild fish stocks and achieve more sustainable harvest rates.  The reductions are being widely used to ’show’ depletion of fishery resources, but a more enlightened use of the same data would be to illustrate substantial strides in fishery management and sustainability.  If GOOD wants to ‘push the world forward’ shouldn’t it acknowledge a push in the right direction?

I always thought it was strange to use fish catch as a proxy estimate for fish population.   Fish catch has a lot of “outside” forces (markets, effort, fishing technologies, incentives/restrictions) that vary over time don’t have anything to do with the fish stock (ie. population.   Thomas, I may have missed it, but you might want to mention somewhere that the numbers in the graphic are talking about “catch” as opposed to “fish in the sea”.  Beautiful, engaging image.

What about the great majority of fish species that have increasing catches over time? Or that the total world catch has been stable since the 1980s? Picking a few species with declining catches out of 1000+ that are fished tells us very little. 

Just another gilded piece of shit.

If I pick ten dandelion flowers per day out of my yard, and my daughter tells me to stop because she thinks they are pretty, so now I only pick one per day, does that mean that the number of dandelions in my lawn has crashed?

If you want a fish to eat go catch one. No matter how you look at the data the ocean is being overfished by the commercial industry.  This chart also fails to address bycatch which has huge implications on the health of a fishery. Shrimpers are killing baby fish and destroying their habitat in addition to over-harvesting the food source for sport fish. Also, keep in mind that this data is based on reported catch data and doesn’t factor in poaching, which is rampant in the commercial fishing industry.Don’t buy commercially harvested fish. Be a man – catch your own. 

“If I pick ten dandelion flowers per day out of my yard, and my daughter tells me to stop because she thinks they are pretty, so now I only pick one per day, does that mean that the number of dandelions in my lawn has crashed?”-While your metaphor seems applicable on the surface it does not correspond to overfishing. First, it is highly unlikely your backyard is subject to the tragedy of the commons. Second, fish reproduction is not comparable to that of dandelions. However, to equate lower catch rates to lower fish populations requires more information.  Why are there lower catch rates? Is it because of new regulations? Are fishermen catching below their quotas (ITQ)?  Currently many fishermen are catching below their allowable ITQ’s. Thus, for most fisheries the ITQ’s are not the reason for lower catches.For those that don’t believe overfishing occurs look at: Atlantic salmon, Atlantic cod, Bluefin tuna, Chilean Seabass, Beluga Sturgeon…   But don’t take my word for it.  Do some research on NOAA and NASA websites. 

Wish it covered salmon. And I’d be interested to see corresponding numbers for fish farms.

People need to wake up.  If human population grows expontentially and our taste for meat at every meal becomes the norm for everyone, ALL fisheries will crash.  Did you know ocean trawlers throw away 80-90% of the marine life they snag in their nets (”bycatch”)?  So now not only are you fishing more, you’re wiping whole miles of the ocean totally empty of all sea life.  What a waste.

It is wonderful to read articles like these, as they are so inspiring. I was excited to learn about the great news that Brown Trout is a renewable resource, and can be found in plentiful amounts off of the western coast of the the US, and the northesatern coast also. It certainly is “the” Green fish. Because of this I am happy to see sites such as this leading the way by including awareness of the Brown Trout in virtually every article. Thank you GOOD!

A very informative and visually appealing info-graphic!

I can’t believe some people commenting here think that there is not a problem.  Did you not see the article about the vortex of plastic in the Pacific and how all of those toxins are trickling down into the fish we end up consuming.  We’re killing ourselves, the fish and the earth because of our stubborn laziness and lack of responsibility under the guise of economic impact.  We’re the first species on earth that has the ability to solve problems through technology, but we can’t seem to find the way because of our own self-aggrandizing greed.  The human race is going to run itself extinct if we’re not careful, thinking otherwise is very narrow.  A good first step is to change our culture to one of need, not excess, and we’ll at least be heading in the right direction.

What would Tufte say about this graphic?  ”ChartJunk”   3D transparency is difficult to read.  color gradient in data table is confusing/misleading.  the date itself is misleading–represents fish caught, not fish population.  one cannot draw meaningful conclusions from this.  this could have been a simple line chart.I agree that we need to change our fishing practices, but the following statement is false.  ”Using these numbers, we can see how some fish catches have peaked, meaning that there are simply not enough fish left to catch.”  

” some people commenting here think that there is not a problem.”Not exactly that. Many people are saying not enough data to really understand the figures. The way it is showed could lead to misinterpretation. For a better analysis there should be data about fish population studies compared to fish catch compared to laws and restrictions compared to the production coming from farms.etc.

This is not a great graph, but not many people are going to click on a
scientifically sound graph.  You have to realize that news is meant to
be eye-catching.  This problem IS supported by honest studies, and
populations are estimated using catch per unit effort, not simply
catch.  That means the fishermen fishing longer and with different gear
is taken into account.  There are complicated equations, large tables
and boring graphs representing that fish stocks are indeed depleted,
though not as much as one would infer directly from a graph like this. 
And very few people would pay attention to something like that.  I’m
not saying that’s a bad thing, that’s just how news works – for all
topics.

Fishermen dislike and do not trust the scientists, but really we’re
trying to preserve the industry.  Fish is an extremely important part
of our diet (often indirectly as fishmeal) and the decline of this
industry would cause many problems, including economic issues from loss
of fishing jobs.  We can’t just fish something until it’s gone either,
because other species will increase/decrease their populations in
response to another species being depleted, and once that point is
reached simply removing human fishing pressure may not be enough. 

The ‘good data’ posters want is easily found on the web.  Check sites
like NOAA or better yet, read primary articles (search using google
scholar).  It’s a really interesting problem, and the
public/fishermen/government/scientists not agreeing on solutions makes
it so much worse.

Just curious if ocean pollution may be a part of the larger picture?  Check out an environmental hero–Swain is doing his part to clean up the ocean http://www.changents.com/earthkeepers

If fish catch increases, that is bad, showing higher demand. If fish catch decreases, that is also bad, showing fish populations are depleted. If the argument is from fish populations, then one way or the other has to be good. Pick one. The good news, not presented in the graph: When a catch declines, humans move their demand to another species, leading to a stabilizing influence over time on fish populations.

[...] The article at Good Magazine [...]

Everyone’s in such a fuss over nothing!If and when we all start to die because of the horrible things we do to our planet and each other, the cost of living will go up, and fewer people will choose to do it! Additionally, you fail to incorporate an understanding of how we can use technology to create delicous robotic wind-powered fish.See, no problems!

“f I pick ten dandelion flowers per day out of my yard, and my daughter tells me to stop because she thinks they are pretty, so now I only pick one per day, does that mean that the number of dandelions in my lawn has crashed?”You metaphor is flawed.If you had only 10 minutes to go pick dandelions every day when they were in season and each day you found it more difficult to return with 100 dandelions, until you then started to find that your 10 minutes only yeilded 80 dandelions. What would your reacion be? I’m getting tired of picking dandelions so I get less. I need more time or a more efficient means of picking them.Surely you’d have to think there are less to be had?

“If I pick ten dandelion flowers per day out of my yard, and my daughter tells me to stop because she thinks they are pretty, so now I only pick one per day, does that mean that the number of dandelions in my lawn has crashed?”Your metaphor is flawed.If you had only 10 minutes to go pick dandelions every day when they were in season and each day you found it more difficult to return with 100 dandelions, until you then started to find that your 10 minutes only yeilded 80 dandelions. What would your reaction be? I’m getting tired of picking dandelions so I get less. I need more time or a more efficient means of picking them.Surely you’d have to think there are less to be had?

It is interesting to see how infographics can stir such sharply critical debates at all levels — from global issues (fish population depletion) down to tactical matters (data selection and design). While there is much to chew on here, I will offer my first impression of the infographic: it appears as though the 5 varieties of fish shown live at different depths in the ocean. The placement of the 3D area chart underwater presents some confusion, when the vertical scale is actually tons of fish caught, not depth. I would suggest omitting the water and the boat, simplifying the view to 2D, and labelling the vertical axis clearly, if the data shown is conveying the message strongly enough. I think it would be useful in this instance, and perhaps other GOOD Transparencies, for the editors and designers to revisit the data and design and strive for visualization that conveys a strong message with the least potential for misinterpretation. A clearer understanding of the data and the issues would inform a constructive, meaningful — and hopefully more civil — discussion.

This is a beautiful, eye-catching graphic. It has some data in it, which are interesting, but the way they are worked into the image is misleading: in this sense I agree with infodesigner above. So it seems there is a dilemna: Do we try to really make people people understand and risk them abandoning the message due to its complexity or unattractiveness? Or do we misrepresent data so that more people will be drawn to the information, and it spreads, so that the message is picked up and distributed by social media? And risk the message being disregarded because when properly analyzed it turns out not to accurately illustrate what it claims to do? Or should designers think harder about the communicative value of their illustrations?