Deep-sea fish overfished, more endangered than pandas

The latest research by Canadian scientists shows that various deep-water fish species in the Atlantic have been overfished by humans, and the situation is very serious; their survival status is even more endangered than that of giant pandas and Bengal tigers.

Canadian biologists studied five species of deep-sea fish in Canadian waters from 1978 to 1994 to understand the severe impact on marine ecology caused by coastal fishermen shifting to deep-sea fishing.

Scientists found that over seventeen years, these five fish species plunged by at least 87% and by as much as 98%.

In a paper published in the British journal Nature, they said: "They meet the criteria of the World Conservation Union and can be listed as critically endangered.

Among these five fish species, there are both common fish and rare fish.

They are the roundnose grenadier, the onion-eye grenadier, the blue hake, the spiny eel, and the spinytail skate.

In addition, the latest survey data for two other fish species (the roundnose grenadier and the onion-eye grenadier) come from 1995 to 2003. In these two cases, during the twenty-six-year study period, the numbers of these two fish species plunged by 99.6% to 93.3%. The research team led by scientist Jennifer Devine of Memorial University of Newfoundland said in the article that the above results strongly prove that deep-sea fishing is having a catastrophic impact on deep-sea fish.