First it was teeming cod, now Alaska’s once-abundant king salmon stock follows suit, with local smokehouses empty. The salmon run virtually vanished this year, a repeat of ’07’s disastrous harvest. Salmon spawn in fresh water rivers, such as the Yukon, then live a further 3 years in the ocean, until migration and death. But with no migration upriver, there’s no spawning, and zilch harvest. The decline is officially a mystery, although prime suspect are Pollock/saithe fisheries, which remove some 1 million metric ton annually from the Bering Sea. (Valued at nearly $1 billion, its discarded by-catch is of equal or greater value.) Since 2000 the “incidental” number of king salmon caught by mistake increased to 120,000 annually. Next year sees a decrease in the pollock fleet numbers, but it’s already too late, and village economies devastated -- especially as salmon is the dietary mainstray for Inuits. Changing ocean currents from global warming, plus plankton blooms exacerbate the situation.

Conversely, seeding oceans with iron to increase plankton growth is touted as an extreme remedy to global warming, as these drifting organisms feed on atmospheric CO2.

Bluefin Tuna. Japanese imports of endangered Atlantic bluefin tuna almost stopped this year. Seems commercial fisheries management commissions are compromised, and not up to the role, as the country won a contentious ballot against CITES, a wildlife conservation treaty. Japanese consume some 80% of the world’s supply, most as premium sushi. “If the ban is allowed in the Atlantic Ocean, tuna in the Pacific Ocean and the Indian Ocean may be next,” a Japan Fisheries Agency spokesman claimed. “Other fish species, such as Pacific cod, also may be designated.” (We’ve previously written about sablefish catch shortages.) Just as troubling: EU countries fish and trade bluefin tuna unhindered, as its considered “domestic” and outside CITE’s scope. The next vote will be in 2013.

Japan had it’s Southern Ocean quota halved by Australia in ’07 as punishment for 20 years systematic cheating on catch allocations of Southern Bluefin. It is now considered over-fished to the point of collapse.

The world’s most popular fish is endangered. This year’s failure to enact Pacific fishing quotas on Bigeye tuna leaves both canned and fresh at risk. Japan, Korea, China and Taiwan are unable to follow the advice given to them by their own scientists, decries a Greenpeace spokesman. Meanwhile, Pacific island nations, already under threat from global warming, face unsustainable fishing in unregulated zones outside their legal borders.