万物简史 第404期:浩瀚的海洋(23)

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were between them taking twice as many fish from the sea as they had just twenty-five years earlier. 它们每年从海里的捕鱼量是25年前的两倍。

Trawlers are sometimes now as big as cruise ships and haul behind them nets big enough to hold a dozen jumbo jets. 现在的拖网渔船有时候大得很像巡洋舰，后面拖的网大得能装下十几架大型客机。

Some even use spotter planes to locate shoals of fish from the air. 有的甚至使用侦察机从空中寻找鱼群。

It is estimated that about a quarter of every fishing net hauled up contains "by-catch", 据估计，每拖上来一网，大约有四分之一是“无意捕获物”，

fish that can't be landed because they are too small or of the wrong type or caught in the wrong season. 即因为太小而抓不住的鱼，或不该捞的鱼，或不该在那个季节捕的鱼。

As one observer told the Economist¹: "We're still in the Dark Ages. We just drop a net down and see what comes up." 正如一位观察员对《经济学家》杂志说的：“我们仍处于愚昧黑暗时代。我们只是把网一撤，看看能捞上来什么。”

Perhaps as much as twenty-two million metric tons of such unwanted fish are dumped back in the sea each year, mostly in the form of corpses². 每年大约有多达2200万吨这类不要的鱼倒回海里，大多数是以尸体的形式。

For every pound of shrimp³ harvested, about four pounds of fish and other marine⁴ creatures are destroyed. 每收获1千克虾，就有大约4千克鱼和别的海洋动物遭受灭顶之灾。

Large areas of the North Sea floor are dragged clean by beam trawlers as many as seven times a year, 北海的大片海床，每年要被横衔拖网渔船扫荡七次，

a degree of disturbance⁵ that no ecosystem⁶ can withstand. 哪个生态系统也受不了这等干扰。

At least two-thirds of species in the North Sea, by many estimates, are being overfished. 据许多人估计，北海至少有三分之二的鱼类处于过捕捞的状态。

Across the Atlantic things are no better. 在新英格兰近海，

Halibut once abounded⁷ in such numbers off New England that individual boats could land twenty thousand pounds of it in a day. 原来大比目鱼如此之多，分散的渔船一天可以捕捞到9000多千克。

Now halibut is all but extinct off the northeast coast of North America. 如今，大比目鱼在美国东北海岸附近几乎已经灭绝。

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