Oceans Have Fewer Kinds Of Fish

Overfishing Among Causes, Study Says

By Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, July 29, 2005; Page A03

The variety of species in the world's oceans has dropped by as much as 50 percent in the past 50 years, according to a paper published today in the journal Science.

A combination of overfishing, habitat destruction and climate change has narrowed the range of fish across the globe, wrote biologists Boris Worm and Ransom A. Myers of Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia and three other scientists. In some areas, such as off northwest Australia where a wide variety of tuna and billfish used to thrive, diversity has declined precipitously.