144th Annual Meeting of the American Fisheries Society

August 17 - 21, 2014

Just over fifteen years ago in their seminal work, Dan Pauly and his colleagues coined the phrase “fishing down the food web”.  That phrase described how fisheries systematically target fish species lower and lower in the food web as they deplete higher trophic levels.  This can have dramatic impacts on an ecosystem.  However, this view is not shared by all fisheries biologists.  The American Institute of Research Fisheries Biologist would like to bring the debate to Quebec.  The objective of this symposium will be to hear both sides of the “fishing down the food web” argument.  We will bring together experts with various outlooks on the topic including one of the original authors of the idea, Villy Christensen.  The symposium will look at the impacts of mean trophic level of the catch and its utility as an ecosystem indicator.  While we may not be able to answer the question of whether or not we are still fishing down the food web, hopefully we can avoid eating jellyfish and plankton soup.