Shifting Standards - Fish and "Shifting Baseline Syndrome" off Florida

Shifting Standards - Fish and "Shifting Baseline Syndrome" off Florida

The decline of large fish off Florida's coast is evident by comparing photos taken by tourists and anglers decades ago with what they see today. In the past, it was commonplace to see photos holding up marlin, giant groupers, and other fish over two meters in length. In the 21st century, however, these fish rapidly disappeared, and all that remained to be caught were much smaller fish. This phenomenon is known as the "shifting baseline syndrome. It is a psychological and social phenomenon in which each generation is unable to recall the original abundance of the natural environment due to the continual decline in the standards of the natural environment that they perceive as "natural.

As a historical background, from the 1960s to the 1980s, the leisure fishing and tourism industries in the United States greatly developed. Florida was a symbolic region, and tourists from all over the world came to enjoy "deep-sea fishing. However, the increasing demand and pressure of fishing led to a rapid decline in the stock. In addition, since the 1980s, the development of freezing and distribution technology has added pelagic fishing and commercial overfishing, further damaging coastal resources.

At the time, American society had entered a high-consumption society and tended to prioritize economic growth over the sustainability of food and recreational resources. Environmental regulations were still inadequate, and systems such as marine protected areas and catch limits were not in place. As a result, even when people felt that the fish were getting smaller, the people on the ground were convinced that this was just the way things were, and they failed to remember the original rich ecosystems.

This psychological slowdown can be seen not only in Florida but also in coastal areas around the world. A similar phenomenon has been reported in Japanese coastal fisheries and Mediterranean fisheries, where people assume that the fish are smaller than in the past, but that today's standards are normal. This is not just a problem of declining resources, but also indicates the danger of cultures and societies accepting "poor nature.

The shifting baseline syndrome is a social pathology that blinds us to sustainability. The disappearance of fish off the coast of Florida is a prime example of this, reflecting the limits of human memory and delays in institutional design.