Mediterranean Seafood - Prospect Books

16 mediterranean seafood
Plankton is the basic food of fish in the larval state, and of pelagic and some
other fish in the adult state. Where it is lacking the whole fish population is
affected, because even those fish which do not feed directly on plankton will
feel its loss at one or two removes. The Black Sea, well fed by great rivers such
as the Danube, is comparatively rich in plankton. The Mediterranean itself is
poor. The famous blueness of the Mediterranean and the clarity of its waters
betray this poverty, and while they attract human beings they signal a marine
desert to fish. The relative poverty of the Mediterranean, most severe in the
eastern basin, accounts for the limited population of pelagic fish. The net
effect of the exchange of waters with the Atlantic is not helpful in this respect.
Looking ahead to the future, scientists are wondering whether some artificial
means can be found of creating a greater vertical movement of waters in
the Mediterranean, since there are nutrients at depths where they cannot be
utilized. Meanwhile it is unhappily true that the broad trend is for fish supplies
in the Mediterranean to diminish, although much valuable work is being
done, often with stimuli and help from the FAO, to offset the disadvantageous
factors, for instance by improving the cultivation of fish in the numerous
brackish lagoons around the Mediterranean coast.
(Right) A coin of Acragas, showing a crab and a fish which might be either a
mérou or a rascasse.
MediterraneanSeafood.pdf 16 26/06/2012 10:52