{"id":3591,"date":"2024-04-22T08:48:06","date_gmt":"2024-04-22T12:48:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/js1cd06kre.onrocket.site\/?p=3591"},"modified":"2024-04-22T08:48:06","modified_gmt":"2024-04-22T12:48:06","slug":"a-fish-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2024\/04\/22\/a-fish-story\/","title":{"rendered":"A Fish Story"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0<\/em>click here<\/a>

In the late 1970s, commercial deep sea fishermen made an amazing discovery off the coast of Australia.

Nearly a mile beneath the surface there were vast schools of a large, reddish-orange species of fish.\u00a0 They were delicious.\u00a0 Their filets, which exuded almost no fishy smell or taste, delighted chefs.

From a marketing standpoint, there was just one problem.\u00a0 These fish were called slimeheads <\/em>\u2013 not exactly the sort of name that launches a global fish-feasting frenzy. \u00a0<\/em>Someone proposed an alternative.\u00a0 Why not call them orange roughy<\/em>?

In 1975, no one was eating orange roughy.\u00a0 Within 15 years, 90,000 tons were being consumed annually worldwide.

That\u2019s when marine biologists began to make some alarming discoveries.\u00a0

Orange roughy may live to be 200 years old.\u00a0 It takes them a long time to attain their average two-foot length.\u00a0 They also wait as long as 35 to 40 years to mate.\u00a0 A 2022 study revealed that the fish in 95% of the orange roughy stocks worldwide were reproducing at age 73 \u2013 which seems to indicate these fish prefer to hold off having kids until Medicare is able to pay the maternity bills.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0

Orange roughy tend to live solitary lives until spawning season, when they gather in enormous groups.\u00a0 That\u2019s why they had eluded fishermen for so long.

Unfortunately, that\u2019s also what makes their population vulnerable to a precipitous collapse:\u00a0Deep-trawl fisheries capture them en masse <\/em>before the mating process concludes.

There\u2019s a reason you haven\u2019t seen nearly as much orange roughy on restaurant menus or in the seafood department of your local grocery store in recent years.\u00a0 They\u2019re almost all gone<\/em>.

It\u2019s estimated that fish-lovers consumed 90% of the world\u2019s supply of orange roughy in less than 30 years.\u00a0 And because they are what ecologists call a fish of \u201cvery low resilience\u201d \u2013 meaning it takes them an exceedingly long time to bounce back \u2013 we may never experience them in great numbers again.

Should we care about the demise of a fish that lives a mile below the surface of the ocean?

One of our Earth Day opportunities every year is the chance to reflect on our stewardship of the planet that we share with myriad other creatures.

Stewardship is not ownership.\u00a0 This is God\u2019s world, not ours.\u00a0

Stewardship is the notion that we\u2019ve been called to tend the earth on God\u2019s behalf \u2013 one of the original \u201cstanding orders\u201d for the first humans (Genesis 2:15): \u201cThe LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.\u201d\u00a0 Alternative translations for that last verb include \u201ckeep it,\u201d \u201cwatch over it,\u201d \u201cguard it,\u201d \u201ctend it,\u201d \u201ccare for it,\u201d and \u201ckeep it in order\u201d \u2013 all of which imply the fulfillment of a trust given to us by our Creator.\u00a0

But the earth seems so big, and the problems so overwhelming, that we hardly know where to start.\u00a0 Here are some possibilities:

Be alert and aware.\u00a0 <\/em>Environmental stories rarely rate as \u201cbreaking news,\u201d but every year we learn important new things about the challenges and opportunities of sustainability \u2013 how we can better care for the water, air, forests, animals, and natural resources that quite literally care for us.\u00a0

If you love fish, choose to eat a resilient species.\u00a0 <\/em>Tilapia, for instance.\u00a0 Tilapia stocks are rising around the world, and these mild-tasting, freshwater fish can thrive even in muddy ponds.\u00a0

Pray.\u00a0<\/em>This may seem to be an odd recommendation.\u00a0 But stewardship is essentially a spiritual commitment, and prayer connects us with the Artist and Architect behind everything.

Soften your spirit.\u00a0<\/em>Behind much of Western history lies the conviction that the Earth is here for us<\/u><\/em>.\u00a0 Orange roughy is just a big dumb fish, after all.\u00a0 Shouldn\u2019t we be able to eat whatever we want?

But the more we cultivate a reverence for life \u2013 a profound respect for the value of every living thing \u2013 the more we will find ourselves becoming stewards of God\u2019s best stuff instead of mere consumers.

After all, we don\u2019t want to end up being the species most deserving of the name slimehead.<\/em>
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To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0click here In the late 1970s, commercial deep sea fishermen made an amazing discovery off the coast of Australia. Nearly a mile beneath the surface there were vast schools of a large, reddish-orange species of fish.\u00a0 They were delicious.\u00a0 Their filets, which exuded almost no fishy smell or taste, delighted chefs. From a… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3592,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[216,504],"class_list":["post-3591","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-earth-day","tag-stewardship"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3591","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3591"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3591\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3593,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3591\/revisions\/3593"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3592"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3591"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}