In response:

Global Collapse of fish species is the underlying theme of Life Line Twenty Fifty,  a new science fiction book by Richard Thomas Rupe.  The future mystery is set in a community learning campus on the west side of Erie Pennsylvania (high school / college combo) and a primary Life Learning Center; located near the environs of Presque Isle. The time frame, 2050, coincides with the international scientific community’s prediction, as seen in Science magazine, Guardian Unlimited (an endangered species watch organization, Associated Press partners such as the Youngstown Vindicator and quoted in the N.Y. Times.(see above)


Excerpt:  Prologue / SeaFood Cartel

          The largest fishing, processing, and refrigerated packaging tanker in world fishing history cruises swiftly to the west along the Tropic of Capricorn, one hundred kilometers south of Tonga in the South Pacific. The massive ship, a floating fishing and packaging factory, is a re-design of an obsolete late 20th century oil tanker. 

            Deep inside the ships steel hull four net men wait for the signal to move into action.  A nervous and guilt torn Juan Martinez breaks the silence.

            "That's it, we're way over the limit, bring the nets in."  Yells young Juan to his three co-net men.  All are well-paid workers on the gargantuan Metalin, owned and operated by the Seafood Cartel of the Americas, home officed in Columbia.

             Again Juan blurts out,  "They said we'd stop at 300,000 metric tons, we hit that limit three days ago, if we keep this up there won't be a single albacore tuna left, God forgive us."  Juan is obviously torn apart by guilt and acting it out emotionally, which is his nature.

            Many of the others, on the Metalin, feel the same but keep quiet.  They know from years of experience what Juan will eventually accept, that they will be grateful on payday back in their little coastal towns as they enjoy the good fortune with their families.  Many would be grateful to replace them.   Indeed, thousands of electronic applications are received every week at the employment offices of this successful fishing company.

            Rico, up to now has been merely nodding his head in calming reassurance to his friend and brother-in-law, "Calm down Juan! We work the nets, as we're told, like our fathers, and grandfathers.  Catching the very last tuna is not on our heads.  The Cartel, the preservationists, and world government officials know these things. It's beyond us Juan, we just wait till we get the yellow light to start pulling in the nets." 

            As crew leader it's Rico's style to let new netmen react and to get it out, but now as Juan starts to walk away, he turns and demands, "Where do you think you're going Juan?" 

            Juan throws down his grappling tool that he uses to free the nets from snags and tangles during retrieval, lately much more tangled due to their tremendous over-capacity.  "I'll be damned if I do this any longer Rico.  I quit, and I'm telling the preservationists everything I know when we get back to Columbia."

            "Juan, you're talking crazy as hell, how are you and Carla going to live, you think you'll get hired on another boat?  The Cartel owns them all, you'll get laughed out of town, and if you talk to the preservation people the Cartel might even kill you, and your family!"

            "Later Rico, I'm going to my rack," Juan points to their foreman up in his glass-walled observation area near the cable spools, "Tell Garcia that I got sick from the stench of the greed!" 

            Outside of the ship, about half a kilometer away, another greed-stimulated confrontation is about to erupt.

            Several small Pied-Piper watercrafts are being used to confuse and herd the great fish to their executions.  On one of those sleek, swift boats rides Dr. Frank Slaughter, the only American.  Slaughter speaks their native tongue as he trains young fisherman how to use the new sonar equipment.  Just as he hands the dark keypad to the young Columbian, another identical boat approaches causing a spray which splashes and irritates Slaughter.

            A Columbian officer leans over the side of the intruding boat and yells, in his best attempt at English, and with stern resolve, "Slaughter, nets are full, must stop herding and signal to ship to pull them in."

            Slaughter calls back, equally firm,  "The Sea is swollen with tuna, the sonar is bringing them from two-hundred kilometers, we can't stop yet."

            "No!   We can't handle more, our nets are damaged, and the crew is exhausted."  The man puts up his hand in a stop gesture and gives a final order, "That's it, we're finished, I'm calling the ship." The second boat turns quickly and speeds away.

            Slaughter has no authority to override the decision; and is not an officer of any standing on this fishing mission. 

            Slaughter's only motivation is to demonstrate the awesome potential for this new technology.  He's a brilliant electrical engineer and sonar equipment technician, a consultant, and a partner in a Seafood Cartel subsidiary research company that stands to make a fortune on this new device.  What he is not, is interested in endangered species.

            As the order to start the final funneling comes over the small craft's speaker, Slaughter sits back in his chair and accepts the decision.  Quite content with the success of the new equipment, he wonders if any of these ignorant fishermen have a clue of what happens in the brains of those fish.  He grins to himself and looks away at the other small boats scurrying into position for the final maneuvers.

            The herding boats are moving nearer, each back from their scouting and gathering missions.  All used the same new equipment. The fishermen don't ask questions, so they don't have to lie about what they know.  They were told merely that it locates and attracts large schools.   Herding them into a tight, easily netted mass is a simple matter now for the eight high-speed boats.

            Back on the ship, a buzzer sounds and the blue light changes to blinking yellow.

            "Yellow light Juan, let's haul em in.  Don't leave us now Juan, come help, this takes the four of us, this is the last catch, they promised!"

            Rico presses the necessary combination of switches starting the motors; the tow cables begin to move toward the take-up spools on the ceiling near the glassed-in office.

            Within a few moments the dimly lit enclosed rectangular metal room, large enough to hold several small houses, is totally transformed into a bright tuna processing area.  Electric motors whine, building to maximum speed. Bright lights are turned on automatically.  Hydraulic systems are engaged and the two huge bay doors, actually part of the ship's hull, begin to pull out and away.  Four large externally located hydraulic-cylinder arms are pulling the huge smooth metal doors.  The arms pull the gigantic doors, together the size of a basketball-court floor, out and then turned and angled down at 45 degrees into the ocean water forming a ramp. 

            Simultaneously, the large room’s metal floor, divided into four sets of yellow-lined mating panels, begins to fold down at the yellow lines revealing four, long, v-shaped, troughs. The open troughs signal the anticipation of the automated handling of thousands of heavy, slippery, and desperately thrashing tuna.

            As the conveyers are started at the bottom of the v-shaped troughs, an alarm sounds to remind the netmen to be aware that a single unrailed two-meter walkway on the outside walls is now all that they have between them and the deep troughs.  

            The entire enclosed area is now blasted with a salty ocean spray and splash from the net ramp now colliding with the ship's wake.  The large opening reveals the partially overcast evening sky's red sunset that flashes through the clouds enough to color the spray droplets with purples and reds, and beyond lies the dark vast South Pacific. 

            Ten meters below the bottom of the opening, the black ocean is alive with the same colorful reflections upon the shimmering bodies of thousands of tuna swimming in desperate chaos attempting to find their freedom.  Off in the distance the small Pied-Piper watercraft are finishing their task of confusing and herding the great fish into the nets and their executions.

            Nearly stumbling into an open trough near the bay passage door on the left side, Juan turns and yells, "this is my last one, I swear it this time Rico."

            Rico, now excited by the challenge of this enormous catch, "This'll be one to remember, look at those gauges, this may break the record, we'll get big bonus' Juan.  Let's take the women to Cuba. Havana’s a party town man, what do you say?"

            The conveyors are now in operation, ready to move whatever is on them toward the processing area.  Juan works his way carefully along the walkways overlooking the deep troughs. "I say the cables will snap on this one and the tuna will all die in the water again, just like last month.  We'll get half the catch if we're lucky.  You know man, this is so wrong, we kill and spill as much as we keep, it doesn't have to be this way.  The damn Cartel is too greedy, too wasteful."

             "Look at those tuna jump man, what a catch!" Rico says as the nets begin to break through the surface revealing the teaming mass of ocean life that had been caught in their drift nets.

             This retrieval bay #4 is only one of eight, on this oil-tanker-sized fishing vessel with a crew of nearly 400.   Cheers can be heard in the distance from different parts of the ship, as the record breaking catch thrills the sonar-herding, drift-net fishermen, as they collectively make history in possibly the largest single catch in world fishing history, and the most illegal, on this the fifteenth of January 2050.  Big bonus' and vacations dance in their heads.

            The nets bulge with several hundreds of large tuna; each tuna is three to five times the size of a man.  Pulled by the nets the tuna slide up the support ramps extending into the sea water just ten meters below.  Rico, and now the other two men are pleading with Juan to help, "It's to late now to get a replacement, the first tuna will be inside in ten more seconds! Get over here and help us!"

            Juan realizes that the crew needs him badly, and reluctantly picks up his grappling tool and moves into his position, ready to pull the nets free, to untangle snags and twists.

            The metal room, just moments before dim and quiet, is now completely transformed, the smells and sounds of the frantic tuna, the ocean spray, and the light show from the evening South Pacific sky dance through the room in wild chaos.

            Seemingly in total control, the net retrieval mechanisms efficiently begin spilling the tuna into the troughs.  Then swiftly and efficiently the helpless victims are funneled to the bottom where moving conveyors move them toward the central processing, packing, and refrigeration areas. 

            The troughs are alive with squirming and tossing.  Every five seconds or so the strong tuna make attempts to jump to freedom.  Some land on the walkway and flop in desperation only to fall back into the trough.  The panicked brains of the tuna are no longer filled with the confusing sonar, they now hear and feel the vibrations of electric motors and the crashing of their own bodies on the metal surfaces.

            The experienced Rico looks at the gauges, reading red line, he yells to his men to be alert for cable failure.  The noise of the fish slapping, squealing, and chirping is a horrifying experience for new netmen like Juan.  Juan doesn't hear the warning as he inserts his hook into the net to free a snag.

            A loud sound like a canon is heard; the men instinctively all wince, duck, and hit the floor.  Next, the recoiling snapped cable slaps the ceiling, then bounces down and just misses Rico lying in the fetal position near the control panel.  The connected cable loop, at the spool end, slaps the foremen's observation window shattering the glass, and destroying the equipment panel in front of the bosses. 

            Glass, metal, sparks and other debris, as well as Garcia and the other bosses are thrown around the small elevated observation booth. One managed to dive out the door and onto the metal grate landing leading to the stairs. 

            Five seconds later, a scared Rico unwraps his arms from his head to see the face of a large tuna just inches from his. He lets out a loud sick groan, pushes the fish away, and looks up from the floor.  Still in shock, he sees the nets falling back into the water.  Rico screams in horror when he sees Juan being dragged along with the franticly jumping and writhing tuna, now he too, is fighting for his life.

            Rico tries to get up to save Juan, but falls over the tuna squirming on the floor.  "No! No!  Juan let go!"  Juan slips and slides over and then under the thrashing fish.

The weight of the fish on the ramp and in the water drags and strains the torn net held by one cable, that has gone limp. Suddenly the massive weight tears the remaining net ropes and all at once the tuna, the ends of the net, and Juan somewhere buried in the pile, all fall back into the sea.

            Holding on to a metal pole for support, Rico gets to his feet and reaches for the alarm to bring the emergency crew to Bay #4.  Rico steps over the actively squirming fish and the slimy wet floor to view down the smooth ramp. The nets finally let go freeing the tuna back into the water, however, the captive animals bound in a compressed mass, now slap the side of the ship, being cruelly slaughtered as they crush each other, suffocate, and many go into deathly shock.

            The emergency team arrives to find Rico and the other two netmen hanging over the wide opening, watching for any sign of Juan, but nothing hopeful can be seen.  Juan is under the chaotic fish, or under the ship probably crashing against the hull, or if he has gotten free, the fast current leading to the propellers or into the open sea would have taken him.

            The crew watches, knowing that the other seven bays retrieving operations will not stop to attempt the rescue of one net man.  A beloved captain had been fired and never heard from again for stopping during a catch, not near the size of this one.

            This had happened before.   And will no doubt happen again, the sea has claimed another fisherman.  Rico cries for his good friend and brother-in-law, and thinks of his sister Carla whose life will be destroyed by the tragic news that he must tell her.  

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