A Canadian scientist known for his studies of shrinking fish populations has an inoperable brain tumour, the Canadian Press reported Wednesday.

Ransom Myers, 54, who holds the Killam chair of Ocean Studies at Dalhousie University in Halifax, has been in a hospital in the city since November.

Ransom Myers, 54, holds the Killam chair of Ocean Studies at Dalhousie University in Halifax.

The scientist, who has worked on more than 100 peer-reviewed papers, was among the team that published an article in the Jan. 9 issue of Current Biology called "Saving endangered whales at no cost."

It argues that a change in the U.S. lobster-fishing season in the Gulf of Maine can cut the number of deaths among the 350 right whales, a protected species nearly extinct in Europe, which live in the North Atlantic. Getting caught in fishing gear is a serious threat, the article said. 

The Gulf of Maine is a leading lobster fishery, but the Canadian and U.S. rules in the shared water are wildly different. The Canadian season is winter only, compared with the U.S. full-year season, and Canadian fishermen use only one-eighth the traps the U.S. fishermen do.

Yet in spite of the much greater effort, the U.S. catch is only 30 per cent higher than the Canadian catch.

Based on cost-benefit studies, the authors said if Maine adopted a six-month season and cut the number of traps by a factor of 10, fishermen would have a higher total income and the risk to whales would be reduced.

90 per cent of prize fish gone

Myers and Boris Worm, also of Dalhousie, reported in 2003 that the world's oceans have lost 90 per cent of prized tuna, swordfish and marlin since industrialized fishing began.

"What we've done is sliced the head off of the world's marine ecosystem and we don't know the consequences," Myers said at the time.

His website at Dalhousie highlights studies on coral reefs, leatherback turtles, the status of marine populations and the wastage caused by commercial fishing. A 2005 study said that a fifth of the fish caught in the United States — 1.06 million tonnes a year — is discarded as unwanted bycatch.

Myers made Fortune magazine's Top 10 list of people to watch in 2005, when the magazine said he "is working to develop new and better ways to husband the wealth beneath the sea." 

Dalhousie's Myers lab website invites visitors to "Leave a get-well message for Ram."

With files from the Canadian Press