At the heart of their story is the bizarre fact that there are more fine fish swimming in the tiny tanks than there are in the surrounding sea.

Having overfished and polluted its own waters to the point where they are home mainly to great ghosts of the past, the territory now imports up to 90 percent of its seafood.

The problem with that, scientists say, is that Hong Kong is a microcosm of a marine disaster in which wild fish are being eaten out of existence worldwide.

"It is a sign of what is happening in most of the fisheries in the world," says Guillermo Moreno, head of environment group WWF's marine program in Hong Kong. "It's a scary panorama."

In scenes replayed throughout the territory, the seafood for restaurants in Yung Shue Wan, Lamma Island, arrives while most of the village is still asleep.

Through the rough streets, wiry men in singlets trundle trolleys laden with sloshing buckets full of struggling fish nearing the end of their lives far from their usual habitat on distant, colorful coral reefs.

They are tipped into crowded tanks outside restaurants lining the harbor to await the pointing finger of a diner which will flag the last leg of their long journey, to the kitchen.

At weekends, the open-air restaurant tables under spinning fans host large family gatherings where cheerful children tuck into food that researchers say may disappear in their lifetimes.

Restaurateur Ben Chan Kin-keung acknowledges local waters no longer provide what his customers want, but says that is not a problem - at the moment.

"It's very fast and convenient to import seafood around the globe either by plane or ship," Chan says.

But he knows the feast cannot last and says it is already becoming difficult to find fish in the quantities he requires.

"It's like people just want to eat the fish when they are not [even] born. I'm afraid that I may have to change my job in 10 years' time."

Offshore from the restaurants, a lone trawler dredges the jade sea - but bleak records show it is unlikely to bring up table-worthy fish.

"The average size of fish now caught in these bottom trawls is about 10 grams," says Professor Yvonne Sadovy of the University of Hong Kong. "To put this into some kind of context, Hong Kong was a famous fishing center in the past and we had incredibly productive and species-rich ground fisheries."

WWF says that "Hong Kong waters were incredibly rich just decades ago with manta rays, hammerhead sharks, giant grouper and croakers taller than a man. In less than a lifetime it has lost them all."

Sadovy, a marine scientist who has made a special study of local waters, says there are several reasons fisheries are in such a bad state.

High demand for seafood and a lack of regulation fueled overfishing which combined with pollution and loss of habitat to push fish populations "well beyond their capacity to regenerate themselves."

The scale of the pollution may be gauged a short boat ride away from the harborside diners enjoying their seafood, where a few pale-pink backs may be seen breaking the surface of the gray-green sea of the Pearl River Delta.

These are the famed pink dolphins, but the most surprising thing about the beautiful creatures is not their color - it's the fact that they are alive at all.

Flush the toilet in any of the high-rise apartments or offices housing a population of seven million and it will likely go almost directly into the sea.

Add to that the effluent oozing down the Pearl River from thousands of frantically busy factories in the mainland and you have a "horrendous cocktail."

A keen diver, Sadovy says she has seen fish deformed by the pollutants, and points out that many of them - such as the heavy metals - will poison the seas for years to come.

But WWF's Moreno points out that pollution of the oceans is a worldwide menace: "Catch a bluefin tuna out in the middle of the ocean and it will contain mercury."

So overfishing must take most of the blame for the pitiful state of Hong Kong's fisheries - just as it does for the collapse of cod fisheries in Europe and Canada and the threat to species globally.

The fish in the tanks in the local restaurants pose a question for ecologically aware diners: Is it no longer acceptable to eat fish?

Moreno and Sadovy, both passionate about their subject, say they don't eat shrimp because of the destructive methods used to catch it in the wild and shrimp farming's devastation of environmentally important mangroves on Southeast Asian shores.

But they do eat fish - provided they are species that are caught or farmed in a sustainable way.

WWF websites provide regional guides to dining with a clear conscience that can be downloaded and taken to the restaurant. AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE