Overfishing has become a global concern as for years many fisheries are catching copious amounts of fish that can't repopulate fast enough before they are caught again. This action causes many types of desired fish by humans, as well as other fish, to become endangered or even extinct. The reason for this is that millions of people all over the globe depend on the ocean for their staple food an income. Fisheries want to maximize the amount of fish they can catch by using large pieces of equipment and fish find trackers. Fisheries have the ability to use huge drift nets that can catch hundreds if not thousands of fish at one time. The United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization describes that over 70 percent of the world’s fisheries are exploited thus, a result of overfishing. The major impact of overfishing has resulted in jeopardizing the ecosystem. Overfishing can cause havoc and destroy the environment completely disrupt the food chain. For example, herring is a prey species for cod. When herring is overfished the cod population suffers too. Overfishing doesn’t just lead to the extinction of one fish, it disrupts the entire food chain. Overfishing can be connected to this course because we learn about sustainability and how using up vital resources too quickly doesn’t give the next generation those same resources. We need to preserve what we have and inforce moderation when it comes to industries like fisheries. At the rate we are going we can completely wipe out many of the oceans fish species thus, causing the food chain to be altered. What I would do is create and enforce laws that constrict the amount of fish you are allowed to capture on each trip by weight. If you are over the weight limit you can be severely fined as you are again jeopardizing the species as well as the environment. Hopefully fisheries can see they are harming the environment and will have careful consideration before it’s too late.
I find this topic interesting, because normally we associatie efficiency to be a good thing, so one might think that the ability to capture all these fish at once is a good thing. However, as you pointed out, this ability has led to us overfishing, which not only depletes the population of fish, but also disrupts ecosystems and food chains. I like your idea of limiting fish capturing, and using weight as a measuring stick. Maybe even throw in a fine for those who violate this requirement, so that there is another incentive to prevent us from overfishing.
ReplyDeleteI found your choice of topic very interesting, and was glad you mentioned that overfishing not only paves towards extinction but also disrupts the entire marine life. Throughout the reading, I kept wondering how many other marine life cycles were being tampered with due to overfishing. I like your idea of weighing fish after fishing and place charges on people who fished above the weight limit. I feel that there is a small detail we need to add to your idea. We need to specify the maximum weight of each species of fish. If we place a law restricting it to a certain weight, the fishermen could catch only one kind of fish the entire fishing trip, which could one day lead to endangerment of that specific species.
ReplyDeleteI like that you provide a solution to the issue of overfishing. You state that 70% of fisheries are overexploited due to overfishing. Do you know where the 30% are not overfished? What makes those fisheries not exploited? While laws work for the United States, we are not even in the top ten for fishing output; how would you incentivize other countries to pass similar laws?
ReplyDeleteOverfishing is very detrimental to oceans and different ecosystems and you did a good job at describing what happens and why it is bad. I also like the picture you used, it is very interesting to look at. You have many details and source which is also nice.
ReplyDeleteThank you for bringing attention to this topic. It's very unfortunate that humans are causing the extinction of many animals species, including fish. Hopefully something can be done to prevent the extinction of these species and limit the amount of fish that can be caught in different regions at the same time.
ReplyDeleteIt is scary to think that one day there will be no more fish in the ocean if we continue to that practice of overfishing. This is a very interesting topic and we have to better protect the natural resources at our disposal. Otherwise the food supplies of the world will be in danger. Great post!
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