Overfishing

Overfishing is when you fish to the point where the fish population is greatly reduced. The fish population of 2012 is largely lower then it was 20 years ago. A lot of fish have been depleted to the point of almost extinction. Some fish have just all together disapeared. Over fishing is bad for the environment and should be stopped. There are other sources of food so we don't need to catch all the edible fish in the sea, and kill all the none edible marine life in the process of trying to fish. When fishing the fishers nets catch turtles, dolphins, sharks, and many other animals. The animals get trapped and can not breath. The fishers cut the nets loose when they get tangled, if animals are trapped then they have no chance of escaping. This causes a domino effect, the fish all get caught and the other marine animals don't have enough food so they start to die off. Those animals start to die and other marine animal populations grow to large and begin to eat to much plant life causing they're numbers to be reduced. The reduced plant life means the fish we catch don't have anything to eat so we have less fish to catch. This will cause people to try to fish more, killing more marine life. It is a never ending cycle unless we stop over fishing. Another possible damino affect is "A specific example includes the grouper fish, a very popular fish to eat, can be found in the Great Barrier Reef (Coral Reefs). The overfishing of grouper in some cases has led to an increase of damselfish, which is a major food supply for the Grouper fish. Damselfish, help create pockets in corals that are important for coral reef life (Coral Reefs). That's where the algae the damselfish feed upon grow (Coral Reefs). If the damselfish population isnt controlled by natural predation, these algae can take over a

reef, eventually killing it (Coral Reefs). Overfishing of other herbivorous fishes can also lead to high levels of algal growth in different cases. " http://sitemaker.umich.edu/gc2sec7labgroup3/over-fishing Some fish are extremely rare, and more are even rarer. Fish disappear all the time because they are all caught or there are no other fish of there specices to mate with. People kill sharks for their fins. Reef shark population is 90% less in areas inhabited by humans then it is in areas farther from humans. Advances in fish technology makes it easier to fish but, harder for fish to hide. Which in turn, is destroying the coral reefs. Over fishing upsets the delicate ecosystem of the coral reefs for example "Overfishing removes links from the food chain with the depletion of species. This means that the predators above struggle to find food, while the organisms lower in the chain enjoy growth, which upsets the ecological balance of the reef and can lead to reef destruction when certain species prosper. For example, the Crown of Thorns starfish feeds on coral, destroying the reef. "

Read more: The Effects of Overfishing on Coral Reefs | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/info_8403235_effects-overfishing-coral-reefs.html#ixzz1trVAsu3r An example of what happens when we over fish a region would be the blue walleye " The blue walleye (Sander vitreus glaucus), was a subspecies of the walleye that went extinct in the Great Lakes in the 1980s. Until the middle of the 20th century, it was a commercially valuable fish with about a half million tonnes being landed during the period from about 1880 to the late 1950s, when the populations collapsed. The fish was endemic to lakes Erie and Ontario of the Great Lakes region of North America, including the inter-connecting Niagara River, but most especially to Lake Erie where it sometimes

represented more than 50% of the commercial catch. Where once the subspecies numbered in the millions, all are now gone." http://www.tititudorancea.org/z/blue_walleye.htm the Blue Walleye that people eat are over 50years old. While we overfish there is more food which means it's cheaper and more fish need to be sold to get usual amount of money. This means you have to fish more causing a greater abundance of food.

cyanide fishing Water quality has been greatly reduced in coral. Quality reduction is do to soil erosion and agriculture. Fish at the top of the food chain have been so over-fished that the primary organizams at the bottom of the food chain become over populated. That is not ideal because the increase in primary organizms puts more nutrients into the water, causing algae to bloom that smother new coral growth. Also, the depletion of large predatory fish in the Caribbean can cause large numbers of Hump Head parrot fish that can consume five tons of coral a year. Another problem is the tropical fish industry, and the way they catch the fish they to sell to people. One of the methods is using cyanide, which is a extreamly toxic poison. The methode is that they pour cyanide into the water to stun the fish and then break the coral the fish is hiding in to get to the fish. Both the cyanide and the

smashing of the coral to get to the fish kill the coral. The cyanide also kills 90% of the fish that do not get caught to sell. Another methode they use to catch fish is using dynamite to stun the fish. It sends a shock wave through the water, killing coral and other animals in the area, fish in the surrounding area also become vonarable to preditors in their stund state. We should protect coral reefs because Coral reefs supply 30-40 million people with food each year. 50 million people are supported because of the tourist industry and tropical fish business because of the coral reefs. Besides supplying us with food, reefs also cantrole how much CO2 is in the water. The oceans takes in half of all the CO2 that humans put into the atmosphere, and it is because of the coral that the ocean continues to absorb CO2. Also, coral reefs act as barrier to protect our shores from large waves and storms by dissipating them back out to sea. But when we over fish we are killing the coral reefs. You can help coral reefs and other marine animals that get caught in nets by reducing the amount of fish you eat. What do you think will happen to sharks, dolpins, seals, orcas, otters, and other marine life if there is no food for then to eat? They will starve while we humans have food on land that we can eat as well as fish. Imagen your favorite marine animal, now imagen your kids or grand kids not being able to see then because we killed them with our greed. Do your part,Eery little thing helps, think of the children of the future and what they will miss out on because of us. Dont overfish!