Group 4: Noquiao, Pallomina, Ramos

Environmental Science Study Guide

Fishing and Aquaculture

Vocabulary

Understand and be able to apply each of these terms.

1. Pole Fishing – large-scale fishing where a school of fish is attracted to a boat through the use of
bait, and enters a feeding frenzy then they are pulled out of the water using
a fishing pole and a line
2. Longline Fishing – is a commercial fishing technique which involves a series of baited hooks
are attached to a single, long fishing line that trails behind a ship
3. Purse Seining – fishing technique that deploys large nets over schools of fish identified from
aerial surveys.
4. Trawling – is the fastest and efficient technique of catching fish, where a large funnel-shaped net
is dragged behind a ship, but this technique destroys benthic habitat such as coral
reefs.
5. Bycatch – are unwanted catch including birds, fishes, and/or mammals that are caught alongside
the desired fish species. Techniques involving large nets have high rates of
bycatch.
6. Maximum Sustainable Yield – is the highest amount of a species that can be harvested without
diminishing the population for future years.
7. Trophic Level - the integral count of the number of consumption steps between primary
producers and that species.
8. Marine Reserve – are fully protected habitat, where no living organisms can be legally harvested.
It is also established to protect areas with high biodiversity.
9. Aquaculture – the process of farming aquatic organisms, they use fish pens where immature fish
or eggs are raised inside it.
10. Aquaponics – is a type of fish farming combined with hydroponics, in which waste water as a
source of nutrients, as it is circulated through the plant roots.
Critical Thinking
Be able to read, analyze, and give complete answers to questions like these.

1. What two areas of the ocean tend to have the most productive fisheries? Why?
 Areas near river mouths where there is high productivity from the deposition of nutirients
from the land run-off.
 Areas with upwellings where the wind blows the surface water and allows the water below
with the nutrients to rise up.

2. Rank the three primary forms of fishing we covered (Pole, trawling, and longline fishing)
from highest to lowest rates of bycatch.
Trawing has the highest amount of bycatch since it easily drags the net below . Next is the
longline fishing where the fishing line baits are behind the ship so the fishermen cannot know
what they are going to get. Last is the pole fishing where fishes caught are pulled from the water
one at a time.

3. Besides bycatch, what ecological damage can be caused by bottom trawling?

Besides bycatch, destruction of benthic habitat including coral reefs is one of the ecological
damages that are present when bottom trawling is used. The metal plating that acts as a weight
for the funnel-shaped net, scrape off the surface of the benthic environment thus damaging the
coral reefs.

4. What is the difference between a fully exploited and an overexploited fishery? Which one
is in the most danger of becoming a depleted fishery?
Fully exploited means that a fishery is operating at or close to an optimal yield level. It is when
the removal of stock is equal to the number of recruits entering the fishery, which also means
that the quantity of deaths is in equilibrium to the quantity of births.
Meanwhile, overexploited fishery means that marine living resources are being exploited
beyond a level that is the maximum sustainable yield, which will be then evident from the steady
decline of the stock.
 Ultimately, overexploitation can lead to resource depletion and put a number of threatened and
endangered species at risk for extinction. Valuable fish stocks, as well as a whole host of
other marine life are affected by such. Overexploitation is an example of a tragedy of the
commons— people take more and more of a common resource until it is no longer available.
When a resource is subject to unregulated access, people tend to take far more fish out of the ocean
than can be replaced by those remaining, without regard for its sustainability. In addition, the use of
modern techniques to facilitate harvesting, transport and storage has accelerated this problem.

5. Before the moratorium was declared, Newfoundland and Labrador had a massive fishing
industry that relied on Atlantic Cod. What trophic level did these fish occupy? With the
stocks of these fish now depleted, what options do fisherman have left?
The trophic level that the Atlantic Cod occupy is trophic level 5, which is high based on the
marine trophic index. With the stocks of these fish now depleted, fishermen are left with the
option to harvest only low-trophic level fishes. They pursue those species that are considered
trash before and rebrand them for it to be likely still be sold.

6. What exactly does the Marine-Trophic Index measure? What is the difference between a
fishery with a Marine-Trophic Index of 4.2 and one with an index of 2.8?
Marine trophic index measures the mean trophic level of the total catch from a fishery and hence
indicates the extent of “fishing down the food webs”. This provides a measure of the variety of
fish; the higher the index the more the variety of fish. Also, whether fish stocks, especially of
large bodied fish, are being overexploited and fisheries are being sustainably managed.
By examining the change in the Marine Trophic Index over time, the degree to which a county is
altering fish stocks in the marine ecosystem is revealed. With an index of 4.2, the position of an
organism in the food chain, determined by the number of energy-transfer steps to that level is
high. Organisms in that level are large fishes and have a wide array of smaller fishes to prey on.
Overfishing tends to lead to trophic decline, where fisheries, first having removed the larger
fishes at the top of various food chains, must target fishes lower and lower down, and end up
targeting very small fishes and plankton. A trophic level index of 2.8 is considered very low.

7. Explain the difference between territorial waters, exclusive economic zones, and
international waters.
Territorial waters are exclusive zones that reach 12 miles off each coastline where other
countries are not allowed to fish territorial waters of other nations without permission. Exclusive
 economic zone of 200 miles was established along each nation’s coastline, where a nation is
entitled to every resource discovered within these zones, including fishing and oil extraction. The
rest of the ocean is considered as international waters, meaning all of the nations have the
freedom to use them.

8. Are the United States’ annual catch limits set by NOAA higher or lower than the maximum
sustainable yield? Why are they set at this level?
The United States’ annual catch limit is lower than the maximum sustainable yeld. This is
beacuse of the maintenance of the limit to allow recovery and fish stock increase.

9. What activities are restricted in marine reserves?

Fishing or setting of fishing gear but a few number of marine reserves allow recreational
activities to be done in their waters.

10. What is banned by the Marine Mammal Protection Act?

Marine Mammal Protection Act was passed to ban the taking and importing of marine mammal
and the products of marine mammals in the United States. Fishing fleets are required to modify
their gear with devices that allow mammals and others bycatch to escape.

11. What are some of the potential problems with aquaculture?

The potential problems for aquaculture is that they use feed and other supplements that are added
in fish pens in which the wastes drop out and is deposited to the bottom of the fish pen which
may cause pollution that may cause eutrophication.

12. Explain the difference between each of these labels:

a. Farmed – are fish that are caught that was raised in an aquaculture or aquaponics facility
b. Wild-Caught – fish products that are processed from fish caught from a body of water.
c. MSC Certified – is a label attached to any seafood that follows sustainable fishing
practices, as established the Marine Stewardship Council.