“ IF OVERFISHING CONTINUES, IF POLLUTION
CONTINUES MANY OF THESE SPECIES WILL
DISAPPEAR OFF THE FACE OF THE EARTH”
-Bernard Marcus
When I was younger my teacher in kindergarten taught us about all these different careers and asked us what our parents did for a living. For me, it was exciting seeing all these different careers I could have when I grew up. One of the careers that stuck out to me was being a fisherman, I liked to romanticize being on a boat in the vast ocean and watching the whales and dolphins swim and maybe even come up to me and watch them chase the fish I try to catch with a fishing pole. But as I grew older and technologies changed, I learned more about the techniques we use today with the large nets catching various fish and they have now led us to the problem of overfishing and ocean degradation (ghost nets, coral damage, pollution, and more).
Overfishing and Ecosystems
Our current fishing practices involve large groups of fish and use a large fishing net to capture these fish, this also leads to other marine life such as sharks, turtles, and more getting caught. This way of gathering fish reduces the population at a fast rate and due to this practice reproducing adults that are caught at one-time result in the remaining fish population producing fewer offspring or making it to adulthood. Herbivorous fish are often the target of fishing nets, and these fish are integral to the coral reef ecosystems, fewer of these fish prevent the coral reef from being healthy and can lead to the coral reefs becoming targets to other species overpopulating and balancing algae levels. When coral reefs become exposed, they are the target of extreme weather conditions and climatic change can cause coral reef bleaching.
Overfishing has led to negative effects on coral reefs when fishing nets break and become unusable and get discarded within the ocean, it becomes ghost nets. Scientists who have seen the ghost nets in the Pacific Island shave noticed that ghosts are next across coral reef environments. These coral reefs become damaged due to these nets as they break, shade, and abrade over time. A research in 2018 NOAA fisheries team visited Pearl and Hermes Atoll was predicted to have a high amount of ghost nets accumulation in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands the weight was expected to be 61,460 lb. These nets are non-biodegradable and can not be removed without human intervention through washing on the seashore or divers picking these nets off the sea floor.
Ghost nets also cause harm to marine life as they float through the ocean, these aquatic animals get tangled as well as ingest the plastic parts of the nets that have broken down which can cause life-threatening harm. A 2018 study showed that 46 percent of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch was made up of ghost nets. These marine animals potentially mistake these plastic parts for food and when ingesting the plastic, it can lead to damage to their internal organs. As we go further into the food chain, we can see that humans are also being affected as we consume these marine animals, small plastic particles that we may not be able to see are going into our bodies which in the future can lead to serious problems.
Overfishing can also lead to populations of species becoming endangered or at worst extinct. An example of this can be seen with the shark and rays population as overfishing, habitat loss, and declining food sources, as well as climate change, have affected 1 in 3 and 1 in 10 species respectively. This can lead to future problems within the overall ecosystems as populations of certain animals that are harmful in large numbers can lead to the degradation of important/endangered marine life in the ocean.
What's happening now? What are the solutions?
Governments have been working towards proper measures to combat overfishing but strict protocols in which limits are set on the fish caught have not been made. For the species affected by overfishing science-based catch limits can allow for sustainable fishing to that fish can recover and reproduce. Another way in which overfishing can be controlled is through monitoring catching and fishing activities at sea. The World Wildlife Foundation promotes camera fishing systems and vessel monitoring systems on fishing boats to improve continuing compliance and to gather data for scientific analyses.
Fisheries, N. O. A. A. (n.d.). The impacts of ghost nets on coral reefs. NOAA. Retrieved from https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/feature-story/impacts-ghost-nets-coral-reefs
Gaynor, K. (2023, March 17). What is overfishing and how does it affect the ecosystem? Eco Redux. Retrieved from https://www.ecoredux.com/what-is-overfishing
Hancock, L. (n.d.). Our Oceans are haunted by ghost nets: Why that’s scary and what we can do. WWF. Retrieved from https://www.worldwildlife.org/stories/our-oceans-are-haunted-by-ghost-nets-why-that-s-scary-and-what-we-can-do--24#:~:text=Those%20abandoned%20fishing%20lines%20and,expose%20them%20to%20toxic%20chemicals.
World Wildlife Fund. (2021, September 8). Overfishing puts more than one-third of all sharks, rays, and Chimaeras at risk of extinction. WWF. Retrieved from https://www.worldwildlife.org/stories/overfishing-puts-more-than-one-third-of-all-sharks-rays-and-chimaeras-at-risk-of-extinction
