Big Fishing Industry

CC: The Guardian 

Big Fishing industry leads to environmental changes that we have a hard time imagining, including completely destroying fish populations. With the massive hauls of fish that some of these techniques get, you can destroy an entire ecosystem in a days fishing. We need to find much more sustainable fishing methods that will lead to food for humans, but also healthy fish populations. 

Trawling, and in particular bottom trawling is one of the worst methods of fishing for conservation. Bottom trawling is unselective and severely damaging to seafloor ecosystems. The net indiscriminately catches every life and object it encounters. Thus, many creatures end up mistakenly caught and thrown overboard dead or dying, including endangered fish and even vulnerable deep-sea corals which can live for several hundred years. This collateral damage, called by catch, can amount to 90% of a trawl’s total catch. In addition, the weight and width of a bottom trawl can destroy large areas of seafloor habitats that give marine species food and shelter. Such habitat destruction's can leave the marine ecosystem permanently damaged.

Long lines have been accurately described as a “curtain of death” that catches any living creature unfortunate enough to bite a baited hook. They are indiscriminate – they catch not only the “target” (for example tuna or swordfish), but endangered sharks, leatherback and loggerhead turtles (legally protected), and seabirds, especially albatross. Over 25% of long-line catch is thrown back into the sea, usually dead. Long lining must be banned internationally. It is killing protected species of animals and is putting many other species in danger of extinction. It is the main culprit in the decimation of shark populations by over 90% and must be outlawed immediately if we are not to face the collapse of fish populations and the ocean ecology.

We need to protect our resources, so they can continue to help us for centuries to come instead of for a few more decades if we are lucky. These massive hauls of fish lead populations to plummet and gives no time for population growth. We need fish to survive, our oceans will be empty of life soon if we don't start to change our methods.