Dujuan Fowler Jasmine Ayala

1. OverFishing Dujuan Fowler Jasmine Ayala

2. What exactly is it? • When so many fish are caught that the population cannot reproduce enough to replace them • A rate or level of fishing mortality that jeopardizes a fishery’s capacity to produce maximum sustainable yield on a continuing basis • Our appetite for fish is exceeding the oceans' ecological limits with devastating impacts on marine ecosystems. • Overfishing happens when the amount of fish caught exceeds the amount of fish needed to sustain fish stocks in a given region.

3. Types oF Overfishing Growth overfishing – is when fishes are harvested at an average size that is smaller than the size that would produce the maximum yield per recruit. Thus making the total yield less than it would be if the fish were allowed to grow to a reasonable size. Reducing fishing mortality to lower levels and increasing the average size of the fishes harvested to a length that would allow maximum yield per recruit.[1] Recruit overfishing – is when the mature adult (spawning biomass) population is depleted to a level where it no longer has the reproductive capacity to replenish itself. There are not enough adults to produce offspring.[1] Increasing the spawning stock biomass to a target level is the approach taken by managers to restore an overfished population to sustainable levels. This is generally accomplished by placing moratoriums, quotas and minimum size limits on a fish population. Ecosystem overfishing – is when the balance of the ecosystem is altered due to overfishing. Declines in the abundances of large predatory species declines and in turn small forage type species increase in abundance, causing a shift in the balance of the ecosystem towards smaller species of fish.

4. Causes of Overfishing • Most of the problems associated with overfishing have been caused in the last 50 years by the rapid advances in fishing technology.  • As catches have gradually become smaller, so the mesh sizes used in fishing nets have decreased, allowing smaller and smaller fish to be caught. Many of these are too small to be used as food, so they are crushed to be made into either animal food or fertiliser. • Fishing using nets is indiscriminate. Any fish which get in the way of the net will be caught in it if they are too big to get through the mesh. For every one tonne of prawns caught, three tonnes of other fish are killed and thrown away. 20,000 porpoises die each year in the nets of salmon fishermen in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and tens of thousands of dolphins are killed each year by tuna fishermen. • The current system allows fishery managers to completely overfish one species and then quickly move on to start overfishing another species

5. History OF OVERFISHING There used to be hundreds of trawlers and fishing boats based at ports like Peterhead, Grimsby and Great Yarmouth, but these have now been replaced by huge factory ships which are able to stay out at sea for weeks at a time. These factory boats have all the equipment necessary either to freeze or tin fish caught by their hunting ships, so that they need to return to base only when their holds are full. With the introduction of the new factory boats, there was a 7% growth in catches every year during the 1950’s and 60’s, but since then there has been little increase in catch size, and at least 20 of the world’s most important fisheries have disappeared in the last 25 years, with many more suffering so badly from overfishing that they are unlikely to recover. The overfishing of a particular species does not just damage the population of that fish alone. It can have serious effects further up the food chain. Herring is a vital prey species for the cod. Therefore, when herring are overfished the cod population suffers as well. The sandeel is the main food for seabirds such as the puffin. Sandeels have been fished around the Shetland Islands since the mid-1970s, though catches were declining throughout the 1980s. At the same time, the colonies of seabirds nesting around Shetland declined, with some even falling to breed for several years.

6. History Continued In the Antarctic, fishing for krill is threatening to disrupt the delicate balance of nature in these waters. Krill are small, red shrimps, about 6cm long, found in huge numbers in areas of plant plankton, and they make up a significant part of the animal plankton. Krill occur in huge swarms many kilometers across, and it has estimated that there could be up to 650 million tons of them in the Antarctic Ocean. Since the early 1980s, six countries, including Japan and the former USSR have been harvesting krill, which is the main food for the great whales, and which also supplements the diets of seals, penguins, squid and fish. We have no idea what effects this will have on the populations of animals which feed on krill. The natural balance in the Antarctic has already been upset by the overexploitation of the great whales, and heavy fishing of krill may well worsen the situation. In October of 1996 the Sustainable Fisheries Act became law.   Sadly this law became a necessary component of our legislation due to overfishing, and poor marine practices that threatened aquatic habitats.  Essentially the law was based on the following simply stated facts that scientifically came to light: Certain stocks of fish have declined to the point where their survival is threatened. Other stocks of fish have been so substantially reduced that they could be similarly threatened. The greatest long term threat to continuing loss of fish stock is the loss of aquatic habitats.

7. Affects &&+ Effects • Populations of top predators, a key indicator of ecosystem health, are disappearing at a frightening rate, and 90 percent of the large fish that many of us love to eat, such as tuna, swordfish, marlin, cod, halibut, skate, and flounder - have been fished out since large scale industrial fishing began in the 1950s. The depletion of these top predator species can cause a shift in entire oceans ecosystems where commercially valuable fish are replaced by smaller, plankton-feeding fish.  • The over-exploitation and mismanagement of fisheries has already led to some spectacular fisheries collapses. The cod fishery off Newfoundland, Canada collapsed in 1992, leading to the loss of some 40,000 jobs in the industry. The cod stocks in the North Sea and Baltic Sea are now heading the same way and are close to complete collapse.

8. What Fishery’s are Hurt Major Fishery’s Minor Fishery’s Blue Maomao Jellyfish • Blue Fin Tuna • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3PxxWc8zHA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zT-EU5PGLvI&feature=player_embedded • Cod • Anchovy • Whale sharks

9. Whats being Used? Types of Nets 1)Dredge Nets 2) Prawn traps 3)Trawling Nets • Types of Lines • Hook and Lines • Long Lines

11. What Can Be done!? • Greenpeace is engaged all along the U.S. coastline to identify and take action to prevent overfishing. We are working on solutions in—New England, along the Atlantic coastline, the North Pacific and the Bering Sea. Properly maintained fisheries could and should be a renewable and possibly even endless supply of protein. At present, short-term economic pressures are preventing sensible long-term planning for a sustainable yield (only taking out as many fish as can be replaced by reproduction the following year.) Quotas should be set on catches, based on scientific estimates for the size of the fish stock. Correct mesh size should be used in all nets to ensure that fish of the right age are caught, and to prevent as much as possible accidental catches of other fish. International agreements limiting catches are necessary to safeguard fish stocks for the use not only of humans but for marine animals as well. With these measures in place, fishing could continue without damaging stocks, and we could employ the world’s richest source of protein to everyone’s advantage.

12. Why are we Allowing it? • Because of the results in higher catch levels and greater food abundance pushing market prices lower. The lower market prices mean fishing operations make less profit and consumers and retailers waste more fish because waste is less economically detrimental at the lower prices. The increased wastefulness and the higher catch rates lead lower fish populations; this combined with the lower profits the fishing operations now garner, causes a need for ever greater efficiency in fishing operations. This drives further increase in fishing-fleet technology and the whole cycle starts again.