Overfishing

1. Overfishing By Jordan Greenberg and Jeremy Berkowitz

2. What Is Overfishing? • Overfish- verb - to fish (an area) excessively; to exhaust the supply of usable fish in (certain waters): Scientists are concerned that fishing boats may overfish our coastal waters. – www.dictionary.com _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ • Policy Definition: Overfishing - A rate of fishing mortality that jeopardized the capacity of a fishery to produce the maximum sustainable yield on a continuing basis.2 • Legal Definition: Overfishing - A rate or level of fishing mortality that jeopardizes the capacity of a fishery to produce maximum sustainable yield on a continuing basis. • Scientific definition: Overfishing - Occurs when the quantity of fish harvested exceeds the amount that can be re-supplied by growth and reproduction. - www.alaskaoceans.net/facts/overfishing.htm

3. The Effects of Overfishing(The Dreaded “D’s” Of Overfishing) • Decline in species population • Disruption in food chains • Decrease in business and trade • Decline in jobs and money • Disruption in natural ocean ecosystems • Depletion of food sources for humans and animals

4. Overfishing In Asia • Populations of fish in Southeast Asia have been rapidly declining in number. • The decline in fish threaten traditional dishes and delicacies native to the area. Such dishes are Shark Fin Soup, Sushi, whale, dolphin, and shrimp and crab dishes. • Countries in Southeast Asia such as China, Japan, Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam, the Philippines, Thailand, and Taiwan have been exploiting and overfishing the fish needed for the foods listed above. • This trend is not only threatening the ways of ancient cultures, but also the populations of fish, and the fishing communities who make their living off of the ocean.

5. Examples of Overfishing • Shark Fin Soup • Overfishing • Overfishing Cartoon In this video, you can see that only the sharks’ fins are collected and the rest is wasted and thrown back into the ocean. In fishing nets, many different kinds of fish are caught and are thrown back into the ocean, dead, while the desired ones are kept and used for food and such. This cartoon shows how many fishing boats and organizations try to catch fish but because of this overfishing problem, there are not many fish left at all.

6. How Overfishing Affects the Food Chain • Scenario: In Japan, sardines have been overfished and are in danger of extinction or disappearing in the area. The tuna fishing season has just begun, and to the fishermen’s surprise, they haven’t caught much tuna. They have found that there aren’t many of the usual fish in the area and are wondering why. The reason this has happened in the scenario is because there weren’t many sardines left after overfishing hit the region. Sardines serve as food for many larger fish such as tuna, and because there weren’t any sardines in the water, most of the tuna either left or died, along with the dolphins and other animals that prey upon sardines. This ultimately caused the destruction of the habitat and the downfall of the fishermen’s livelihoods.

7. Solutions and Suggestions • One way overfishing is being solved is by intentionally under-fishing populations of fish by having shorter fishing seasons and tighter regulations. • Under-fishing can result in the salvage of entire populations and the safety of many ecosystems. • One way to solve the overfishing problem that we’ve come up with is by stocking the endangered fish. This replaces the populations that have been overfished and can result in the repopulation of that species. • One challenge that could occur with our suggestion is the amount of time that it would take for new fish to grow and reach the full age that it would need to live on its own in the wild.

8. Works Cited • www.dictionary.com • www.alaskaoceans.net/facts/overfishing.htm • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCqPXhhxZIg • http://sustainableseafood.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/bycatch-north-sea-overfishing-ocean_conservation.jpeg • http://assets.panda.org/img/overfish_img1_col2b_233392.jpg • http://www.monstersandcritics.com/science/nature/news/article_1372285.php/Over-fishing_in_South-East_Asia_threatens_favourite_seafoods • http://www.tempe.gov/lake/fishing/Images/TroutRelease1106BE-1.JPG • http://rayharris57.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/4061_image_zambezi_overfishing.jpg • http://09lzeller.files.wordpress.com/2009/01/overfishing1.jpg