Overfishing and its Impact
ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES
Danny Xu
1/7/20253 min read
Fishing, a fun way to spend some free time or make ones dinner. Fishing is a popular sport done all throughout the world and has helped many people become successful. Despite how popular of a sport it is, overfishing can have a highly detrimental impact to the environment.
Fishing itself is fine, but when people catch fish and don't release them at a rate that is faster than fish are able to reproduce then it becomes a huge issue. This activity is simply known as "overfishing". Within recent decades, the issue of overfishing has been getting worse and worse.
Since overfishing depletes the fish population in that given area so much, the biodiversity of that body of water is heavily affected. All of life is in a cycle known as the "food chain". The food chain shows that all organisms in a habitat have some role in the food chain that they exist in. For example, in order for a shark to survive it has to have prey to eat but in order for that prey to survive it has to have its own prey to consume. When one of those organisms population is decreased it affects another population that depends on those animals for food which then, impacts another population of animals.
Another impact overfishing has to marine habitats is something known as bycatch. Due to overfishing requiring huge nets to acquire large amounts of fish, there are usually animals that get caught and brought up on deck which results in injury or even death for animals like dolphins and turtles. Thankfully, there are innovations that are currently trying to prevent bycatch like improving technology to go for specific animals, however, it is still a huge issue.
Overfishing methods like the bottom trawling which involves the big net mentioned previously not only result in factors like bycatch but also negatively affect the physical state of the habitats. By dragging a massive net across the ocean, coral reefs that take many many years to grow are destroyed which are supposed to provide a home and food for smaller fish and other organisms.
In conclusion, despite organizations and laws that are attempted to be put in place to reduce the negative effects of overfishing, it still exists to be a problem as some overfishing is even illegal. However, without a stop to this issue on top of pollution like plastic in the ocean, the ocean will continue to lose its well-being which will one day can back to haunt humans.
Sources:
https://www.worldwildlife.org/threats/bycatch
https://www.worldwildlife.org/threats/overfishing
https://www.edf.org/sustainable-fishing/overfishing-most-serious-threat-our-oceans