The seas around us are rich in fish, and this valuable food source has always been exploited.  But with technological advances, we can now catch fish in greater numbers.  As a result, many fish populations have fallen drastically, fishing sites around the world have been destroyed, and marine food chains may suffer.

Fishing in the oceans has provided food for generations, but the last 50 years have seen major advances in this industry.  Ships now stay at sea for weeks, catching and processing huge quantities of fish.  Radar equipment traces schools of fish, huge nets trap vast numbers, and marine communications allows several ships to take part in an operation.  The catches can be frozen or canned at sea, so fishing ships can venture farther from shore than in the past.  This advance led to a 7 percent growth in fish catches each year during the 1950's and 1960's.

More than 20 of the world's most important fishing sites have disappeared in the last 25 years because of over fishing.  As the numbers of fish drop, smaller fish are caught as fish meal to feed to cattle.   Eventually there may be no breeding adults, and many species may become extinct.

The loss of fish stocks due to the greed of the huge commercial fishing trawlers affects the future of the entire marine food chain.

One of the worst examples of the destruction of a fishing site occurred off the coast of Peru.  The anchoveta, a tiny anchovy, was caught in enormous quantities as fish meal for animals.  In 1970 some 76,000 tons were caught.  The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization warned that the catches were too high, but this advice was ignored by the fishing industry.  In 1972 warm water entered the normally cool waters.  This natural disaster combined with the over fishing caused a total collapse of the anchoveta stock.  It will never recover. Once again, mans greed,  ignorance  and arrogance caused disaster. as only man can create disaster.

For the herring industry in the North Sea, family firms used to sail each night, set their nets, and return in the morning to sell their catch.  During the 1960's fishing methods changed with the introduction of the huge commercial trawlers and nets.  At the time the stock of herring in the North Sea was estimated at over four million tons; by the end of the 1970's less than a million tons remained.  Many fisherman lost their livelihood as catches dwindled.  Generations of small fisherman were forced out of business.  Many of the communities which housed these family firms felt the loss also.  The big commercial ships would come in, rape the area on fish and move on, leaving destruction in its path.  Consider this for a moment --  Every year, 12 to 20 billion pounds of  sea life, called "bycatch," are taken during efforts to catch other species,  then dumped overboard, with most either dead or dying.  An estimated 20% of all fish caught never reaches the consumer.
 

Ten pounds of juvenile fish and other non marketed fish are dumped overboard dead  for every pound of shrimp caught in the southern United States. Because of the popularity of barbecued red snapper, they are so over fished and the spawning stock so reduced that they are in or near a state of collapse.  Many baby snappers are also killed by shrimp trawlers. Makes you wonder why this is allowed to continue when the bottom line is so obvious.  Could it be corrupt officials????????  Paid off maybe?????? Everyone involved in the huge commercial fishing industry can't be so stupid
they can not see the hand writing on the wall.

The National Marine Fisheries Service says 65 of the 153 species it assesses are over fished in U.S. waters, meaning they are being caught faster than they can replace themselves.  Some of these are Atlantic cod, salmon and halibut, haddock, flounder, sharks, hard clams, swordfish, bluefin tuna, king mackerel, Caribbean reef fish, grouper, lobsters, albacore tuna, Pacific striped bass, blue marlin, rockfish, perch, abalone, and all salmon except Alaskan.  This is a large-scale SOS. (Save our Seas)!!!!  Maybe I was wrong, maybe the commercial fisherman is that stupid.  He can not seem to see that he is killing the golden goose that is making him all that money.  He should be first in line trying to get laws on the books to regulate the fishing so they will have something a decade from now.  Many of the fish I mentioned will not make it for another 10 years at the rate they are being fished out.

Drift nets, up to forty miles long, hang as curtains of death.  Not only do they decimate and drown marine mammals, turtles, and migratory seabirds.  Drift nest have been banned by the U.N., but there has been some compliance and some defiance in the North Pacific.  A study shows that 33,000 to 44,000 endangered sea turtles drown in shrimp nets each year.  The Steller's sea lion recently became a threatened species because of losses from commercial over fishing and the fishing gear used.

Seabirds get caught in fishing gear too.  Killed annually are an estimated one million seabirds of at least twenty-one species, more than 6000 seals and sea lions, more then 10,000 whales and dolphins, and 44,000 albatross.

The ocean has been used as a dump site for sewage sludge, industrial waste, hazardous chemicals, soil dredged from contaminated harbors and radioactive wastes generated by medical, research, and mining activities.  Add to this ugly list, all the unknown crap the arrogant military secretly dump and you have a real mess that will eventually catch up to us.  Contamination also occurs in the form of daily oil spills,  underwater runoff from streets and farms, sewer releases and acid rain.  Many of the distressing happenings, such as fatal epidemics among dolphins, giant tumors on turtles, PCBs in the flesh of fish, and shellfish poisoned by algae blooms (which in turn poison people) have occurred in the last thirty years.

Properly managed, the fish population could form a renewable and theoretically endless source of protein.  The aim should be to catch only the number of fish that can be replaced by natural reproduction in the following year.  Research suggests that fish populations kept at just below maximum numbers produce the most young fish.  To keep the populations at this level it is necessary to set quotas for catches.  It is also necessary to use nets of the correct mesh size to ensure that fish of the right age are caught and to avoid as much as possible, accidentally catching other fish.  Safeguarding the fish stock requires international agreements to limit catches.  It also requires research into fishing methods that do not damage stocks.  The huge commercial fishing trawlers should be banned from the ocean because of their excessive wasteful methods.  If, and only if, these goals are accomplished, we can continue to harvest the world's richest source of protein  for everyone's benefit.  If not, many, many fish will go the way of the Buffalo, which was also thought to be so plentiful that they could not be killed to extinction.  Please, let's not let this happen --  again.
Extinct is Forever.......
 
Dick Miller - Treehouse Enterprises Writing Studio - P.O. Box 1456, Hanalei, HI 96714-1456