How has fishing become more dangerous over the years? It has left our environment in an unstable status and has dwindled natural resources to breaking points beyond what was imaginable. Fishing has never been seen as a bad thing, because people do it for income, food, or for the sheer sport. But people seem to not see the underlying truth about what these things are doing to our environment in general. We need to reveal the truth and facts, it can change how we fish and regulate things for the better good of nature. By looking at the comparison between the past and the present throughout the history of fishing, we can interpret that fishing has turned into a dangerous thing for nature by hindering all living organisms, and that only we can do something about it to prevent a natural disaster.

For many years, fishing has been seen as a pastime from generation to generation, but for too long people have not noticed the effects of humans on the environment until this dire state was noticeable. One of the biggest reasons why fishing has become hazardous is because of the ever growing population of the world. With that barred in mind, the demand of fish would sky rocket causing the supply to be only a limited supply until we run out of resources. If that happens our environment will cause us to go extinct eventually because of the lack of resources. Over the years, biologists have taken recordings and observations of certain species and have recorded them over the span of years, to try to compose accurate data into sources. We all see that fishing is shown for all the glamour such as TV shows to make money off of people. Some examples are Deadliest Catch, Wicked Tuna, and River Monsters. All these TV shows show the fun in catching fish, how they do it, and the success they have towards their target. But none of these shows show the underlying problem fishing is having on the environment. These shows display the target they are after, but they fail to show the bycatch they obtain. Another name for bycatch from other people is called "The Hidden Disgrace," and some people have made video compilations of marine animals being affected by this (Doloris). Fishing should be done as inhumanely as possible to avoid any problems in the future. Bycatch has become a very big factor into how fisheries are impacting the ecosystem. In this quote, "Fisheries bycatch and discards affect marine ecosystems worldwide, constituting as much as 25% of the annual global catch" (Garner). About a fourth of the catch of fisheries are bycatch, which is a pretty substantial amount for not being the targeted species. The first attempt to address the problem of bycatch and discards was in the late 1990s by the FAO (Garcia). The FAO said in this quote, "Estimates that marine capture fisheries production will remain between 80 and 90 million tons per year, and freshwater fisheries, which face environmental degradation and competition for use of freshwater resources from other sectors such as hydropower and agriculture" (Finegold). This explained that fisheries capture a lot of fish over a span of a year and seem to outdo hydropower and agriculture. 

There are many problems of fishing, one problem is the overpopulation of other species that are not being targeted from fisheries. For example Red Snapper and Bluefin Tuna are being targeted by humans because of their high grade of quality meat, and their numbers are dwindling because people are catching them so much. In the past, their numbers were vast, but now the result is that their numbers are to the point of endangerment and are letting other fish overpopulate the area because they are not being eaten by Red Snapper or Bluefin Tuna, causing the food chain to become unbalanced. Bluefin Tuna have taken one of the biggest tolls from overfishing because it is one of the most expensive fish sold on the market. Since the 1960s the Bluefin Tuna population was at a vast amount, but nearing around 2000, it is to the brink of extinction because of the amount of overfishing of these majestic animals (NOAA). Another problem is the effect on the ecosystem in general. Although other species will overpopulate, that would mean there would have to be an unbalanced food chain, causing other species to eat all the other resources that are available in the ecosystem (ConnectUsFund). Once all the resources are used, it will cause the environment to die slowly and causing other marine animals to die as well. Since all these fish are being targeted by humans, humans have caused some sort of pollution to get out to the fish and catch them with the equipment they use. When equipment is used, there could be the result of loss from being stuck on riggings or rock structures around the areas they are fishing.

To show that certain species of fish are dwindling in numbers, some biologists have gone out on expeditions or observed fisheries to see how they progress throughout time. In one of my sources some biologists observe Red Snapper on charter boats and see how the discarding of these fish work. In this quote, "Fishing activities on charter boats that targeted reef fishes were documented by observers in 2012 and 2013 to examine the effect of fishing seasons for Red Snapper on fishing effort, catch, and discard variables" (Garner). They took all those variables into consideration to get the most precise observations they could. By observing this one species of fish on 54 charters, 38 species of fish were identified and that 32 trips were taken during the Red Snapper season and when the season was over they only went on 22 trips (Garner). Now even though there was a smaller amount of Red Snapper trips, there was only a little difference in the amount of trips taken. The overall impact of the environment if this fish is overfished is that it will reduce their abundance for the future, spawning potential drops, and also affect their gender ratios for spawning future posterity (FAO).  

One of the biggest problems people cause on the environment is habitat loss/ degradation. Each ecosystem on Earth provides a habitat for an animal to live and thrive in. But once the habitat is taken away from the animal, it becomes vulnerable to things, causing it to inevitably die. In this quote, "Extensive areas of benthic habitat have been lost or their physical integrity compromised as a result of fishing ...  ... . and severity of physical disturbance, the potentially slow recovery of impacted ecosystems" (Turner). This quote states that fishing is stopping the recovery of impacted ecosystems from humans. People in still seem not to understand how severe we are hindering our environment. Fisheries all over the world cause habitat loss, because of the types of pollution they put in the water and the overfishing they cause within the general area of the target species.

The different tactics fisheries use to catch fish are ghost fishing, bottom trawling, cyanide fishing, and dynamite fishing. Each of these types cause overfishing of certain species because these are easy ways to get people's targeted species. Bottom trawling is when fisheries try to avoid coral/ structural areas and just put out nets on the ocean floor and catch whatever they can in big nets without worrying about the bycatch they obtain during this process (WWF Global). This process is one of the biggest ways fisheries overfish marine animals. Ghost fishing occurs when fishing gear is lost or abandoned at sea (WWF Global). Even though this gear is lost at sea, it is still able to catch marine animals because it can snag onto them possible killing them. Dynamite fishing is when humans use explosives and set it off underwater to kill fish and let them float to the surface so humans can pick them up (WWF Global). This process not only kills the targeted marine species, it also hinders the environment by its destructive power leaving the area into shambles. Last is Cyanide fishing, which is a substance that is put into the water and then stunning the fish without killing them, and making them easy to catch (WWF Global). All these different ways of fishing hurt the environment in some sort of way, and if we do not regulate or ban these types of fishing it will lead our marine life and ecosystem into chaos (Staples). 

Fish is seen to be healthy for people because of the Omega-3 and fish oils that it gives when eaten. But the problem eating fish are the substances they accumulate over time into their flesh. This process is called "Bioaccumulation," that's why people are worried about eating fish a lot of times, because this can cause a person to either get really sick or possibly die. Mainly this depends on if the fish people buy and eat are either wild caught or farmed (Sager). The farm raised fish are more prone to have toxins because of the things people feed them when being raised. Some things that are watched in these fish are mercury, pesticides, dioxin, and other suspected carcinogens (Sager). Personally my family and I eat wild fish to avoid any types of chemicals from farm raised fish. 

Although there are many opposing points to fishing, there are just as many supporting points of view. Since fishing is high in supply and demand, it offers people jobs for their income, food for people, offers new skill sets for people to learn, and it is considerably healthy, like what was mentioned before (ConnectUsFund). With job opportunities being more available to people, it will help poor families get through life with less problems to worry about financially wise (Thabet). When new skills are learned, people are able to add these to their resumes for when they go for a higher paying job or a career path they are going towards. Each skill that is added to resume helps people see that you have a diverse/ vast amount of skills learned. During past history, the demand for fish is not as high as it is today, because the population has increased a substantial amount since then. By having a higher demand for fish, it will give a boost to the economy. With fish being more in demand than ever, the job opportunities have increased exponentially. In this quote, "Employment in the fishing industry and aquaculture has grown rapidly over the past few decades, increasing more than threefold from 13 million people in 1970 to over 41 million in 2004" (Finegold). Fish are considerably cheap on the market, whether it comes to buy it fresh, frozen, or canned. Besides fishing being used for eating and money, it is also used for entertainment. Like what was mentioned before about the TV shows, they display how they catch these fish with their skills and showing the excitement of catching their targeted species, whether it be for research or for money.

People that support fishing, find it difficult to regulate fishing even more, it can cause a Domino effect, because it can cause job loss, and if job loss occurs, the economy will also drop significantly. If the economy drops from this major resource, it can cause a national depression like state to every country causing everyone to suffer from it. People feel that the fishing is fine how it is, because we are making efforts to keep the environment balanced as best as we can. But many people feel that it can be more regulated, or if we cannot find a suitable regulation. People suggest that we find another food source instead of fish, but this will never happen because fisheries are all over the world and used for every economy. 

Although fishing has become a very detrimental problem in our society, we are trying to figure out many solutions and are testing them every day. One way is the tool called the Acoustic Pingers. These pingers are small devices that emit sounds, that warns certain dolphins and porpoises species to the presence of fishing gear and that will decrease the chance of them being caught from fisherman and possibly killing them (Consortium for Wildlife). Another way is a Metallic Repellent, this is meant to repel other species of marine animals like sharks and rays, because studies show that they seem to not like the substances at all (Consortium for Wildlife). An additional way they are increasing reduction of bycatch is by making different types of rope from different materials. One type is Stiff Rope, and it is testing whether ropes that have greater stiffness or fish under greater tension may be effective for reducing entanglements (Consortium for Wildlife). Another type is Glow Rope, and it is a rope that is chemically treated to give it glowing properties so the whales can see the rope more (Consortium of Wildlife). Besides the different tools and materials that are being used to reduce bycatch, people are trying to add some conservation areas for fish, called Marine Protected Areas (MPA). MPAs, are protected/ conserved areas for marine animals, which specifically protects their habitats, so they can spawn in the future. The benefits this will cause is for spawning and the guarantee of some sort of population to grow within these areas (Sanchirico).

The increasing rate of supply and demand for fishing is simply horrendous for the environment and if we continue down this path, it will only lead to a natural catastrophe. The current state right now is getting to its breaking point, and we are only making it worse for every passing year. The people are the ones that are going to influence whether or not the government should do something about this problem, because one way or another they are going to have to step in. The people of the Earth need to realize that we are putting our environment into shambles and only hurting it more and we are saving it. As humans being at the top of the food chain, only we can do something about this situation, because we are the ones that caused it. I accept the fact that fisheries catch vast amounts of fish to satisfy our never ending demand for fish, but is there no way to reduce it? The benefits of saving our environment today not only will help us for the future, but for our posterity too, so they can thrive off of what we had the privilege to have. As Earth being a whole, we should spend more funds and brainpower into finding new methods of reducing fishing, and to find alternatives for humans to eat. In the end it will be down to us making a decision to whether or not we should stop fishing, because of the projected path we are heading down. If that happens, it would be a very hard decision because humans have been eating fish for centuries. 

