1.Overfishing dramatically reduces the population of the fishes that are being targeted by fishing companies. For example, the Chinese have overfished their fish populations in the East China Sea, so now they are fishing illegally on Philippine, and Argentine waters. This is now a crisis because if they have overfished their population, then they will continue to do this on waters of many countries. This will might lead the fish population to the point of extinction, similarly like how the beavers almost went extinct when the Russian and U.S. fur traders killed them for their fur.
According to Mother Jones we only know that 31.7 of fish stocks are known. We will never really know the correct size of the population because of many factors, the major being white-collar criminal activity to evade government, or international laws. 30.6 percent of the known stocks are experiencing anthropogenic problems. According to the Seafood watch site, “Today, 90 percent of the world’s fisheries are either fully exploited over-exploited or have collapsed.” This means that 9 out of 10 fisheries don’t meet the standards of an environmentally safe fishery!
2a From the years 1950-1957, fisheries increased their catch by 500%. The peak in the year 2000 was 96 million tons. 2b. False. Fisheries have fallen because they’re using newer technology, which is creating a large by catch. For example, according to Mother Jones “these unwanted species (by catch) make up at least 25 percent of the global by catch perhaps as much as 88 billion pounds of life a year.”
2c. A wild fish is sustainable if it is able to reproduce and replenish their numbers while being fished. The wild fish catch fell after 2000 because the abundance of a fish population was overfished. This led to slow reproduction rate for that fish population.
2.d An industrialized fishing company can eradicate a fish community faster than the fish population can reproduce. A simple monofilament line can catch up to 10,000 fish. Also, according to Mother Jones, “industrialized fisheries […] typically reduce a community of a fish populations by about 80% in the first 15 years.” Also only 10% of large and ground fish are estimated to still be living in the ocean. These fishes have been reduced by 90!
2e. The National Marine Fisheries Service says that “$8 billion in revenue and 300,000 jobs could be created simply by better management of U.S. fish stocks, not by continuing subsidies of fishers, their boats, and their gear.”
3. If a fish population is declining or close to extinction, many poor fishers will try to catch them because there is a big market in the U.S., Hong Kong, and Japan for the fish. For example, a blue fish tuna can cost up to and maybe more than 100,000 dollars.
4a Shark populations have been killed incidentally in a large scale, have been hunted for the rich Chinese to make soup, and they have consumed many marine animals that have been infected with toxins. Sharks aren’t able to have a population boom because are slow breeders, which they only deliver around 3 pups, and they take along time to mature.
4b. The end of big fish is a huge loss because with end of a keystone predator, many animals that hunt the same food will start a resource war, and they will overpopulate. BOFFFs are Big Old Fat Female Fish, who produce higher quality eggs. 4c.To reach parity, according to Mother Jones, “It takes 23 times as many marine reserves and offshore national parks.”
5a. Bycatch, is when marine creatures are caught during fishing. They are just thrown away by fishers because they aren’t the right ones. It’s a problem to the environment because they unwanted animals that are caught are left to die. This hurts the environment because these animals could be reproducing to help keep their population afloat. According to the Monterey aquarium “For every pound of fish, six pounds of other species are discarded.” Reducing the bycatch for tuna was good for dolphins, but was bad for other animals because sea turtles, young tuna, and sharks were getting caught by accident in an alarming rate
.5b. A bird can become bycatch by getting caught on the fishing hooks. The problem with the cost-effective stream line is that sharks are getting caught.
6. Overfishing needs to stop because the fish aren’t able to reproduce fast enough. There are consequences for this. Either the fish will go instinct, or the fish will have to evolve and they won’t be the original fish. In the story of hope the salmon have repopulated Alaska, with the various restrictions placed on them. Illegal fishing is also an important issue because endangered fish are being caught in an alarming rate. They are caught by poor fishers because of the high price the markets are willing to pay for them. The MSC is effective because it shows which the type of fish that people are able to consume.
7a. Harpooning is environmentally friendly because fishermen are able to target the fish they are trying to catch. Which, effectively eliminates bycatch. Also, it eradicates pollution in the air because instead of taking a steamboat, a fisher can take a regular boat made out of wood. Also man is with nature while harpooning. Jigging is also environmentally friendly because it is mostly done by hand instead of machine. This is effective because the bycatch levels are low. The most dangerous is the dredge because there is a lot of bycatch. The dredge just takes anything in its way without regard to what is on the seafloor. The dredge is also harmful to the habitat because it can destroy coral reefs, and other stationary marine life. The second most deadly is the bottom trawl because this causes a lot of bycatch.
7B. Bag/Rock is friendly because there’s no damage to the environment. Recirculating systems are friendly because fish are trapped and there is no escape, and the water can easily be treated. The only problem is that since it is expensive to maintain many fisheries don’t have them. The submersible net pen is dangerous because the fish can escape, and the fish waste will contact clean ocean water. Open net cages are also harmful because fish waste gets released in the ocean water, and many fish that are mutated escape.
8. Pollution and disease is an important problem that needs to be addressed because this cause biomagnefication. Biomagnefication cause problems for larger predators because these tertiary animals eat all the contaminated fish. The Arctic char is a solution because the animals that have the approval of the Arctic char are clean fish, not polluted fish. Escaped fish is another major problem because the fish that escape can have an impact in the local environment. When a fish escapes it may reproduce and then outcompete the local fish populations. This causes the local fish populations to flee or starve. Having seafood commitments in the markets limit the amount of escape fish that harm the environment. For every pound a tuna gains 15 pounds of fish are required for the tuna to eat.
9a.Mercury causes many problems like brain damage, kidney failure, and may cause death to a fetus. 9b. Powerplants, waste incinerators, and any industrialized area can create a hotspot for mercury, which then gets released into the ocean. When mercury gets exposed into the ocean, animals tend to eat it. If a shrimp that has mercury inside it, and a tuna eats it that tuna will have mercury in it. It’ll keep being this way until a tertiary predator ingests the tuna. This is a process called biomagnefication. By the time a third trophic level or a tertiary predator eat the infested animal they can have up to 1 to 10 times it was before
10B1 The new innovative technology that is being innovative is the global fishing watch. It is designed to show and track the movements of commercial fishing.
10B2 The fishing ships are surround and catching fish around the island. These boats were probably surrounding the island because of its polar temperature. This means that there is a short period of time when fish are active in this region. So the fishers flock there during this short period of time.
10B3. They could determine when the Portuguese were actively fishing with the patterns the ship made when it was fishing in a single spot.
10B4 The government of Kiribati is using global fishing watch to monitor and report all fishing activity in the area that is soon to be closed to fishers.
10B5 To someone on the dock the Ugulan would have appeared that it was fishing way more compared to others. But to someone using the global fishing watch the person would be able to see that it was entering restricted Fiji waters.
10B6. Citizens could reduce illegal fishing by using the satellite to track fishers and make sure they are obeying the law. This program is great for tracking boats, but the limitations might be not having an actual camera recording the fishing activity.
11. Atlantic Salmon are overall is relatively on the best choice with a whopping 8.02 score. This is because most of these salmon are farmed not fished. This reduces the chance of almost eliminating the population or having bycatch.
Coonstriped shrimp is on the best choice with a 3.30 score. Even though it is branded as a best choice, catching the shrimp still wields a problem. The problem of catching the shrimp is that there is bycatch with every batch of shrimp caught.
EC Q.
1.Pink salmon that are migrating late tend to avoid high stream temperatures. The pink salmon that migrate early prefer hot or warmer waters. 2.Around 27% to 39% of pink salmon were late migrators. From 1970-2011 the pink salmon who were late migrators fell to around 5%. 3.The downside of the having an early migrators is that there is no diversity in the population. 4.If the creek cooled, then the salmon living there would just migrate to warmer waters, or they would have to adapt and evolve.
