1 Weeks

Christopher Weeks

Ms. Maynard

November 8, 2017

1B

Why Overfishing is an Issue?

How is overfishing an issue? This is a problem because there are not good enough

regulations to keep the fish populations thriving. This issue has to be reined in because if not

many fishing sources will be gone. Many people are eating fish that are not safe for consumption

due to overfishing. In order to prevent an extreme decline in the fish population better

regulations by the government are needed to prevent overfishing, prevent water pollution, and

control the impact of invasive species on fish populations.

Natural restocking of fish is possible. It is a very easy for fish to be transported without

people seeing it. The fish eggs can attach to things like other aquatic animals and vegetation in

the water. “ Eggs or fry can be carried in on the feet or mouths of waterfowl and other animals,

or can be clinging onto some aquatic plants you decided to add to your pond”.(Hill) This is why

many new fish species make their way into new fisheries. Also fish eggs can be moved around

by flooding areas. While regulating needs to be more regulations in to prevent pollution,

overfishing and invasive species so it will not happen.

Freshwater fish such as salmon produce a good amount of money from commercial

fishing but also along the rivers of Alaska where you will find many tourists fishing for salmon.

Commercial fishing provides most of the country with food each year. It brings in big money for

many towns along the river bays. Fisherman have noticed since the 20th century that Salmon
 2 Weeks
population were declining. “One hundred years ago the major threat to salmon was commercial

fishing, and as early as the beginning of the 20th century people began to notice the runs were

declining.” (USFWS) Salmon are a freshwater species that is very overfished. Their population

has decreased a lot and it is due to commercial fishing. This is because it is a big fish target for

commercial companies. The lack of restrictions to help the salmon population does not help

because fishing for salmon is a very big attraction for any fisherman. Because of these problems

overfishing needs to have more regulations.

Many areas have gone from having an abundance of fish to having little to no fish and it

is has a negative impact on the economy. Many new ways to catch fish have been seen to hurt

the fish populations because the technology keeps getting better and better to make catching

more fish easier. “Now, new technology can precisely locate any fish in the water, and create

bigger and better traps. This leads to the depletion of the population. This industry was warned

not to fish for cod and let the population rebuild itself, but people were too desperate for the

small amount of money.” (Reid) This is hurting the fish population from commercial fishing to

continue when the fishery is already very low. This issue is not only in the United States but in

countries like China and all across Asia. This population decline is why the government needs to

put in more regulations of overfishing.

The United States needs to make more regulations of the amount of fish can be kept, the

length of the fish, and the weight of the fish. These should all be regulated because many people

already keep too many fish as it is, so they should make the keep amount smaller so the fish have

somewhat of a chance to reproduce to keep the species going. “Authorities found more than 150

fish fillets in his freezers and refrigerators and determined that he was “grossly over his
 3 Weeks
possession limit,” according to court records. Paalksnis was issued four citations and makes his

first court appearance Thursday,”(Jungen).This is an implication of a person keeping a gross

amount of fish over the limit. This is what hurts the fish population when so many fish are being

taking that it is not even necessary. If this continues to happen the fish population will be gone

within a couple of years because many fisheries are already losing many fish populations. If

these limits keep being broken by thousands of people a year then the fisheries around the world

will be diminished.Another big issue is the pollution that has been produced over the years.

The environmental impact of overfishing is a very big issue because it causes so many

things to get thrown off just by one species disappearing out of a fishery. Fisheries are any type

of water source such as a river, lake, pond or the ocean. This is what makes a good fishery into

something of the past. Most fisheries have gone through this issue before and they do find a way

regenerate different ways of food source in the fishery, but this makes them go through a period

of not eating that forage that they are used to eating.

“Several species are facing a major decline in population, especially high value food fish:

sturgeons, salmons, Mekong giant catfish. Another example is the European eel whose numbers

have declined by approximately 90%-98% since the 1970s. Overfishing is a key cause, as eels

have been an important source of food, both as adults and as elvers. The drop in the population

of European eels became serious in and after 1990, when the catch of fry for export to China

began to increase. The European eel is now listed as Critically Endangered on the IUCN Red

List,” (IUNC).

This is a big issue in many places that fish is a big part of their diets and that is what the chinese

society will eat most of the nights. This also relates to the pollution issue because many fish are
 4 Weeks
being impacted. If the pollution continues to rise then the fish population will continue to decline

throughout the years.

The impact is very severe for the fish populations. This is what puts big time fisheries

into the past with all of the offshore oil spills to the fishing line people leave in the water. If the

food chain dies, then so does the whole ocean because if one thing dies then it messes with all of

the species in the food web. According to many ecologist this is why the fish population will

continue decline without intervention.“There have been many closures to fisheries in many parts

of the world including the Atlantic Canadian Cod Fishery in the 1990s. Sustainable fishing

ensures that people’s livelihoods are protected and the fishing business is sustained. Overfishing

does not guarantee that, and soon, big investments will go waste and people will be out of

work,”(eschool).This is true because not only is it hurting the fishing for years to come by taking

the fishing while it is here and not letting the fish population regenerate. This is why length

restrictions for fisheries were put in place because you need biodiversity in the ocean and in the

other fisheries. Also, ghost fishing, which is when the fishermen leave discard nets down in the

water for many decades and this tends to kill.

There is many regulations in place to overcome this issue but it is not seeming to work.

This happens many times when fisherman are in low points of the season just looking for any

fish that can be found feeding. This tends to catch some of the most fish per run because of the

amount of time the nets can be sitting in the water at a time. This can also be very deadly

because sometimes these nets will be forgotten in the water and left there for many years, which

can kill fish on the daily. Ghost fishing is a very big issue in the fishing industry and there

should be more regulations to help protect the fisheries around the world.
 5 Weeks
The Clean Water Act was started by EPA (Environmental Protection Agency). The EPA

enforces federal clean water and safe drinking laws. It was created for the purpose of protecting

human health and the environment by writing the Federal Water Pollution Control Act. The

Federal Water Pollution Control Act of 1948 was the first major US law to address water

pollution. It was amended in 1972 to the Clean Water Act. The amendment established the basic

structure for regulation pollutant discharges into the waters of the united states. It also gave the

EPA the authority to implement pollution control programs. In 1981 it was revised again to

improve the capabilities of treatment plants built under the program. Over the years, many laws

have caused revisions of the Clean Water Act. An agreement in 1978 between Canada and the

United States, which was about encouraging the regulation of the pollutants in the Great Lakes.

The agreement caused the EPA to establish water quality criteria for the Great Lakes, addressing

29 toxic pollutants with maximum levels that are safe for humans and the environment. “

Without EPA guidance and assistance, subsistence fishers, including tribes, will continue to

consume unhealthy amounts of contaminated fish,”(EPA). This is why the EPA is important

because if the water is not looked after by them then many tribes and families will be eating

unhealthy amounts of contaminated fish which makes the people sick. Although pollution has

improved greatly since 1948 there is still room for improvement.

There are many good things the EPA has done, but there is still so much room for

improvement. The Ocean is still very polluted by more than thousands of people a day and the

fisheries is suffering from it. The EPA needs to start keeping better track of the population each

year so they can compare data from years past, to see if this issue has gotten any better. “27% of

the nation’s rivers and streams have excessive levels of nitrogen, and 40% have high levels of
 6 Weeks
phosphorus. These nutrient pollutants cause toxic green slime outbreaks that are harmful to

public health,”(earth). The EPA does not keep track of the yearly pollution rates in the United

States. This would show the change of the pollution year to year to see how much they are really

making an impact each year. The EPA should also look to test the amount of oil contamination in

every river system throughout the whole United States to make sure local people are not being

exposed to high mercury levels. “Mercury emissions from major Massachusetts sources have

declined by 90 percent over the past two decades, but mercury levels in the state’s freshwater

fish hold stubbornly high, with many species too contaminated for pregnant women and children

to eat,” (Daley). This is a big issue to many states that lack the assistance from the EPA as much

as the bigger, more known states with high mercury levels. The EPA should spend more focus on

the freshwater than the ocean because the more the freshwater goes the less time the population

of humans have to live on earth. The water keeps improving, but this issue could be much better

if the people would stop throwing trash wherever they felt like throwing it. If humans continue at

this rate of freshwater declining, then the world will run out of clean water and all these food

sources these waters bring to the table. However, pollution is not the only thing that affects the

native fishery, Invasive species is a nationwide issues that affects the fishing industry.

Invasive species affect the United States yearly. Invasive species are characterized as an

alien species whose introduction does or is likely to cause economic or environmental harm. The

negative consequences of invasive species is costing the United States billions of dollars in

damages every year. Infestations of invasive plants and animals can affect property values,

agriculture productivity, health of the ecosystem, and native fishery. “Invasive species cost

United States more than $120 billion in damages every year” (Pimental). The Asian Carp fish is
 7 Weeks
an example of an invasive species, that are vicious eaters that threaten native fisheries in the

Great Lakes. In 2010 alone, the federal government spent $78.5 million to prevent the

overpopulation in the Great Lakes. Invasive species is the leading cause of population decline in

native fish. Another example of invasive species is the Indo-Pacific Lionfish, which was

introduced by the saltwater aquarium trade. They were introduced along the Southeast of the

United States coast, in less than a decade later they have spread as far north as New York. Like

the Asian Carp fish they are vicious eaters, but the Lionfish also has venomous spines. The

Lionfish have been known to reduce native reef fish by 79 percent. These invasive species are

destroying the fish industry and this issue could have been resolved if the United States took the

time to kill all of the invasive species in the fisheries.

Invasive species are constantly killing many native fish in the fisheries which is killing

the fish market due to the fact that these fish are eating resources for the fish that were already

there. Most of these fish or plant life are voracious eaters that will take over a pond or lake with

years by reproducing to have nothing there eat that fish because it was not in the food web in

prior years. Invasive species tend to make it into bigger lakes or rivers because of the vast

amount of travel with big boats from different countries. This happen in the Great Lakes with the

Zebra Mussels attaching to the bottoms of cargo ships from Europe and they make it over to the

United States and released into the waters. “Sea lamprey prey on commercially important fish

species, such as lake trout, living off of the blood and body fluids of adult fish. During its life as

a parasite, each sea lamprey can kill 40 or more pounds of fish. These organisms were a major

cause of the collapse of lake trout, whitefish, and chub populations in the Great Lakes during the

1940's and 1950's,” (UMESC). Many of these invasive species have been brought into the United
 8 Weeks
States through the Great Lakes and the cargo coming from other parts of the world. Often to

people will release their fish from their tanks that have gotten to small for the foreign species so

they simply put it into the local fishery and do not think anything of it. If one person puts a fish

in an another puts one in that same fishery there is that possibility that the species will reproduce

in this fishery. This is the one of the leading problems in the United States so this is Starting to

be watched more and more each year. If this continues to happen then the fish populations will

continue to decline over the years.

In 1999, President Clinton signed the Executive order 13112 on invasive species to try

and handle this recurring issue. This helps connect the activities of the existing federal agencies

that address the issue of invasive species. This made it so the United States government could

have full control of research, control, monitoring, and education to help from this happening

down the road in later years. In 1996 the NISA (The national invasive species) was pass to work

with this issue world wide. These are big helps to the government because people are trying to

study these invasive species to see how to remove them properly from these fisheries back to

their home fishery. "This is some of the worst news we could get as fisheries biologists," AGFC's

Mark Oliver said at the time of the initial discovery. This is a very bad issue in America because

the fishing is rising and the populations are on the decline.

"We can see, looking in their stomachs, that they'll eat everything that's out there. They're eating

crawfish and bream, and they'll kill fish just because of the competition factor. From the White

River, they have access to much of the state,"(Montgomery).

These Snakeheads in this river are eating many of native fishes resource which is making sport

fish and your regular meal fishing decline of good quality fish. If this continues to get worse
 9 Weeks
many big fisheries will be lacking in diversity of species that it once had in the past. This can not

continue to happen and the EPA and government need to take a stand against the invasive

species.

There is a couple things that the government and EPA could do to prevent the invasive

species from spreading throughout America. For instance many fishermen use live baits for the

bigger game fish and some fisherman will dump the extra bait over the side and let them go into

the water. That is putting fish that are not native to that area and putting them were the baitfish

should not be. Also, when people move different fish species to different local lakes or rivers to

see if they will reproduce there which also hurts the fishery because there is now a fish taking up

resources when it does not belong there. ​"This malicious and illegal act seriously endangers our

effort to restore this important fishery," said Jon Sjoberg, chief of fisheries for the Nevada

Department of Wildlife. "The people illegally introducing pike are destroying a fishery, not

creating a new one,"(Sonner). People are actually hurting the fishery not helping it by putting in

different species that do not belong there. This has to come to an end because if it does not, then

it could seriously hurt many fisheries all over the United States and make all of them harder and

harder to fish for the native fish all the locals once loved to catch for dinner. This could be

stopped by tightening up the punishments on getting caught transporting invasive species from

fishery to fishery.

If overfishing is not stopped then many resources will be out of many fisheries, the

pollution is making the fish unsafe to be consumed by humans, and the invasive species are

taking away from the resources the native fish thrive on. Overfishing really impacts the economy

if people still push through those really tough seasons the East Coast is already experiencing.
 10 Weeks
This causes many issue for the future if fisherman continue to overfish the weak population. The

pollution is really making many fisheries unsafe to eat out of because of how contaminated they

are from the previous years of many factories on the riverways. The invasive species are really

diminishing the native resources that are needed to keep the food web from falling apart. So this

need to get fixed because if not many places in the United States, yet around the world will be

without the plentiful fish people once caught in that fishery. Therefore this is why overfishing is

a very big issue that has to be fixed as soon as possible.

 11 Weeks

Works Cited

The Associate Press. “Reward offered to catch Nevada lake invasive fish dumper.” ​ABC News​,

12 Aug. 2017,

abcnews.go.com/amp/Lifestyle/wireStory/reward-offered-catch-nevada-lake-invasive-fis

h-dumper-49178709. Accessed 10 Oct. 2017.

Butler, Kathlene, et al. “EPA Needs to Provide Leadership and Better Guidance to Improve Fish

Advisory Risk Communications.” ​United States Environmental Protection Agency​,

United Stated Environmental Protection Agency, 12 Apr. 2017, www.epa.gov/. Accessed

13 Oct. 2017.

Camp, Marc Arenas. “FARM FISHING: THE SOLUTION TO OVERFISHING?” ​all you need

is biology​, 2 Mar. 2017, allyouneedisbiology.wordpress.com. Accessed 14 Oct. 2017.

Daley, Beth, and Marta Craviotto. “Mercury emissions down but mercury in Massachusetts fish

remains high.” ​New England Center for Investigative Reports​, 19 July 2015,

www.necir.org/2015/07/19/high-mercury-in-mass-fish/. Accessed 12 Nov. 2017.

Ind. J. Sci. Res. and Tech. “WATER POLLUTION FROM VARIOUS SOURCES AND

HUMAN INFRINGEMENTS: AN EDITORIAL.” ​citeseerx.ist.psu.org​, 2 Jan. 2013,

citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.428.8564&rep=rep1&type=pdf.

Accessed 12 Sept. 2017.

 12 Weeks
Judge, Liz. “NEW SURVEY, SAME EVIDENCE: OUR STREAMS AND RIVERS ARE

DANGEROUSLY POLLUTED.” ​Earth Justice​, 26 Mar. 2013,

earthjustice.org/news/press/2013/new-survey-same-evidence-our-streams-and-rivers-are-

dangerously-polluted. Accessed 13 Dec. 2017.

Mcdonnell, Tim. “One of the World’s Biggest Lakes Is Dying and We’re to Blame.” ​mother

jones​, 30 Jan. 2015,

www.motherjones.com/environment/2015/01/climate-change-lake-victoria-overfishing/.

Accessed 14 Sept. 2017.

Montgomery, Robert. “Full-court press against snakeheads.” ​bassmaster​, 18 Nov. 2005,

www.bassmaster.com/news/full-court-press-against-snakeheads. Accessed 1 Sept. 2017.

Owen, James. “Overfishing is Emptying World’s Rivers, Lakes, Experts Warn.” ​national

geographic​, 1 Dec. 2005,

news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/12/1201_051201_overfishing.html. Accessed

13 Oct. 2017.

---. “What Happened to the Trout?” ​National GeoGraphic​, 26 Mar. 2012,

blog.nationalgeographic.org/author/jowen2/page/2/. Accessed 13 Oct. 2017.

Reid, G. McG, et al. “Major threats.” ​IUNC Freshwater Fish Specialist Group​, 1 Jan. 2013,

www.iucnffsg.org/freshwater-fishes/major-threats/. Accessed 12 Oct. 2017.

UMESC. “Sea Lamprey.” ​UMESC​, 3 Nov. 2015,

www.umesc.usgs.gov/invasive_species/sea_lamprey.html. Accessed 13 Oct. 2017.

US wildlife. “Laws, Policies and Regulations.” ​US fish and Wildlife Service​, 15 Jan. 2016,

www.fws.gov/fisheries/ans/ANSLaws.html. Accessed 13 Sept. 2017.

 13 Weeks
Walsh, Stephen J., et al. “The Decline of North American Freshwater Fishes.” ​action bioscience​,

1 June 2009, www.actionbioscience.org/biodiversity/walsh.html. Accessed 10 Sept.

2017.