Why do modern commercial fishing methods lead to damages to the environment and loss of organisms? Explain your answer!
Answers
Modern commercial fishing methods are very efficient. But these methods are destructive to aquatic lives. Commercial fishing is rapidly depleting the fish populations around the world. Now many species of fish and organisms are on the verge of extinction. The fishing industry kills more than one trillion wild fish worldwide every year. Fishing in massive scales with modern methods is straining the fragile oceans and other waterways that are already poisoned by pollution from oil spills, wastes of industries, and an immense amounts of garbage.
Fishing has become an increasingly severe global problem because, as the human population rises, fish stocks in lakes, rivers, seas, and oceans continue to decline rapidly. The consumption of fish by human has doubled over the past 50 years which is twice the rate of annual population growth. To meet the demand for consumption new technological developments were applied to fishing and it decreased fish and other marine lives. These scientific advances ushered in the system of industrialized fishing that today dominates the commercial seafood market. For example, the innovation of sonar enabled ships to locate entire schools of fish from atop the water’s surface. The fishing vessels or trawlers are essentially floating factories where large quantities of fish can be stored.
Fish are integral part of the aquatic ecosystems. From the smallest streams to the largest oceans, they are interlinked to the food chain with large predators (like sharks) at the top and single-celled organisms (like plankton) at the base. However, by taking so many fish from the seas, humans have removed entire links from the aquatic food chain, upsetting the delicate balance of nature. As a result, populations of tuna, flounder, cod, halibut, swordfish, and other large fish has declined by 90 percent since the last 50 years, and the numbers of smaller plankton-eating fish has increased. Aquatic ecosystems in every part of the globe suffer from the adverse consequences of commercial fishing.