The Impact of Overfishing

Many of the fish that we so enjoy consuming are also the most sought after. Often times, such fish are caught before they are capable of reproduction. In conjunction with rapid, modern-day fishing practices,  their numbers have been greatly depleted. Rebuilding fish populations becomes hard when it is nearly impossible for significant reproduction to occur. These fish exist as top predators in their ecosystems. When these species begin to disappear from their respective food webs, ecosystems begin to change. Food webs experience great shifts. Lower trophic level, smaller fish begin to replace the predators at the top. Due to their lower trophic level status, more of these fish are needed to provide the same amount of energy to a consumer that fewer top predator species could produce. As a result, larger numbers of these smaller fish are needed, and even more overfishing begins to occur. 
A large part of the impact of overfishing comes from the actual methods of fishing. In most methods of commercial fishing, bycatch, any marine organism that is caught along incidentally with commercial species, is the main problem. Bycatch is estimated to account for over a fourth of the world's total marine catch, yet the majority of these organisms either die or are dying before being thrown back into the ocean. This has lead to the endangering of a significant number of the species that end up as bycatch. Perhaps one of the most destructive forms of fishing is shrimp trawling, which is not only responsible for a large portion of the world's total bycatch but also for the destruction of numerous seabed communities as nets with weighted trawl doors are dragged across them. This method is so damaging that is has been likened to the clearing of forests.

What humans can do to stop over fishing

There are an abundant amount of ways human can help to stop the over fishing battle and bring order back into the wildlife of the oceans. A few foremost options are to drastically limit fishing companies amount of fish caught, hours allowed out at sea per day, increase in technologies to create less by-catch, and to promote fisheries. Fisheries are basically fish farms where a farmer in a controlled environment grows and farms fish to sell, therefore he is not adding or depleting the overall fish population in the oceans. By limiting the amount of fish allowed to be caught per day and hours of accessible fishing you can drastically cut back on the amount by catch caught and  have a reasonable measurement of just how much fish are being caught on a daily basis. With these new laws set governments can easily monitor and control fishing companies and decide whether or not new regulations need to be put on or some regulations can be put off because they will have more accurate assumptions on just how much they are hurting the delicate wildlife of ocean creatures.

Why Over Fishing is Horrible

Here is a great two minute video that explains the problems associated with over fishing and what will happen if we don't stop it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxacxShp3LY

Overfishing Introduction

Fishing has been a huge part of humans existence on this planet and one of our foremost food supplies. Before the mid 20th century humans believed the oceans to be filled endlessly with fish, however, this is just not the case. The oceans food supply is dwindling and our yearly fish yields have been lower and lower every year for the past forty years. Fishing companies have been upgrading their technologies to achieve better yields but non of it is working due to the fact the fish populations just don't have enough time to reproduce in time for our next harvest season. Some companies have started fish farming industries to help the over fishing problem, but these farms just don't produce enough fish yet to be able to help the fact that we still need huge amounts of fish from the oceans to feed our growing world population. So clearly we have a problem, but how can we stop this without hurting humans as a repercussions? So over fishing is a big problem that needs to be stopped, just how to we go about it is the question?