Over fishing
From Envirowiki
Over fishing occurs when a commercial fishery takes more individuals than are being replaced by the population (recruitment overfishing) or takes so many fish that the average size of fish in the population is becoming smaller (growth overfishing).
Overfishing eventually leads to fisheries collapse -- where 90% of a population is depleted. Fishing a population of a particular species is no longer commercially viable and the population itself may have been driven to extinction. Famous stock collapses include the Cod grounds off Newfoundland and the tuna in the Mediterranean.
Both forms of overfishing are a mark of unsustainable levels of commercial and recreational exploitation of fish species and populations and may be evident either in dramatically declining catch levels (where this is not due to controls on "harvesting") or to ongoing reduction in the average size of fish caught.
Globally, overfishing is a huge problem and is wrecking havoc on ocean ecosystems.
Recently, some scientists have predicted that all wild fisheries will have collapsed[1] in 45 years time.
[edit] 1 Sustainable yields
There are a number of fisheries that a currently fished commercially at sustainable levels. These include West Australian Rock Lobster, and New Zealand Hoki[2].
[edit] 2 References
- ↑ http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/nov2006/2006-11-06-02.asp
- ↑ Diamond, Jared (2005). Collapse: How Societies Choose To Fail Or Succeed. Penguin Books, 608. ISBN 0713998628.
