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The Impacts of Fisheries

The term "fishery" usually refers to wild fisheries, areas set aside for the growth and harvesting of fish used (primarily) for food. Fisheries usually correspond to spawning areas of wild sealife. These are also usually specifically dedicated to one or a few types of wild species -- "fish" referring to any sealife that humans want to harvest, including mollusks, crustaceans and sponges. These areas are vital to many human lives but can be greatly destructive in a number of ways, to the environment, to the sea life and, ultimately, to humans. Sustainable aquaculture, which is a combination of contained fish farming techniques and responsible wild fishery management is the new trend in this industry.

Overfishing
- Fishing for one species, exclusively, in an area has the same detrimental effect that monoculture has on agriculture. It leads to rapid depletion of the desired fish or crop after a harvesting equilibrium is passed. Many popular fish are now at least partially protected in the wild, to allow stocks of wild fish to naturally replenish. Atlantic Cod is one of the more prominent examples of these protected species.
Habitat Destruction
- Some of the methods of industrial scale fishing cause calamitous destruction of some ecosystems. Dredging and bottom trawling, used to harvest some mollusks and crabs, can partially or completely destroy coral reefs. Some fishing methods, like dynamite fishing, which uses controlled explosions to stun schools of fish, are now banned.
Cumulative Effects
- When certain types of fish in an area are exclusively or disproportionately fished, this inevitably has an effect on the other animals in the ecosystem. This is especially damaging in the case of animals lower on the food chain, particularly small school fish like mackerels. Depletion in these populations can cause depletion in predator groups.
By-Catch
- By-catch is a phenomenon of the different types of net fishing, in which other animals are inadvertently caught along with the intended animals. This becomes a problem especially when the by-catch animals are endangered species, like whales, dolphins, some sea birds and sea turtles. Innovations in net catching technology and controlled fish farming help alleviate this problem.

Nature