Commercial fishing and overfishing is a big problem to the aquatic animals in the world. In 1968 a cod (type of fish) catching industry got a highly industrialized fishing vessel, and was able to catch from about 500,000 to 800,000 tons of codfish in Labrador and the Grand Banks of Newfoundland. In the 10 years to follow the cod population decreased to the point that, the amount of spawning cod out of Newfoundland in 1977 was a 94 percent drop from the amount in 1962. Another type of fish population to decline due to overfishing is the American shad.
In Georges Bank on 1850 the halibut fish species almost went extinct due to overfishing and commercial fishing they still just kept on fishing. The fishing got so bad that the United States had to pass the Magnuson Act which banned any type of international factory fishing. That is the problem the world is having with commercial fishing and overfishing. Humans are eating and catching fish at a faster rate than the fish are reproducing.. All over the world humans get 16 percent of their protein from fish and shellfish.
In Africa and Asia, fish are usually 50 percent of protein for humans. As the human population grows more and more the demand for seafood has been increasing from 1950 to about 125 million tons per year. Scientist have predicted that by 2020, the per capita world fish catch will be about half as much as in 1988. The commercial fishing industry has to increase also to to provide enough food for the demand. So, supply and demand are starting to get uneven because the demand for fish is way higher than the supply.
Also driftnets are used to catch fish as well because of the amount of fish it can catch in one shot but it is very destructive to the fish population. Driftnets are also huge and will catch anything that swims into it so even unwanted fish get caught. Sometimes during storms when the driftnets are out they get lost and hundreds of fish underwater get entangled in it and die. Also the driftnets are a material that are very hard to break down so they could stay in the ocean for years.
Even though the United Nations banned driftnets larger than 1. miles long people still always use huge driftnets. When they use driftnets and materials like that they bycatch lots of fish. The amount of bycatch in the United States is 3 million tons of fish every year. We humans are also getting affected by overfishing and commercial fishing as well. Today the amount of seafood caught is a little over 90 million tons from 94 million in 1998. As the human population grows, the per capita world fish catch has been going down steadily ever since 1970 because of us outgrowing the fish.
Scientists have predicted that by 2020, the per capita world fish catch will be about half as much as in 1988. As the population of fish decrease the number of jobs also decrease. In 1994 governments attempted to bring up the failing fisheries when worldwide the fisheries spent $124 billion to catch the fish but, got $70 billion out of it so the governments covered up the shortfalls. Coral reefs are on the verge of collapse because of overfishing.
Also the coral reefs have decreased from about 28 percent to 13. 8 percent. About 19,300 square miles of coral reef has been lost due to overfishing. See humans and animals are being affected by commercial fishing and overfishing. Humans could find another food source other than fish and for the government to pass a law that commercial fishing should be changed the way it is done. Doing this will solve the problem by leaving the fish alone so they can repopulate and the fish population will be restored.
By the government passing the law then, commercial fishers will have to choose a less damaging way to catch fish. They could use rods instead of a huge net so you will be able to quickly decide what you want to do with the fish instead of killing fish by bycatching. So to find another food source the government could tell people to hunt more common deer and birds. The government could pass a law that people can’t catch fish in certain areas where endangered fish live.
The president would have to be involved to pass the law and to convince other leaders to do the same. The governors would have to be involved to tell people that they should choose food sources other than fish. It would take a minimum of about 5 years to raise awareness, try to convince the governors to convince the president, get all the other leaders to listen to the president, get the laws ordered, and for the president to tell everyone to stop fishing in damaging ways. That is how we could solve the damage of overfishing and commercial fishing.