Human Impact on the Environment
By Sally Smith and Jordan Hale
Over-Fishing
Over-fishing is a problem that negatively impacts the world's oceans in many ways. When humans remove too many fish from oceans and leaving too few fish to reproduce and replenish the t of the population. This is non-sustainable because when you take the adults out of the habitat and leave only juveniles reproduction rates fall dramatically. The fish numbers get fewer and fewer until there are just no more fish left to catch. World-wide fishing fleets have increased to meet the food demands of different countries. Various fishing practices also remove non-target fish, which are often discarded as by-catch. This is very wasteful. One example is tuna fisheries that catch dolphins in their nets. The dolphins drown in the nets and are tossed over-board since there is no market for dolphin. Over fishing also destroys food webs because many fish that are removed are food for other ocean organisms or are top predators. Solutions to over fishing include sustainable fishing practices- observing fishing seasons, removing limited quantities of certain fish species, using nets that have escape holes for mammals and turtles.