Nature Persuasion

The ocean is viewed as a bottomless pit, filled with an abundance of marine life all there for the taking. As much as one would like to believe this, the truth is that it is not. Massive quantities of fish populations have been diminishing faster than the speed of light. Water pollution, habitat loss and climate change are common factors to this issue but these extreme fish deficits are mainly caused by the practice of over fishing. Over fishing is basically fishing to the detriment of fish populations. We are taking far too many fish out of the water at a rate to which the fish cannot replenish themselves. The journal Science grimly states that if we continue to fish in this fashion, "all the world's fisheries will have collapsed by the year 2048." The collapse of the fish population not only disrupts the balance of the ocean ecosystem but also the human revenue. A decrease in fish means a decrease in job opportunities. According to a report in the journal of science, "72000 fishing jobs have been lost in the Pacific Northwest alone because of declining salmon stocks." Without anything to catch there is no way to generate revenue, and with no revenue there is no job. The problem with overfishing will lead to future calamity within the ocean ecosystem, the human population, and in the end the entire world.

The act of overfishing disrupts the delicate balance of the ocean ecosystem. Depleting another fish’s food source starts a chain reaction. The fish that no longer has anything to eat will die off and the fish that fed off of that fish will then die due to food deprivation, and the process goes on until it reaches the bottom of the food chain. Oftentimes the removal of a certain fish species causes an extreme increase within another. A prime case of this instance would be with the depletion of the Chesapeake Bay. The oyster’s main niche in the ecosystem is to keep the algae population in check. And so, the loss of oysters lead to the dramatic increase...