FISHING OVER

THE LIMIT
Jessica Galvez
Figure 1. Overfishing causes many threats to the ocean environment and could possibly affect our future (Green Peace, 2016)

History of the Issue issue, but also us, as humans, we have

played a big part. Many are destroying

Overfishing has been a big threat to
habitats in the oceans to replace them with
the ocean environment causing a loss of
our own tropics to help our environment and
many of our fish. Over 27% of our fish are
not much of the fish environment. Much of
being lost or wasted and large seafood
our soil have been getting washed up in
industries play a big role in this issue.
rivers leading up to the
Many of these industries
contamination of the
need to help supply
ocean killing many
restaurants with
of our fish which is
seafood and fishing
caused by
them straight from the
deforestation. Oil spills,
ocean are the main
Figure 2. Fishing many at a time causing the low population of
our fish (World Wildlife Fund, 2016) pollution, poison,
way they can provide
human and animal wastes are all parts of the
their needs. Not only do industries cause this

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causes of this issue, but there are many ways possibly stop the food chain. On the other

to stop this from happening. hand, companies are trying to find ways to

Industries vs. Companies at least slow down this problem. Many think

There are two viewpoints that face that people dont pay much attention to the

this issue. Industries and the other being major issue of overfishing and focusing

many companies that are trying to prevent more on their own environment. Some ways

overfishing. Seafood industries have to

help supply restaurants so they dont run

out. Imagine how much they have to fish

every week or every month just to get the

amount they need to restock for places that

Figure 1. Many dead fish in the ocean caused by humans by overfishing
need seafood. This causes the fish (CNN, 2013)

population to slowly go down which could to stop this is by protecting the marine

wildlife, strengthening and expanding

protected areas, and revitalizing marine

fisheries in America. Not much has been

said about how they are going to get this to

work, but they will of course look into it

more.

My Thoughts on Overfishing

Overfishing can cause a large amount of our

fish population to go down. The oceans

Table 1. Statistics show how much money for fish
are being consumed by humans more than for environment are being highly affected due to
Industrial Purposes (The Seattle Times, 2013)

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 the atmospheric levels.

According to The National

Oceanic Atmospheric The ocean has absorbed 30% of all the

Administration (NOAA, they carbon that we have put out into the
atmosphere since the Industrial
claim that, (Simmons,
Revolution...that means that the acidity level
2016). This quote clearly of the ocean is increasing.
states that the carbon and -Simmons
acidity that the oceans are
aware of what really goes, but focus more
absorbing is a big threat to the fish
on their own environment.
environment. This can cause corals to be

bleached which will slow down the food

Human and animal wastes such as dirt,
chain and destroy many of the living
smoke, vehicle exhaust, and air pollutants
habitats still in use by fish. People are not
also affect the ocean environment. Oil spills

also spread throughout rivers and oceans

killing many of the sea creatures that are in

the food chain. PCBs (polychlorinated

biphenyls) are a family of 209 related,

colorless, oily compounds, differing from

one another in the varying number and

position of chlorine atoms around their two

connected benzene rings, (Rivlin, 1998).

This describes of what the PCB oil spilling

Table 2. The carbon that we create in the air causes the
acidity to increase in the ocean bleaching out many habitats. contain of that could really affect our oceans
(Popular Science, 2011)

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with toxic bleaching coral reefs that are

a habitat to many animals living in the

sea. The PCB oil spill went from the

Hudson River leading up to the New

York Harbor also contaminating the

river and oceans connected to them.

There has also been some national

problems happening in many places.

...national problems, such as toxic

wastes, fouled beaches, drought, trash

disposal, and, recently, the Exxon oil

spill in Alaska, (Friedman, 1989).

These are some examples that relate to

the national problems happening and

Figure 4. (Pinterest)
many are being aware of these global

environmental issues.

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 References

Friedman, S. M., & Friedman, K. A. (1989,

Jun). Environmental journalism.

Environment, , 6+.

Retrieved from http://sks.sirs.com

Rivlin, M. A. (1998, Muddy waters: GE,

PR, and PCBs. Amicus Journal, , 30-

37. Retrieved from

http://sks.sirs.com

Simmons, A. M. (2016, 12 Sep). Oceans

under siege and ways to mitigate the

threats. Los Angeles Times Retrieved

from http://sks.sirs.com