T H R E AT S T O

MARINE
B I O LO G I C A L
DIVERSITY

B. DESTRUCTIVE AND
ILLEGAL FISHING
This classification covers those fishing gears and
devices that effect capture by causing a change
in the immediate environment of the target
catch.
This means that there exists first a transmission
of contact or application from gear to
environment, and them to the living organisms.

 ELECTROFISHING
Electrofishing or Electric fishing
method where fish is narcotized or
stupefied with electricity. In Electrofishing,
an actual primary device that can be
considered a valid fishing gear is
employed.

The gear referred

to is the power
or electrical
source. It may be
a transportable
generator used
abroad water
vessels or a
simple battery
pack carried on
the back of the
fisher.

The voltage potential is created using

either of two basic types of electrical
current: direct current (DC) and
alternating current (AC). A third type
exists, called Pulsed Direct Current (also
called Impulse current, a modified direct
current).

The types of electrical current (and its wave

form), by a large, determine the response of the
fi sh to the electricity. These responses include:

Evasion (avoiding)
Electronarcosis (muscle relaxation or
stunning)
Electrotaxis (forced swimming)
Electrotetenus (muscle contraction)
Death

 BLAST FISHING
Blast fishing is a type of fishing which
induces mechanical narcosis or stupefying
through the use of explosives, most known
of which is dynamite. Likewise, very
popular is the use of fertilizers and other
oxidizing chemical that are highly
accessible.

The use of such

material as the
main component
if his catching
method kills,
maims, paralyses
stuns or, at the
very least, dull
the sense of
organisms
reached by the
degree and extent
of the detonation
of the explosive.

 POISON/CYANIDE
FISHING
The use of poisons and noxious substances
achieves narcosis of fish chemically. This
type of narcosis, like mechanical narcosis
instigated by blast fishing and several
hand instrument like Spears and Harpoons,
cause fish to be killed, disabled or
stupefied.

Two types of poison:

Natural Poison- derived from socalled ichthyotoxic plants
Poisons from Industrial Chemicals.

Click icon to add picture

Poison/Cyani
de Fishing

 MURO-AMI
Muro-ami is a type of drive in net fishing
technique whereby a line of fishermen in
the water use scare lines (typically a line
with pieces of sheet or plastic tied off at
regular intervals, with weight on the end)
to drive fish down a reef towards a bag net.

The scare lines are rhythmically lifted and

dropped into the reef framework, often
breaking live corals while the fish are
driven ahead. In this style of fishing, the
boat, with about 300 very young boys on
board, places a huge net all around the
reef, with one end open. The boys then
dive (often dangerously deep) and bounce
rock tied on rope along the reef, driving all
the fish into the net, which is then closed.

Click icon to add picture

Muro-ami is now
banned in the
Philippines
because of its
dangerous actions.

 BOTTOM TRAWLING
Bottom trawling is the fishing practice of
dragging large nets weighted with chains,
roller or rock-hopper gear across the
seafloor to catch ground fish species such
as rockfish, cod, and sole.

Click icon to add picture

Recognizing that
some habitats should
not be trawled,
fishery managers
have protected
selected areas from
bottom trawling.
However, many
sensitive habitats are
still at risk to the
impacts of this
fishing practice.

 GILL NETTING/ LAY

GILL NETS
There are many indiscriminate fishing methods
that are extremely destructive. One of the worst
are set or lay gill nets. The use of set
monofilament gillnets has decimated the
populations of inshore fishes in the main
Hawaiian Islands.

While some configurations of gillnets are used

responsibly in ways that surround and catch
only the targeted species, lay gillnets are
deployed as invisible walls that snare
everything that runs into them, depleting both
targeted and non-targeted species, destroying
bottom habitat and protected species, and
severely impacting the snorkeling and diving
industries. The by catch may amount to fifteen
times the volume of the targeted catch.

Click icon to add picture

Inshore lay
gillnets are
banned in all
states in the
United States
except Hawaii.

POLLUTION

 NOISE POLLUTION
Noise pollution is rarely mentioned as a
risk to biodiversity, yet it is persuasive
throughout the oceans. Seabird
researchers have long known that noise
from aircraft overflights can disrupt
colonies, causing parents to abandon their
eggs or chicks, thereby exposing them to
the elements and predators such as gulls.

NOISE MIGHT ACTUALLY BE THE

GREATEST STRESS FOR SOME MARINE
MAMMAL SPECIES BECAUSE:
Water can conduct sound waves for thousands
of kilometers.
Many species have evolved special sensitivity
to sound at frequencies like those produced by
shipping and underwater construction.
A substantial number of species rely on
acoustic signals as their primary means of
communication.

 CHEMICAL POLLUTION
Some of the wastes that enter the sea are
harmful to life processes because they are
toxic or radioactive. Others are nutrients
that stimulate the growth of some kinds of
living things at the expense of others.

One thing these pollutants share is that

once they discharged, dumped, or washed
into the sea, they are extremely difficult, if
not, impossible to reclaim. As is true with
most human insults to the environment,
preventing pollution is ultimately less
costly than cleaning up or suffering its
consequences.

RED TIDE

Harmful algae are microscopic, singlecelled plants that live in the sea. Most
species of algae or phytoplankton are not
harmful and serve as the energy producers
at the base of food web, without which
higher life on this planet would not exist.

Red tide is a common name for such a

phenomenon where certain phytoplankton
species contain reddish pigments and
bloom such that the water appears to be
colored red. The term red tide is thus a
misnomer because they are not associated
with tides; they are usually not harmful;
and those species that are harmful may
never reach the densities required to
discolor the water.

Unfortunately, a small number of species

produce potent neurotoxins that can be
transferred through the food web where they
affect and even kill the higher forms of life
such as zooplankton, shellfish, fish, birds,
marine mammals and even human that feed
either directly or indirectly on them.
Scientists now prefer the term HAB, to
refer to bloom phenomenon that contain
toxins or that cause negative impacts.

ROOT
CAUSES

The proximate threats to marine biological

diversity- overexploitation, physical
ecosystem alteration, pollution,
introduction of alien species, and
global atmospheric changes- are
symptoms of more fundamental forces that
are driving environmental degradation
around the world.

Biological impoverishment is the inevitable

consequence of the ways in which our
species has used and misused the
environment during our rise to dominance.
The impoverishment has extended from
the land and fresh waters into the sea.

THERE ARE FIVE BASIC REASONS WHY LIFE

IN SEA IS AT RISK:

There are too many people.

We consume to much
Our institutions degrade, rather than
conserve biodiversity.
We do not have the knowledge we need.
We do not value nature enough.