Fishing in the North Atlantic Essay -- Environment Fish Industry Essay

Fishing in the North Atlantic Abstract Ocean fishes have been consumed by humans beyond their maximum sustainable yields for years and the Atlantic cod and squid are two examples. Cods were primarily overfished to commercial extinction. Other variables were also examined to see if they contribute to the declining population. Water temperature was the natural phenomenon that may be responsible for poor egg hatching. Human causes such as increased UV radiation from depleted ozone and bottom trawling disturbance were considered. Trawling disturbance had the worst effect while the other factors were questionable. As the cod vanished, the commercial fisher turned to squid to continue their way of life. Government policy and economics had a great deal to do with the continuing overfishing pattern of wiping out one species and then turn to another. In the end, there is no real solution which accommodates both ecology and unchanged societal uses at the same time. Introduction It was believed that 500 years ago, Irish settlers went to Newfoundland not for the religious freedom there, but the fertile fish banks near the shore(Pollack, 1995). This was all but history now. The overfishing crisis took on headlines back in the early 1990s. The fish pack waters in the north Atlantic were rapidly removed for profit until the fish population was decimated. The current seafood production and human dependence upon it are enormous. In many third world countries, seafoods are the primary source of protein for human consumption. According to the offical website of the Commerce Department's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the seafood consumption in the U.S. remained steady with Americans consuming 3.90 billion pounds ... ...6-21. Safina, C. 1995. The World’s Imperiled Fish. Scientific American 273(5):46-53. Schneider, D.C. David A. Methven, and Edgar L. Dalley. 1997. Geographic Contraction in Juvenile Fish: A Test with Northern Cod (Gadus morhua) at Low Abundance. Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences 54(suppl. 1):187-199. Smith, S J; and S. Gavaris. 1993. Improving the Precision of Abundance Estimates of Eastern Scotian Shelf Atlantic Cod from Bottom Trawl Surveys. North American Journal of Fisheries Management 13(1):35-47. Stephenson, Robert, and Daniel E. Lane. 1995. Fisheries Management Science: A Plea for Conceptual Change. Canadian Journal of Aquatic Science 52:2051-2056. The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Third Edition. 1992. Houghton Mifflin Company. Published on Microsoft Bookshelf ’94 CD-ROM, 1994. Microsoft Corporation.