Commercial Fishing Impacts

In 2011 recreational fishermen landed more than 204.9 million pounds of saltwater fish. Commercial fishermen in the U.S. landed 9.9 billion pounds of fish and shellfish. Both recreational and commercial fishing provide over four hundred thousand jobs for the United States. The environmental impact of recreational and commercial fishing includes issues such as the availability of fish, overfishing, and left behind waste of fishing. The difference between recreational and commercial fishing is, recreational fishing is for the average individual, kind of like a hobby. When recreational fishing, a fishermen would typically use a fishing pole or a similar type of device for catching fish. Commercial fishing is strictly for profit. Commercial fishermen

Certain species have a huge impact to an ecosystem, but even the smallest fish could have the biggest impact. Overfishing occurs when more fish are caught than the population can replace through natural reproduction (overfishing). The results not only affect the balance of life in the oceans, but could also affect the coastal areas that depend on fish for their way of life. For centuries, our seas and oceans seem to be considered a limitless food supply. But that is not the case, increasing fishing efforts over the last fifty years as well as unjustifiable fishing practices are pushing many fish stocks to the point of extinction. Millions upon millions of people rely on fish for protein, and fishing is so much of the livelihood for millions of people around the world (overfishing). There are a lot of recreational fishermen that complain about the laws we have in place to protect fish, such as a size requirement and limit per day. These laws are put in place by the state to help prevent a species from being over fished. The definition of over fishing is to deplete the number of fish in a body of water by too much fishing. Overfishing is very harmful to the ecosystem, taking a species close to extinction or completely extinct. As a species gets close to extinction it can be very hard to restore them back to sustainability. Even closing the fishing game for that species is not enough for a species to comeback from overfishing. Both recreational and commercial fishing have a huge impact on overfishing, by keeping under sized fish and other aquatic life. Not only do fish have to worry about fishermen but they also have to worry about each other, fish deplete their own population by feeding on one another. For example, Betta fish are known to eat fish of the same species but can live peacefully with fish of another species. Therefore, humans should embrace and follow fishing laws rather than try to sneak