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Fishing for Trouble Essay

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In 1999 near the Galapagos Islands, Rob Stewart, 22, an underwater photographer and filmmaker, was driving when he discovered something that changed his life forever. It was a long line fishing rig hung with hundreds of dead sharks on a single fishing line that Stewart explained had the potential to reach from Earth to space. This fishing line is known by conservationists as a “curtain of death” (Kielburger). Overfishing is the fishing of a species at levels too high for the species to reproduce. This can greatly reduce fish population and drive species toward extinction. Fishing has provided the world with food and jobs that have remodeled Earth’s cultures and lifestyles. Fishing is practiced by local fishermen, commercial fishing rigs, …show more content…

When fish populations are low in one area, fishing boats will need to move to another area where fish are more abundant. This renders oceans and their sea life helpless and severely damaged until all of the fish in the oceans are completely gone. That is why governments need laws establishing the length of time a person could spend at sea fishing, in order to reduce overfishing and increase recovery of fish populations. One example of a fish population suffering from overfishing is the Pacific bluefin tuna. “Overfishing has left the world with less than five percent of its Pacific Bluefin tuna, says the Pew Environment Group” (Kowalski). This statement explains to the world how overfishing can drastically decrease a species’ population in an extraordinarily short time period. The Pacific bluefin tuna and other fish are very much stressed by overfishing, and suffer severe losses of population every day. Moreover, overfishing will soon lead to the extinction of fish species like the Pacific bluefin tuna. The European Commission even admits that the “EU’s [European Union] stocks are 88% overfished” (“An Icelandic Success”). This reveals Europe’s failure to prevent overfishing from spreading throughout the continent and beyond its borders. The majority of Europe’s fish supply undergoes the harmful effects that overfishing brings. Additionally, the fish

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