Research on Marine Vessels

Recreational fishing is the act of fishing for fun, to pass the time or for sport. There is no prize in this type of fishing except for relaxation and whatever one catches. The fish caught can be eaten or released, but they may not be sold. Bag limits set on the species of fish regulations on the number of this fish one fisherman is allowed to keep without releasing. Regulations cover everything from amounts and size of the fish caught, to location and even the tackle the fish can be caught on. Bottom fishing is when a person goes fishing for a specific type of fish that is mainly found around or near the bottom of the water column in the body of water in which they live. These regulations are currently changed by the government and politicians and should not be.

Overfishing is a death sentence to the world’s oceans. As technology continues to improve a great deal of fish can be caught quicker; but at what cost? The effects of overfishing can lead to the extinction of not just the animals being fished, but also the predators that rely on fish to eat. Ninety percent of the ocean’s largest animals have been wiped out due to overfishing (“Overfishing- A Global Disaster”, 2011). National Geographic cites the academic journal Science (2006) that predicts by 2048, all fisheries will collapse due to lack of ocean wildlife. Fish are not the only animal caught in the nets used by fishing vessels. Often animals such as dolphins, sharks, turtles, and seabirds are

“The Boat” by Nam Le, is a serious of short stories that while representing a number of different themes throughout each story, the central theme regards the complicated relationship between children and their parents, with each story examining this theme in different ways. The opening and closing stories, “Love and Honour and Pity and Pride and Compassion and Sacrifice”, and “The Boat”, not only develop the relationship between children and parents and how the child attempts to maintain this relationship; but also how they live their lives without their parents.

“The world’s smallest porpoise is slipping closer to extinction…” (Malkin). This propoise is called a vaquita, and they are getting run into extinction because of drift nets set of a larger porpoise called the totoaba. A drift net is a large net that is placed underwater for catching fish. Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma, talked about destroying the ecosystem through farming, but he didn’t mention how it could happen through fishing, too. Fishermen should stop using drift nets to collect fish because they can catch the wrong species and destroy the ecosystem.

Lost fishing gear in the ocean is also a big culprit to the death of many sea animals. “Ghost fishing” is a cause

Down Riggers: An alternative to using weights that directly attach to the fishing line train is to equip the boat with down rigging gear. This type of salmon fishing tackle

These nets are illegal but still used quite often. A drift net is towed behind the boat and captures anything that swims or floats into it. This often results in by-catch, which is the unintentional capture of certain species, such as bottlenose dolphins (Dolphin p. 2). Another damaging technique used is long line fishing. “Hundreds…of baited hooks can hang on one line. Bait can be squid, fish… The lines can be set with anchors or left drifting with the current for 12 to 24 hours” (Long Line para. 1). These long lines are harmful to many different animals. Birds are often found on the lines, having drowned while trying to eat the bait. Loggerhead turtles, which are endangered, are found also. Sharks are the most common casualty of long lining. (Long Line para. 2). These are just a few of the consequences of common fishing techniques.

The Atlantic cod fishery collapse left terrible ecological consequences. As mentioned above, the fishing technology was a major destruction to the ecological system by using deployment and draggers. The huge nets that were dropped and dragged along the bottom of the ocean destroyed the underlying eco-system in the process. The effect of selective fishing on spawning grounds – that is, selectively over-exploiting one species in an ecosystem – had disastrous effect on the feeding relationships in that ecosystem. This contributes to the overall reduction of spawning stock biomass of the targeted species, but also an increase in the number of invertebrate and vertebrate predators such as crustacean and fish which will prey on cod eggs, larvae, and younger fish. It is a little wonder that a species like cod, would eventually run into difficulties struggling to survive when its habitat is being continuously destroyed and the balance of their food chain had been wiped out.

Along with increased ranges for fishing cod and expanding schooner fleets, the Americans also started to gain new technology such as the longline (Parsons, 1993). Traditionally a line with one hook was used to catch fish but with a longline there could be hundreds of hooks on one line. Later on in the 1800s, steam boats came into the picture. Steam boats allowed fisherman to use a technique known as purse seining (Parsons, 1993). This technique is usually deployed by two boats using one large net. The net is first placed around a school of fish. Then the bottom of the net is drawn shut so none of the fish can escape. Finally the net is pulled out of the water. This form of fishing allowed fisherman to catch large

Some of the most popular current fishing practices are bottom trawling, cyanide fishing, dynamite fishing, and ghost fishing. All of these practices have two things in

Recently there has been an increase in the development of different methods of by-catch prevention for different reasons. Fishermen do not like using Turtle Exclusion Devices because they feel it is too expensive and some of them feel that it affects how much fish they catch (Fratto). Among the many developments are gill nets and pot nets, which have attached exclusion devices on them. These are more effective then turtle exclusion devices because the nets do not have separate attachments as TEDs do. The nets work by running in a certain direction and when whales

Marine reserves the continued existence of fisheries through the guarding from exploitation. As the reduction of user, and protection of biodiversity can also have benefits the non-fishery and marine reserves turn as insurance from fishery burn out. If the two important marine species coexist, conflict may build up by different sectors of fishing industry. Example is, when fisheries using towed (drag) bottom fishing gearing the same field it may be deployed. Some of them give each other a seasonally by both sectors. It will answer the conflict against two sectors. Constantly, it has possible benefit to protect the seabed from drag bottom fishing

Commercial Fishing has always been a means of making a lucrative living. So much so, that is one of the reasons that concerns have risen today. With the increase in the number of commercial fisherman within the U.S., it requires more fish to be fished from the seas. Over the years, changes in the fish stock population has become a serious concern. Commercial Fishing is also destroying our sea beds and marine life that lives on the sea floor of the oceans. Many times, the threats to marine life due to commercial fishing are not detected until the marine life has suffered a significant decline in numbers. Unless other practices are put in place, the impacts of regular fishing spots, bottom trawling and pollution will have a catastrophic

One of the biggest contributions to biodiversity loss is over fishing which is employed by fishery’s. the methods and techniques used include bottom trawling, net, and poisoning in order to catch large sums of fish. Because of these tactics used the biggest problem is Bycatch which are unwanted species that are caught in the nets on accident. To rectify this problem Ward et. Al suggests “Using a single- species approach, the fishing gear is modified to eliminate the harvest of incidentally caught fish species.”(ward et al. 2012). By modifying fishing gear, species like dolphins, sea turtles, and fish would be able to escape the nets and reduce the amount of Bycatch. Through sustainable practices biodiversity loss can be stopped, in a perfect

large fish are disappearing from the ocean at alarmingly high rates. There has been a 90% decline in the top predator fish abundance in the world between 1955 and 2000. Most industrial fishing techniques are overly aggressive to marine environments in that they attract an abundance of bycatch. The three primary techniques are surface long-line Fishing where chains more than 100 kilometers long are floated in the ocean with thousands of baited hooks, fish aggregating devices use long nets going down 300 meters that are left for days and just collect fish indiscriminately, finally and perhaps the worst being bottom Trawling which involves a long heavily weighed net dragged across seafloor. Fish aggregating devices are too indiscriminate in what kind of marine life they capture. They are often deployed with the intention of catching skipjack