Fisheries and Aquaculture Journal
Open Access

Brief Note on Insights on Environmental Impact of Fishing

Ali Carl Ehsan^{* *}Correspondence: Ali Carl Ehsan, Department of Marine Biology, University of Hormozgan, Bandar Abbas, Iran, Email:

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Introduction

Issues such as fish availability, overfishing, fisheries, and fisheries management, as well as the effect of industrial fishing on other aspects of the environment, such as bycatch, are all part of the environmental impact of fishing. These concerns are addressed in fisheries professional organizations as part of marine conservation. The most significant contributions to the reduction in ocean health and water quality are fishing and fishing-related pollution. Ghost nets, or nets that have been abandoned in the water, are constructed of plastic and nylon and do not degrade, causing havoc on wildlife and ecosystems. Because the ocean covers 70% of the planet, overfishing and damage to the marine ecosystem affects everyone and everything on the planet. In addition to overfishing, there is a seafood shortage due to large amounts of seafood waste and micro plastics polluting the seafood taken by the public.

Effects on marine habitat

Some fishing methods ruin habitats. Blast fishing and cyanide fishing, both of which are forbidden in many regions, have a negative impact on the environment. Blast fishing is the practice of catching fish with explosives. The use of cyanide to shock fish for collection is known as cyanide fishing. These two methods are extensively utilized in the aquarium and live fish food industries. These techniques are harmful because they have an adverse effect on the reef fish habitat after the fish have been removed. Bottom trawling, which involves dragging fishing net along the seabed behind trawlers, eliminates between 5 and 25% of the seabed life in a single run. Commercial fishing practices are too held responsible for the majority of the negative effects.

Despite the fact that the practice has been proved to have negative effects on sea habitat and, as a result, fish populations, no further action has been taken. The aquatic environment of sea animals may also collapse as a result of the food chain's damage. In addition, capture fisheries represent a threat to ghost fishing. When a net, such as a gill net or trawl, is lost or left at sea, it travels across the oceans, where it might continue catch marine species.

Overfishing

Overfishing occurs when a species of fish is removed from a body of water at a level faster than the species can naturally maintain its population (i.e. overexploitation of the fishery's existing fish stock), causing the species to become increasingly under populated in that location. Overfishing can occur in ponds, reefs, rivers, lakes, and oceans of all sizes, causing in resource depletion, lowered biological development rates, and low biomass levels. Overfishing for a long time can lead to critical depletion, when the fish population can no longer support itself.

Overfishing in some cases, such as shark overfishing, has thrown entire marine ecosystems into conflict. Overfishing can take several forms, including growth overfishing, recruitment overfishing, and ecosystem overfishing.

A fishery's potential to recover from overfishing is determined by its total carrying capacity and the range of ecological circumstances that are relevant to recovery. Ecosystem shifts can occur as a result of dramatic changes in species composition, with other equilibrium energy flow involving species compositions that differ from those that existed prior to the depletion of the original fish population. When trout are overfished, carp may take advantage of the move in competitive equilibrium and take over, making it impossible for the trout to re-establish a reproducing population.

The numerous evolutionary impacts of fishing pressure, such as on size or growth, are referred to as fishery evolution or fishing's evolutionary impact. It is mostly induced by size-based selective fishing, with larger fish being caught more frequently. However, minimum landing size policies, which are founded on the idea of preserving small fish, have numerous harmful effects on a population by choosing slow-growing individuals.