Fish are the only wildlife still hunted on a large scale. The demand for seafood is outgrowing the sustainable yield of most oceanic fisheries. The world’s ocean and inland fisheries are of vast economic importance and potential, but under open-access regimes they operate inefficiently and often deplete the fish stock.
The real reason for the depletion of fish stocks was human activity, overfishing, pollution and the general degradation and decline of the marine environment and its biodiversity. In most cases, overfishing leads to commercial extinction, which occurs, when it is no longer profitable to continue fishing the affected species.
The most harmful type of fishing employs massive drift nets, which accidently kill a great many species, like species, which die from a lack of oxygen.
Another example is the use is so called ‘purse-seine’ nets, which are drawn between two ships, and are often employed to catch schools of tuna.
The depletion of many species, traditionally used for making worldwide or locally popular fish products, has encouraged efforts to produce the traditional commodities from other, less suitable but abundant raw materials by properly modifying the technology.
In the wake of the breakthrough made by the American invention of the fish fingers in the 1950s, many fish species of rather low traditional commercial value have made a name as raw material for various products composed of minced fish flesh.
Overfishing is usually only a temporary depletion of fish stocks, as long as depleted areas and fisheries are allowed to recover.
Overfishing is a global problem necessitating international conventions and treaties, because it involves political disputes over fishing grounds, national diets and employment for fishermen and allied industries.
Depletion of fish stocks
