The Last of the fish: April 2012

There are many different types of fishing. Some are sustainable and do no harm to the environment while others are damaging marinas around the world and taking too much fish out the ocean. A major player in the downfall of fishing is technology. Be it from coming up with new ways to get as many fish out the ocean at one time to locating the fish around the world. Technology has grown so much over the past few years that it’s almost like shooting fish in a barrel. Boat captains can use radar tracking and gps equipment to locate the exact location of a school of fish and they can track fish migration paths so they don’t only know where the fish are but exactly where they are going to be at any point of the year. This makes it impossible for the fish to have enough time to grow in numbers because the moment the leave one are and migrate to another, there is a whole new fishing fleet waiting for them. A description of this was used in the movie “End of the line”, they said “ If you keep ploughing a field 7 times a year, how much do you think will grow back each year.” What they are saying is if you keep over fishing the ocean, you are not giving the fish enough time to re populate in numbers meaning that fishing is on a fast track to be depleted. There are different methods of catching fish with modern technology its becoming too successful. There is a good side to the invention of this technology, that is that we can now calculate how much fish is in the ocean and this is how we can get an almost accurate account of how much is being caught and how much is being left for re production. This gives something to work with to fight overfishing.

A study was done that has been argued if it is true or not, many fishing companies argue that it is a false representation but it was that they measured how much fish was caught per one hundred hooks, the results were taken over a few years and due to the negative findings many people doubted it but its starting too look like it was right.
Hook and line:
This is traditional fishing with a pole, a hook and a line. This type of fishing has been used for millions of years and is the most eco friendly and sustainable for of fishing. This fishing is used in salt water and fresh water and is still used in many countries as the major form of catching fish, this would be all the third world countries where the fish is sold at the local dock. In The western cape, fishhook would be a good example of a place that still uses this traditional form of fishing.

Industrial Long line:
This is when a boat has a really long line/lines over the edge and the boat moves slowly. On each line there are hundreds of hooks optimising the amount of fish the boat will catch. This can lead to the catching of other types of fish but at the same time they can be released and unharmed (to some degree) so this too can be seen as an ok form of fishing.

Trolling:
This is like your hook and line fishing except it is one boat with many lines over the edge of the boat, so this increases the chance of catching fish. “This is another way of catching fish on a line, but instead of fishing by hand, the lines are thrown from the back of a slow-moving boat. Sometimes trolling ends up getting some by-catch, but it can quickly be released with minimal damage, keeping the ecosystem more balanced in the long run.”(Written by Enviroadmin, Methods to Help South Africa's Overfishing Problem, Thursday, 20 October 2011 10:27)

Dragnet:
this could be considered to be the most environmentally unfriendly form of fishing. There are three types of drag net fishing, top dragging, mid dragging and bottom dragging. Dragnets are when huge nets shaped like a sack or like a wall are dragged behind a big fishing boat and are, after a while, pulled back up onto the boat filled with fish. The worlds largest dragnet, still in use, has a mouth that can fit thirteen 747 aeroplanes in its mouth (the opening). Top drag is when a fishing vessel drags a net at the top of the water in deep seas to catch the top feeders, this does not do much damage to the ecosystems in the water but there are a lot of other animals that are caught in the nets and they die in them. Also the fish stand no chance as the nets just gape them up. Mid dragnets are pulled through the middle of the ocean and have a very similar effect as the top dragnets. They catch things like sharks and wales though and they are just killed and thrown back in the ocean. The worst out of the three is the bottom dragnet. This is a huge net that is dragged along the ocean floor. The reason why this is so environmentally friendly is because not only does it catch other ocean creatures like the top and mid drag nets but it destroys any eco systems that are going in its path. This mean it leaves huge areas along the ocean floor of just sand and this mean that there are areas where bottom feeders, fish, eels, small fish, prawns and crayfish are dyeing or have no homes. Also huge corral reefs are being torn up and destroyed from this catastrophic underwater fishing style.

Purse seining:
This is a type of fishing where the net is straight wit a draw string that when its pulled, the net closes like a bag trapping what ever is inside. This is a method used for catching fish that swim in school, because then you get more than one and or catch is primarily going to be one type of fish. But like dragnet fishing you get a lot of bye product, other marine life that you don’t need, causing lots of other animals to die.

Drifting gillnet:
This is also a not very eco-friendly fishing method as it is a long net with hooks on it and is dragged behind a boat, this means anything that swims will get stuck in the net and can not get free, also chances are the animal will struggle causing them to get stuck in the net and die. This means a lot of bye product that is just thrown away as waste. Many people have seen that this mas fishing is cutting down on the fish stock in the ocean and they have looked to fish farming. This is having spaces where you keep fish and let them grow in numbers and only take a few out each time you harvest. The issue with this is that it does not bring in as much of revenue as the quality is not as good for some reason and in many cases it is not environmentally friendly. Fish farming is just turning one type of fish into another. What I mean by this is that farmed fish are fed wild fish. So the natural fish stock is still dropping. “ In a salmon fish farm, they will use five tons of wild anchovies to create only one ton of salmon”. (End of the line, Directed by Rupert Murry, national geographic, 2010)

Dragnet