overfishing

(noun)

fishing that reduces an aquatic population, or stock, to a level that is inadequate for the stock to replenish itself

Related Terms

Examples of overfishing in the following topics:

  • Managing Fisheries

    • Overfishing leads to fishery extinctions, loss of a food source, and affects many other species in ways that may be impossible to predict.
    • Overfishing is the harvest of an aquatic population to a level that is too low for that population to replenish itself.
    • Resource depletion, low biological growth rates, and critically low biomass levels result from overfishing.
    • For example, overfishing of sharks has disrupted entire marine ecosystems.
    • In addition to eliminating major food sources, overfishing is a threat to aquatic biodiversity.

  • The Tragedy of the Commons

    • To make more profit, fishermen must catch more fish, which leads to overfishing.
    • Fish populations are at risk of becoming fully extinct due to overfishing.

  • Interest Groups

    • Greenpeace states its goal is to "ensure the ability of the Earth to nurture life in all its diversity" and focuses its campaigning on worldwide issues such as global warming, deforestation, overfishing, commercial whaling, and anti-nuclear issues.
    • Greenpeace states its goal is to "ensure the ability of the Earth to nurture life in all its diversity" and focuses its campaigning on worldwide issues such as global warming, deforestation, overfishing, commercial whaling, and anti-nuclear issues.
    • Greenpeace states its goal is to "ensure the ability of the Earth to nurture life in all its diversity" and focuses its campaigning on world wide issues such as global warming, deforestation, overfishing, commercial whaling, and anti-nuclear issues.

  • Present-Time Extinctions

    • Adding to the extinction list, the Japanese sea lion, which inhabited a broad area around Japan and the coast of Korea, became extinct in the 1950s due to overfishing.
    • The list is not complete, but it describes 380 extinct species of vertebrates after 1500 AD, 86 of which were made extinct by over-hunting or overfishing.

  • Environmental Protests

    • It focuses its campaigning on worldwide issues such as global warming, deforestation, overfishing, commercial whaling, and anti-nuclear issues.

  • Overharvesting

    • For example, most fisheries are managed as a common resource even when the fishing territory lies within a country's territorial waters; because of this, fishers have very little motivation to limit their harvesting, and in fact technology gives fishers the ability to overfish.