User:Rclaussen/sandbox

 Article Edits Draft: Environmental impact of fishin g

New Category : Importance of Recreational Fishing Impacts

Recreational fishing is fishing done for sport or competition, whereas commercial fishing is catching seafood, often in mass quantities, for profit. Both can have different environmental impacts when it comes to fishing.

Though many assume recreational fishing does not have a large impact on fish, it actually accounts for almost a quarter of the fish caught in the United States, many of those being commercially valuable fish. Since recreational fishing is not nearly as regulated or monitored as commercial fishing, this is large section of environmental impact that needs to be taken into account.

Recreational fishing has its biggest impact on marine debris, overfishing, and fish mortality. Release mortality in recreational fisheries is the same as the impacts of bycatch in commercial fisheries.

* link to recreational fishing page

Adding to: Effects on Marine Environment

Most of the impacts are due to commercial fishing practices.

Adding to: Overfishing

The fishing down the food web is something that occurs when overfishing arises. Once all larger fish are caught, the fisherman will start to fish the smaller individuals, which would lead to more fish needing to be caught to keep up with demand. This decreases fish populations, as well as genetic diversity of the species, making them more susceptible to disease, and less likely to adapt to their stressors and the environment. Additionally, catching smaller fish leads to breeding of smaller offspring, which can be problemaAtic for fish. In many species, the smaller the female, the less fecund it is, impacting the fish population.

* link to fishing down the food web page

Adding to: Bycatch

Some estimates in 2014 showed that the global fishing bycatch is around 40% of catch, which is about 63 billion pounds per year.

Adding citation where needed:

"There is a growing gap between the supply of fish and demand, due in part to world population growth."

"Some fishing techniques also may cause habitat destruction."

"In mid-October 2006, United States President George W. Bush joined other world leaders calling for a moratorium on deep-sea trawling, a practice shown to often have harmful effects on sea habitat and, hence, on fish populations. No further action was taken."

"The environmental impact of recreational fishing may be alleviated to some extent by catch and release fishing."

Deleting:

"Similar to other environmental issues, there can be conflict between the fishermen who depend on fishing for their income, and fishery scientists whose studies indicate that if future fish populations are to be sustainable then some fisheries must reduce or even close."