Species at risk
In the 1970’s the Peruvian Coastal Anchovy fisheries closed down because of overfishing. This was after the El Nino season largely reduced the amount of anchovies from Peru’s waters. Before this, anchovies had been a major natural resource in Peru. In 1971, Peru harvested 10.2 million metric tonnes of Anchovies, but after all their other troubles, they only harvested 4 million tonnes. This was a very big loss for Peru. Now anchovies are overfished.
Tuna is prized in Japan for sushi and sushami as Japanese are the biggest consumers of the tuna fish. Also Japanese food is being seen as a healthy option so their food is becoming popular worldwide. Tuna is at risk and Japanese fishing methods are questioned as they frequently catch and kill other species by accident.
Serious overfishing is causing ocean dwelling sharks and rays to face going extinct. Sahrk numbers are currently being monitored and labelled with notations as to whether their plight is of least or most concern. The Salmon Shark and the Pelagic Stingray are said to be of the least concern at the moment while the Silky Shark is near threatened.
Another example of overfishing consequences is the Cod Fishery of New Foundland. Fisheries closed in 1992 and over 40,000 people lost their jobs. 16 years later and they are still trying to recover.
The shores of New Foundland were once teeming with cod. Canadian fishing technology increased and foreign fishing interests moved into the area. Huge catches were hauled in and legislation was bought in to limit foreign fishing fleets to 12 miles off the coast.
Catches then declined to 139000 tonnes which is where it should have been capped by the government, but government and investors were greedy and factory trawlers were used which dragged huge fishing nets as long as a football field. They could drag a whole school of fish.
Despite being warned about overfishing and dangerous fishing practices the government refused to lower quotas and used possible job loses as an excuse. The results were awful and woke the world’s governments up to the problems occurring in their own waters.