Commercial fishing
It provides a large quantity of food to many countries around the world, but those who practice it as an industry must often pursue fish far into the ocean under adverse conditions.
However, a very small number of species support the majority of the world's fisheries; these include herring, cod, anchovy, tuna, flounder, mullet, squid, shrimp, salmon, crab, lobster, oyster and scallops.
[2] The industry, in 2006, also managed to generate over 185 billion dollars in sales and also provide over two million jobs in the United States, according to an economic report released by NOAA's Fisheries Service.
A study taken on some small family-owned commercial fishing companies showed that they adapted to continue to earn a living but not necessarily make a large profit.
Billions of dollars are spent each year in researching/developing new techniques to reduce the injury and even death of unwanted marine animals caught by the fishermen.
[10] These deaths are generally a result of a combination of severe weather conditions, extreme fatigue because any one fisherman usually puts in a 21-hour shift, and dangerous equipment.
[14] Several institutions have tried to change the culture surrounding safety on commercial fishing boats, especially around wearing personal flotation devices.
The Alaska Scallop Association mandates that every fisherman must wear a PFD while on deck of the boat, and other organizations have purchased more wearable PFDs.
Bycatch is the industry term for what they consider "unwanted or economically-worthless aquatic animals who are unintentionally caught using destructively indiscriminate fishing methods like longlines and driftnets, which generally target marketable marine creatures such as tuna and swordfish"[20] There are also billions of other animals that are killed in this manner every year such as: sea turtles, marine mammals, and sea birds.
Coral reefs are biodiversity-rich ecosystems which provide habitat for millions of aquatic species such as sponges, star fish, jellyfish, sea turtles, etc.
There has been an increasing disappearance of large predators such as barracuda, Nassau groupers, and sharks[20] This makes the reefs more vulnerable to invasion by non-native species.
[21] Because they are so densely packed together, the fecal matter that accumulates can create algal blooms, or deadly parasites and viruses that thrive on the filthy environment.
The Food and Agricultural Organization has reported that "about 25 percent of the world's captured fish end up thrown overboard because they are caught unintentionally (bycatch), are illegal market species, or are of inferior quality and size" [22] It should not go unnoticed that overfishing has caused more ecological extinction than any other human influence on coastal ecosystems.
The global environmental problem of oceanic microplastics is largely caused by plastic-made fishing gear that is wearing down by use, lost or thrown away.
