1. Fisheries and Fishing Techniques

2. Overfishing Use the note page provided for notetaking
What is overfishing?
What leads to overfishing?
Few moments for student to think and/or write a response in their journal.

3. Marine fisheries systems mainly exploit…
shelves surrounding continents, to depth of 200 m
deeper waters of tropical, temperate, polar areas
Fisheries affect marine environments by…
changing ecosystem biodiversity and functioning
changing habitats (ex: bottom trawling)

4. Fishing over the centuries
Humans have been fishing for millennia.
At first, only fish with narrow coastal ranges were at risk of being overfished.
Distance offshore and storms prevented the overexploitation of most marine species.
This is the reason for perceptions that
fisheries were sustainable in the past
subsistence fisheries are sustainable, whatever gear they may deploy

5. Central Case: collapse of the cod fisheries
No fish has more impact on human civilization than the Atlantic cod
Eastern Canadians and U.S. fishermen have fished for cod for centuries

6. End of the Line: Part 1 - Cod
Watch the following clip to learn what happened to cod.
Outcome: Large ships and technology destroyed the cod fishery
Even protected stocks are not recovering. Prey may now be competing with, and eating, young cod

7. End of the Line: Part 2 Fishing Technology
Watch the following clip to learn how technology has impacted modern fishery practices.

8. How have things changed?
The Industrial Revolution led to…
steam trawlers
diesel engines
hydraulic winches
inboard refrigeration
echo-sounders
access to real-time oceanographic data
From what you saw in the video, how have these technologies impacted fishing?
Consequences (if not brought up by the video):
Fishing boats can rapidly locate, catch and process large quantities of fish
They can also land them in better condition from longer distances
The entire world ocean is now accessible to fishing fleets

9. The total global fisheries catch has increased

10. 'The thing is we're too good right now
'The thing is we're too good right now. Technologically, not a single hunted animal on this earth has a chance.'
Professor Jeffrey Hutchings
What can be done?

11. Fishing has industrialized
Factory fishing = highly industrialized, huge vessels use powerful technologies to capture fish in huge volumes
Even process and freeze their catches while at sea
Driftnets – type of gillnet (fish swim into it, gills catch and fish cannot swim out) for schools of herring, sardines, mackerel, sharks
Longline fishing for tuna and swordfish
Trawling for pelagic fish and groundfish

12. Purse-Seining

13. Purse-Seine target species
Yellowfin Tuna
Porpoise by-catch

14. Pots, Traps and Creels

15. Small traps baited with fish which are set down on the seabed to catch crabs, lobsters and other seafloor life.

16. U.S. Commercial Fishery Methods

17. End of the Line: Part 3 Subsistence Fishing
What other impacts do technological impacts have?
Societal
Economic

18. But I don’t see a problem . . .
Why has global catch been stable?
Fishing fleets can reach less-fished portions of the ocean
Fleets spend more time fishing and have been setting out more nets and lines
Improved technologies mean we catch more fish

19. End of the Line: Part 4 Fish Farming
What about ‘farming fish’?
Watch to learn about some of the benefits and risks to fish farming.
Are there other options?

20. Issues >30% U.S. fish stocks are overexploited
For >30% of the rest, insufficient information to determine status
As one species becomes more rare, fishermen turn to smaller, once-discarded species: “fishing down the food web” – causes changes in age structure and genetics of populations

21. We are “fishing down the food chain”
Schematic representation of ‘fishing down food webs,’ wherein a fishery starts by catching abundant large fish high in the food web (upper left corner), then gradually shifts to smaller fish, lower in the food web, as the former resource becomes less abundant. This process, which occurs in virtually all fisheries of the world, usually goes along with habitat destruction and alteration, as illustrated here by the gradual disappearance of the bottom structure created by bottom organisms.

22. …Issues NW: N Atlantic:
>72,000 jobs lost due to decreasing salmon populations
$500 million lost
N Atlantic:
20,000 jobs lost in 1990’s due to cod fishery collapse
$350 million lost

23. End of the Line: Part 5 Marine Reserves
How do we preserve the ocean’s fisheries?
Watch to see how reserves might work.

24. How do reserves work? Protect species spread outside reserves
Increase fish biomass / total catch
Increase fish size
Decrease mortality and habitat destruction
Protect species spread outside reserves
Improve fishing and ecotourism
Others?
Any risks or disadvantages?

25. Magnusen-Stevens Act of 1976
200-mile Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ)
Regional Fishery Management Councils (RFMC’s)
Incentives for U.S. fishermen to upgrade vessels
Scientific and Statistical Committees (SSC) to provide information for managers, but RFMC’s not required to follow their advice: overfishing and slow recovery of overfished stocks

26. Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ)
Countries have the rights to manage and extract resources from an area 200 nautical miles off the coast of its land
Will include the continental shelf if it extends beyond 200 nautical miles.
Can overlap, leading to dispute!
Cod Wars: UK and Iceland
Areas outside of the EEZ are fair game for countries to fish

27. Related Law: Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA)
Prohibits “take” of marine mammals in U.S. waters or in international waters
Prohibits importing of marine mammals
Boats must not disturb marine mammals and must keep at least 100 yards from whales
Some exemptions for traditional Native American whaling
Killer Whales, gray whales, dolphins, seals, polar bears

28. Exit ticket 10 points
What is wrong with the global fisheries situation?
What are some solutions to the global fisheries situation?
What strikes YOU the most about what you learned today?
Using your own piece of paper, use grammatically correct sentences, answer these questions, and turn it into the assignment box.