Why is the Fishing Industry Bad, and How Can you Help? Part I

Hi everyone, and welcome back to my crazy little corner of the internet. I think by the time this publishes, I will have been writing blogs every week for over 3 months. That seems so crazy to me. I can't believe how this little blog started with a tiny idea of, hey, maybe I can share all this knowledge with everyone for free. And here we are! Website created, blog running, and fingers still typing. I am so grateful for this opportunity and experience. I hope this blog becomes everything I dream it could be. I hope it soars beyond my expectations. Thank you for being here. I am so grateful you chose to spend time with me. Today we will be talking about the fishing industry, how bad it is, and how you can help. Sit back, relax, and enjoy this three-part blog post.

Okay, so how does the fishing industry actually work?

For the purposes of this post, the fishing industry will be about generics. The post below is from The MSC Fisheries Standard. It displays different methods of fishing. The boat on the left shows catching fish on hooks. The middle boat uses a moderate-sized net to capture fish. And finally, the third boat on the right uses a large net along the bottom of the ocean to catch fish deeper in the ocean.

Method one is called longlining. Method two is called _. And method three is called bottom trawling.

Image from: https://www.msc.org/standards-and-certification/fisheries-standard

Method One: Longlining

Based on what I can see from the image above, I believe method one is called longlining. Longlining is "a commercial fishing method commonly targeting swordfish, tuna and halibut, where hundreds or thousands of baited hooks hang at intervals along a single fishing line."

Method Two: Midwater Trawling

Trawling gets its name from the word trawl, which is the kind of netting used in this fishing practice. Midwater trawling is a method of fishing where "a cone-shaped net can be towed behind a single boat and spread by trawl doors, or it can be towed behind two boats (pair trawling) which act as the spreading device. Midwater trawling catches pelagic fish such as anchovies, shrimp, tuna, and mackerel."

Method Three: Bottom Trawling

This is depicted as being one of the worst ways to fish. "Bottom trawling is a method of fishing that involves dragging heavy weighted nets across the sea floor, in an effort to catch fish. It’s a favored method by commercial fishing companies because it can catch large quantities of product in one go." Further described by Greenpeace, "the problem with bottom trawling as a fishing method is that it’s indiscriminate in what it catches. When dragging the large, weighted nets across the seafloor, everything that happens to be in the way gets swept up in the net too. For this reason, bottom trawling has a large bycatch impact, with many nontarget species being fished in the process."

How do these methods impact the environment?

Any of these methods can impact the environment. Oftentimes, if a net is snagged, it will simply be cut loose from the boat and left in the ocean. That net never stops catching fish. And, considering lots of fishing net is made of plastic, it never really goes away. So, unless the net is cleaned up from the ocean (removed from the snag and not left to float in the ocean), then it will continue to catch fish, no matter where it goes. Even if the net were to unsnag itself, it will still drift in the ocean, catching fish. Those fish cannot free themselves in most circumstances, and, if they do, it's luck. The fish and creatures that aren't so lucky will starve to death, or, if they're dolphins or whales, they will drown.

Method One: Longlining

Essentially, many commercial fishing boats catch what they don't need or want, called bycatch, and a lot of the time it can and will die. To circle back for a second, longlining is when commercial fishing vessels use hooks to catch fish. www.worldwildlife.org explains how longlining affects the environment as the following: "The hooks (commonly called “J hooks”) cause problems for marine turtles when swallowed, usually resulting in death. Sharks, non-target billfishes and juvenile tunas are often hooked as well." Those marine creatures, as they explained, die from these hooks when they get swallowed.

Method Two: Midwater Trawling

I haven't been able to find much on the negative impacts of midwater trawling, but that doesn't mean it isn't out there. It took me a long time to see the negative side of the fishing industry. For a long time, I thought it was just fine. Follow this link here: https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/national/bycatch/fishing-gear-midwater-trawls#risks-to-sea-turtles. Read the "Risks to Sea Turtles" and "Risk to Marine Mammals" sections, found on the left-hand side. Just in case, a screenshot is provided below.

To summarize, turtles are at risk of being bycatch as they move up and down to and from the sea floor, and they can drown. They can be crushed under the weight of the other catch, or when they are dropped onto the shipping vessel, and the NOAA states the stress of the ordeal can leave them "exhausted and barely alive" when they are thrown back into the ocean. Marine mammals also use mid-water levels for traveling and are also caught in the nets. The NOAA states pilot whales, white-sided dolphins, bottlenose dolphins, killer whales, and Stellar sea lions can all be captured in these nets.

Method Three: Bottom Trawling

Bottom Trawling scrapes the bottom of the ocean floor, destroying any coral habitat that resides there. The issue here is it catches the most fish, but it is also the most destructive fishing method. I highly recommend checking out this article here for a better understanding of how fishing industries impact the environment. Here is a direct quote explaining the harm that comes from the fishing industry from the website linked above:

"With trawling, boats drag large nets along the seabed, catching almost everything in their path. They can damage coral reefs and at shallow depths, catch marine turtles. Gillnets are mesh nets that allow fish to pass their heads and gill coverings through a hole in the mesh and then get stuck when they try to back out. They can be several miles long and up to 100 feet deep. Bycatch occurs because the nets also trap everything larger than the net’s mesh, which includes juvenile fish, sharks, seabirds, marine turtles and cetaceans (whales, dolphins, porpoises). The nets are very hard to see, blending in perfectly with the water and difficult for cetaceans to detect by echolocation. Gillnets that are lost at sea are rarely recovered and can continue to capture marine animals for many years." - World Wildlife Fund

In order to learn more about the current fishing practices, I highly recommend that you watch the Netflix documentary called "Seaspiracy." It is incredibly informative, and I can't recommend it enough. It is not the most cheerful documentary, I will admit. However, the information found within is crucial to understand about the fishing industry around the globe. Please sit down this week and watch it. Here is the trailer below.

Again, I want to thank you for being here. I am so grateful for your presence. Thank you for taking the time out of your day in order to read this article, and further educate yourself about the environment. This is only part one of this series. It will be three parts in all in order to not be overwhelming. I hope to see you next week. See you soon.

- Inspiring Green

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Informal Works Cited

Midwater Trawling - NOAA

https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/national/bycatch/fishing-gear-midwater-trawls#risks-to-sea-turtles

Bottom Trawling and Environmental Impacts

https://www.greenpeace.org/aotearoa/story/what-is-bottom-trawling-and-why-is-it-bad-for-the-environment/#:~:text=Bottom%20trawling%20is%20a%20method,an%20effort%20to%20catch%20fish

Wikipedia - Midwater Trawling Definition

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midwater_trawling

Marine Stewardship Council - Fishing Standards (Image to break down different types of fishing)

https://www.msc.org/standards-and-certification/fisheries-standard

Seaspiracy - Netflix Trailer via YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Q5CXN7soQg

World Wildlife Fund - Defining Bycatch, Explaining Environmental Impacts of Fishing Industry

https://www.worldwildlife.org/threats/bycatch#:~:text=Longlining%20is%20a%20commercial%20fishing,along%20a%20single%20fishing%20line

Formal Works Cited

Fisheries, NOAA. “Fishing Gear: Midwater Trawls.” NOAA, 1 June 2021, https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/national/bycatch/fishing-gear-midwater-trawls#risks-to-sea-turtles.

Hooper, Ellie. “What Is Bottom Trawling and Why Is It Bad for the Environment?” Greenpeace Aotearoa, https://www.greenpeace.org/aotearoa/story/what-is-bottom-trawling-and-why-is-it-bad-for-the-environment/#:~:text=Bottom%20trawling%20is%20a%20method,an%20effort%20to%20catch%20fish.

“Midwater Trawling.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 7 Mar. 2021, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midwater_trawling.

“The MSC Fisheries Standard.” MSC International - English, https://www.msc.org/standards-and-certification/fisheries-standard.

NewOnNetflix. “Seaspiracy | Official Trailer | Netflix.” YouTube, YouTube, 3 Mar. 2021, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Q5CXN7soQg.

“What Is Bycatch? Understanding and Preventing Fishing Bycatch.” WWF, World Wildlife Fund, https://www.worldwildlife.org/threats/bycatch#:~:text=Longlining%20is%20a%20commercial%20fishing,along%20a%20single%20fishing%20line.

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