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Jack mackerel caught by a Chilean purse seiner Fishing down the food web. Overfishing is the removal of a species of fish (i.e. fishing) from a body of water at a rate greater than that the species can replenish its population naturally (i.e. the overexploitation of the fishery's existing fish stock), resulting in the species becoming increasingly underpopulated in that area.
Overfishing is one of main causes of the decrease in the ocean's wildlife population over the past years. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nation reported that the percentage of the world's fish stocks that are at biologically sustainable levels have decreased from 90% in 1974 to 65.8% in 2017.
Human activities affect marine life and marine habitats through overfishing, habitat loss, the introduction of invasive species, ocean pollution, ocean acidification and ocean warming. These impact marine ecosystems and food webs and may result in consequences as yet unrecognised for the biodiversity and continuation of marine life forms.
Jack mackerel caught by a Chilean purse seiner Fishing down the food web. Overfishing is the removal of a species of fish (i.e. fishing) from a body of water at a rate greater than that the species can replenish its population naturally (i.e. the overexploitation of the fishery's existing fish stock), resulting in the species becoming increasingly underpopulated in that area.
The overfishing list reflects species that have an unsustainably high harvest rate. NOAA also keeps a list of overfished stocks. Those are species that have a total population size that is too low.
The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), informally known as NOAA Fisheries, is a United States federal agency within the U.S. Department of Commerce's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) that is responsible for the stewardship of U.S. national marine resources.
This prompted major amendments in 1996 and 2006. The National Marine Fisheries Service issued a report to Congress in 2010 on the status of U.S. fisheries. It reported that of the 192 stocks monitored for overfishing 38 stocks (20%) still have fish "mortality rates that exceed the overfishing threshold … and 42 stocks (22%) are overfished". [12]
Sea turtle entangled in a ghost net. Ghost gear is fishing gear that has been left or lost in the ocean. [7] [15] The gear can potentially continue to catch or entangle any species of marine life as it drifts through the water or snags on rocky reef, eventually killing the entangled organism through laceration, suffocation or starvation. [16]