Habitat Destruction from Certain Fishing Methods

By Hayden Choe

Fishing vessels with trawling nets or dredges destroy ocean habitats collecting organisms from coral to shellfish and other bottom-dwellers along their paths. Additionally, the fishing strings that are used get left over after hurting sea animals. Many coastal birds, horseshoe crabs, sea turtles, and marine mammals are injured or killed each year due to becoming tangled in fishing lines and their associated hooks and tackle that have been improperly disposed of along beaches or thrown over from boats into water.

One of the most harmful methods of fishing is the Bottom trawling. Bottom trawling is a fishing method that drags a large net across the sea floor, it is extremely destructive, destroying as it destroys entire seafloor habitats including rare deep-sea coral and sponge ecosystems that take decades to millennia to develop.

Despite the environmental toll, fishing remains a popular pastime for many. It's not exclusively about catching fish for food; for some, it's a cherished hobby. So, even though fishing may hurt the environment, we can’t stop people from fishing. One such method is fly fishing, a more eco-friendly approach that emphasizes catch and release. People who fly fish tend to take a selfie with the fish that they caught and release it back to its home. This technique allows anglers to enjoy the thrill of fishing while minimizing harm to aquatic life. According to our world data, one-third of our world’s fish population is overexploited due to overfishing. So just enjoying fishing as you catch and release is the best way to keep the marine ecosystem safe.

Work Cited:

“Fishing Line Is a Death Trap for Coastal Wildlife.” Save Coastal Wildlife, www.savecoastalwildlife.org/managing-fishing-line-waste. Accessed 3 Nov. 2024.

Ritchie, Hannah, and Max Roser. “Fish and Overfishing.” Our World in Data, 28 Dec. 2023, ourworldindata.org/fish-and-overfishing.

Lai, Olivia. “The Detrimental Impacts of Plastic Pollution on Animals.” Earth.Org, 4 Mar. 2024, earth.org/plastic-pollution-animals/.