How humans are killing fish around the world.

The ecosystems of the world depend on fish heavily.  Whether it be in underwater food chains, or above ground food chains, we need fish.  In many countries around the world, fish are the main source of protein.  Even here in the United States, we eat a ton of fish.  Sometimes we don’t even know we are eating a fish product, whether it is in fake crabmeat, or other products.  But point of this being we as a planet need fish.  They play a huge role in aspects of industry, farming, and the ecosystem.  While it may shock you to find out that humans are absolutely decimating and contaminating fish populations around the world.  We are overfishing our seas and lakes almost to the point of no return. 

And it is important to note its not just fish either.  We are also over harvesting crabs, shrimp, etc.  Despite mildly strict fishing regulations in the US, we are still taking out too many fish.  So you can only imagine the extent of that problem with little to no harvesting regulations in those countries.  And because many fish have very large migration patterns, spreading from continent to continent even, this hurts fisheries around the world.  This demotivates country to protect their fish.  Why should they not over fish them and miss out on revenue, just to have another country take advantage of that.  It’s a sense of if you don’t take it, someone else will.  And this is not the right way to go about taking care of our natural resources.  And the fish that are left, well they are not all necessarily healthy.  We are polluting our oceans at an alarming rate as well.  And these chemicals are being absorbed by our fish.  The nuclear reactor melt down in Japan for example, killed millions of fish and contaminated even more.  Some predatory fish can get increased levels or chemicals like mercury by eating smaller organisms repetitively.  And aside from other fish, only one organism consumes more fish, and that is humans.  So those chemicals that we are putting straight into our oceans are ending up right back in our bodies.  It’s a sort of “pollution karma” if you will.  And some populations of humans eat more fish than others; therefore having higher concentration of chemicals in them.  Asian countries like Japan eat fish at an alarming rate.  And some of those fish are not caught to far away from the location of the nuclear melt down.  Scientist have went into these local fish markets and actually tested the tissue of fish for sale.  And the results were not so comforting; chemicals were found in high levels in fish tissue.  This was especially prevalent in larger predatory fish, like the blue fin tuna for example.  But this isn’t unique to Asia by any means.  Lake Erie has elevated mercury and other chemical levels in its fish too.  The EPA recommends that fish coming from the Ohio shore of Lake Erie are eaten no more than once a month.  Other professional regulations say that it should be even longer than that, especially in predatory fish like the walleye.  The world needs to take action and help protect our fish, because in the end, it is a matter of protecting ourselves.