While some may celebrate World Fisheries Day, taking place today, Nov. 21, here at One Green Planet, we feel that it’s a great time to really evaluate the toll that fishing plays on the environment.
It’s estimated that over 70 percent of all marine fisheries have been exploited, over-exploited or have fully collapsed and 90 percent of vital ocean apex predators have disappeared.
There are a number of reasons that these saddening statistics exist including the death of animals caught in bycatch, fishery mismanagement, overfishing, unregulated fishing and habitat destruction.
Aside from shark finning, the dolphin slaughters in Peru and Japan, and scientific whaling (as the Japanese government insists it is, but we all know better), deep sea trawling has one of the most destructive effects on the marine ecosystem.
Check out the infographic below for an easy-to-understand look into the damaging effects of this fishing practice.