But people developed lots of coastal development (dredging, mangrove removal, seawall construction, alteration of freshwater flow) and they had fewer places to live. That caused them to die. Third problem is their low reproductive ability. Like sharks, they breed very slow and produce very few babies. Because of overfishing and habitat loss it will take years to reproduce all that amount of sawfish that were killed.
Like all animals, sharks are an important part of the ecosystem, without them the entire ecosystem will collapse. “Each year, up to 73 million sharks are killed for their fins, despite the fact that 30% of shark species are threatened or nearly threatened with extinction” (Krista Mahr). With fewer sharks existing in the ecosystem, their prey would multiply and become over populated and eventually wipe out other species. This occurrence will have an immense impact on many communities that rely on healthy fisheries. Shark poaching is a big concern because it affects the future of sharks and their place of living.
Whaling is the hunting of whales mainly for meat and oil. Its earliest forms date to at least 3000 BC. Various coastal communities have long histories of sustenance whaling and harvesting beached whales. As technology increased and demand for the resources remained, catches far exceeded the sustainable limit for whale stocks. In the late 1930s more than 500,000 whales were killed annually, and by the middle of the century whale stocks were not being replenished.
There is an added cost to catch the lobster which includes the cost of diesel and price of herring used as bait for lobster catching and it all adds to the cost of catching one lobster. The result being fishermen are losing money on every lobster they catch. He says” Yesterday we spent $70 on fuel and $60 on bait and came home with a $70 worth of lobsters” One worry is that wholesalers will refuse to pay any price for the catch of lobstermen. A lot of fishermen are trying to sell their lobsters direct to consumers. Another trick they are using is to leave their trap for one or two more days longer in order to avoid extra trips and costs associated with catching lobsters.
Swimming frantically, they are driven to the shore and then trapped overnight in a small cove. The next day they are driven into a similar cove, where they are killed by harpoons, fish hooks, and knives. Those who survived either drown in the water or in their own blood, or dragged to a slaughter warehouse where they are stabbed to death. They are then butchered and sent to fish markets for the people of Japan to buy. As if that was not horrible enough, dolphin trainers and veterinarians witness and sometimes assist the killings.
The four countries under this treaty are the U.S.,Japan, Great Britain and Russia. Throughout the 1750’s and 1911, a single fur coat could bring in 1,125 dollars. Although most of the poaching of sea otters has subsided, other factors have come into play (Fernandez, James). Pollution of kelp forests and oil spills are extreme threats to sea otters. Since the sea otter spends most of its life in the water, thousands are killed by oil spills.
It generally takes at least three kilograms of feed to produce one kilogram of salmon. The shrinking of the numbers of prey species threatens the entire food chain, putting further stress on large predator stocks. Depleting fisheries also negatively affects the economies of developing countries, home to nearly 60% of the world’s fishers that are classified as small-scale commercial or subsistence fishers. In Africa, an estimated 100 million people depend on fish from inland sources, such as lakes and rivers, for income as well as protein and much-needed micronutrients like vitamin A, calcium, iron, and zinc. But coastal fisheries across West Africa have declined by up to 50% in the last 30 years due to significant pressure from large industrial fleets.
In the 1800s and 1900s whales were found to be quite practical and useful. Since whaling began thousands of years ago whale populations have diminished from one area to another to the “point where too few were left to reward the chase.” With the industrial revolution the uses for whales became numerous such as sperm oil being used in lubrication for factory’s machines. Baleen from whales was used as plastic in the nineteenth century and was in corsets, umbrellas, stays. Between the 1820s and 1860s Americans became a dominating force in whaling and by the 1860s almost all of the sperm and right whales were gone (Matera). Whale populations dwindled, so whalers looked towards rorquals (baleen whales), but they swam too fast to be caught by rowed boats and they sank when they died.
The native fish and the cichlid are more than half instinct. The vanishing of most of the cichlids that ate the algae caused the population of algae to grow and increase drastically. Because of this major increase in algae, when the algae died it caused the level of the dissolved oxygen at the bottom of the lake to disintegrate ( Raven, Berg, & Hassenzahl, 2010). Which interned made it an oxygen free zone. This meant that any fish that would try to swim down to the bottom of the lake would die due to lack of oxygen.
According to “Perfluorinated Chemicals”, there were 4.2 million barrels of oils spilled from the BP. Totally, oil spills cause huge damage to marine environment, especially on marine life. Oil, a product that we often use to keep warm, can cause hypothermia in marine animals. As oil mixes with water, it forms a substance called "mousse," which sticks to feathers and fur. (Jennifer Kennedy, 2004, para.5)For example, hundreds of seabirds die per year because they are insulated by mousses so that they are not able to keep warm.