As a result, local fishing people who depend on the sea's protein for survival are getting less to eat, and the price of choice fish has soared. The federal government revealed a new plan to restrict catches of some large and threatened fishes, including swordfish, tuna and marlin, in the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico. Swordfish populations have crashed in the last 10 years, and the National Marine Fisheries Service proposal would reduce swordfish catches by 27 percent. Conservation groups attacked the plan as too little, too late, and asked that more areas be placed off-limits to fishing, so young fish could develop in safety. It's not just the gross tonnage of fish we eat that causes problems.
Fishing also destroys a huge amount of non-target species.
Although the fish supply varies along natural cycles, overfishing can amplify the cyclic effect. Not just overfishing Despite the focus on overfishing, the declines also reflect destruction of fish habitat, particularly of wetlands and rivers on which many fish depend for breeding and spawning. Many local populations of Pacific salmon have gone extinct due to farming, deforestation, destruction of coastal wetlands, and dam-building along their rivers. Furthermore, an area of oxygen-poor water caused by overfertilized water from the Mississippi River has created a dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico as big as New Jersey. The dragging of nets along the bottom has been blamed for depriving young fish of protective habitat.