Northern Snakehead

The Northern Snakehead is native to China, Russia, North and South Korea. They have no natural enemies, and they could decimate populations of native fish. It can live in temperatures ranging from 0-30 degrees Celsius, it is found in muddy or vegetated ponds, swamps, or slow moving streams. They can survive for up to 4 days out of the water and they can travel from one body of water to another by wriggling their bodies over the ground. It is able to survive in much of North America should it become established. The Northern Snakehead preys on other fish, 90% of its diet consists of other fish though they still eat crustaceans, insects and plants. In 2002, the Northern Snakehead was found in Crofton, Maryland, officials posted signs encouraging anglers to kill any snakehead that they caught.  Reproducing populations of snakeheads have now been discovered in Maryland, California, and Florida. Individual fish have also been caught in Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Hawaii. In October, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service added snakeheads to the list of injurious species. This listing essentially stopped the importation and interstate transport of all 28 snakehead species in the U.S., a move that has probably prevented thousands of shipments of snakeheads from entering the country. This move was under consideration before the discovery of the Maryland fish.


http://www.csa.com/discoveryguides/snakehead/overview.php

Solutons To Overfishing

This is a former fisherman and he explains some ideas he has that should be taken to help the fish and the oceans so that people don't continue to overfish. He is right when he says its the government that needs to take action against overfishing to stop it.

Over Fishing- A Global Crisis

Bycatch refers to the the unintentional removal of non-targeted species during fishing. As the video mentions, bycatch is happening a lot. The video also provides some solutions to overfishing including consumers choosing not to eat fish that are over fished. There are some ways to help consumers know what fish are endangered so they have the ability to choose not to eat them including restaurants putting information in their menus about the fish. Some restaurants have already started doing this.

Are Sharks Endangered?

On December 20, 2010 Congress passed the Shark Conservation Act. This Act prevents shark finning in US waters. Shark finning is the act of removing the fins of a shark and leaving the remaining carcass in the sea. This is a major step towards protecting sharks because annually 100 million sharks are killed commercially worldwide, while tens of millions of sharks are killed just for the fins. The result of these acts towards sharks puts 50 out of the 307 species of sharks on the vulnerable, endangered, or critically endangered lists. Only the white, whale and basking sharks are protected under CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species). Sharks represent the greatest percentage of threatened marine species on the IUCN Red list of threatened species. The threat sharks face from humans is drastically hurting them; they are vulnerable to pressure from humans because of the sharks slow growth rate and reproduction potential. Many of the shark populations have declined to the point where they are unable to perform their role as top predators in the ecosystem, causing drastic and possibly irreversible damage to the oceans.


http://na.oceana.org/en/news-media/press-center/press-releases/congress-ends-shark-finning-in-us

www.oceana.org/sharks.  

Post 2

The Johannesburg Plan of Implementation calls for the establishment of MPAs or Marine Protected Areas, which many experts believe may hold the key to conserving and boosting fish stocks. A powerful free market solution to overfishing may individual fishing quotas or IFQs. IFQs would include

• Government authorities cap the total allowable catch and then allocate quotas among fishermen, usually based on the historical catch.
• The quotas become a "property right" that can be bought and sold among fishermen -- helping to reduce fleet capacity.
• And because fishermen have access to a guaranteed share of the catch, they don't race to compete, fishing seasons lengthen, prices rise and fish stocks grow.
• Since the introduction of IFQs, the country has seen a 37 percent decline in the number of quota owners, mostly in fisheries that were overfished and had overcapacity problems.
• Its 2002 assessments of main fisheries show that 80 percent are at or above sustainable target levels.

• The overall market value of New Zealand's IFQ fisheries has more than doubled in real terms from 1990 to 2000, even as fish stocks have grown.

http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=4307
http://www.un.org/events/tenstories/06/story.asp?storyID=800

Why is overfishing a global problem?

Overfishing is a global problem because 52% of the world's fisheries are fully exploited and in danger of extinction. About 80% of the world's fisheries are fully to over-exploited, depleted, or in a state of collapse. We are losing species as well as entire ecosystems. As a result the ecological unity of our oceans are under stress and at risk of collapse. We are at risk of losing a valuable source of food many depend upon for social, economical, or dietary reasons. For example in Newfoundland Cod fish was a very predominant source of food for the people. In 1992 the cod never appeared; overfishing caused the disaster of the cod industry. The fish can't recover and reproduce as fast as we are fishing them. Overfishing is a global problem because sources of food and ecosystems are being destroyed.

overfishing.org