Fisheries and conservation - part 1

Question 1

Where is most of the money spent regarding fish?

Answer 1

Conservation or research

Question 2

Terrestrial ecosystems starting getting negatively impacted after the _______ ______.

Answer 2

industrial revolution

Question 3

There used to be no negative impacts on fisheries up until the last ___ years or so where we got more _______ at ________ fish.

Answer 3

30
efficient
harvesting

Question 4

What is the FAO?

Answer 4

Food and Agriculture organization of the UN

Question 5

How is the FAO pertinent to fish?

Answer 5

FAO is a group of the UN whose job it is to track all the food uses around the world.
A special fisheries section publishes the state of the worlds fisheries.

Question 6

Currently, according to the FAO, we are _______ our harvest of fishes worldwide.
Total harvest is ______.
Capture is _________.
Aquaculture is _______.

Answer 6

Increasing
Increasing
not increasing
increasing

Question 7

_________ is more important now in feeding the world population.

Answer 7

Aquaculture

Question 8

The FAO is completely ________ and thus they cannot impose fines.
The stuff they publish is based on ____-______ from different countries and thus is an ___________ at best.

Answer 8

Voluntary
self-reports
underestimate

Question 9

_______ numbers are often underreported to avoid bad publicity.

Answer 9

Capture

Question 10

What are the main fishing areas based on current data?

Answer 10

1 - NW Pacific
2 - Central Pacific
3 - Northeast Pacific
4 - Indian Ocean

Question 11

For the fishing areas including __________, ________ and ________, one reason for them being so good of a fishing spot is due to what?

Answer 11

NW Pacific, Central pacific, northeast pacific

One reason is due to coldwater which tends to drive productivity,
Related to upwelling events.

Question 12

What is upwelling?

Answer 12

This is when warm water is replaced by deeper, colder water with nutriens which rises to the surface.

Question 13

Many productive fisheries are ________ zones.

Answer 13

upwelling

Question 14

In the Pacific, that upwelling is caused by _____ _____ which blow from the _____ to the _____.

Answer 14

Trade winds

right to left

Question 15

In the Northern pacific, upwelling is due to patterns of _____ ______ but the result is the same.

Answer 15

ocean currents

Question 16

Why is the Indian Ocean a productive fishery then?

Answer 16

Does get some upwelling from Antarctic currents.

One reason for it being a hotspot is because other areas have been fished out.

Question 17

The Indian Ocean is a productive fishery currently but will probably not last because?

Answer 17

It has less upwelling

Question 18

Describe the Northwest Atlantic fishery.

Answer 18

Canada used to sit on it
Historically one of the most productive zones
Collapsed, fished out.

Question 19

Describe the Mediterranean fishery

Answer 19

Used to be hugely productive.
Small and warm-ish but had lots of new water come in.
Has seriously been crashing in the last couple of years.
No longer productive due to overfishing and pollution.

Question 20

What is an economic exclusion zone?

Answer 20

Each country has its own EEZ in which they can set regulations on who can fish, how many fish can be caught and what gear can be used.
Extends from coast line to 200 miles off shore generally.

Question 21

What is one issue with EEZs?

Answer 21

Outside the zones, its lawless.
- Fishing companies can bribe smaller countries
- dont have to declare catches offshore
Sometimes EEZs conflict and can be a major source of international tension.

Question 22

According to the latest data, what is being caught the most?

Answer 22

Most common fish is Alaskan Pollock.

Second most common is Anchovida.

Question 23

Anchovida is usually the most common, why wasnt it this year?

Answer 23

Partly due to overfishing but mainly due to El Nino.
Most Anchovida is caught off the coast of Peru but, during El Nino, trade winds die off reducing upwelling events and causing population crashes.

Question 24

Describe the largehead hairtail.

Answer 24

Relatively new fish that is deep living and starting to be caught more and more globally.
Issue is that we know nothing of its life history traits.

Question 25

Describe the common practice of fisheries once a certain species is “fished out”.

Answer 25

Fisheries start to catch less desirable fish over the common ones.
Start exploiting deeper living species.
However, the issue is we know nothing of their population sizes, how sustainable they are or on life history traits.

Question 26

What are the different uses of fish?

Answer 26

Food - fresh or frozen
Non-food purposes:
- cosmetics
- feeding livestock
Cash

Question 27

What is the majority of fish used for?

Answer 27

Feeding people.

Question 28

Fish can be used for straight up cash, what type of countries would do this?

Answer 28

Major exploit in developing countries.

Question 29

What is the reason that Canada support fish research?

Answer 29

We are a major exporter of fish globally. Huge source of jobs.

Question 30

Sometimes, it is easy to scientifically determine how many fish to keep constant catch rates but, ________ pressures trump this.

Answer 30

Economic

Question 31

Canada remains a major exporter of fish. ________ export in millions of tonnes from 2000 to 2010.

Answer 31

Increasing

Question 32

Most fish are _______.

Officially, ________ is defined as catching more fish than they can be naturally replaced.

Answer 32

Overfished

Overfishing

Question 33

Define overfishing.

Answer 33

When catchrates exceeds natural replacement rates.

Question 34

Over __% of fisheries are fully exploited. About __% are recovering from overfishing.

Answer 34

50

3

Question 35

What are the 3 population characteristics that make it more likely to be overfished?

Answer 35

Slow growth
Later maturity
Relatively few offspring each time they spawn

Question 36

Is the Great White susceptible to overfishing?

Answer 36

Yes.
Grow slowly, late maturity (babies at age 10) and have few offspring.
Slow replacement rate!

Question 37

Describe a fish species that should be exploited.

Answer 37

Fast growing fish
Mature within a year
Have lots of offspring

Question 38

Of the 129 species of fish in Lake Huron, ___ are extirpated or imperiled.
What is/are the causes of this?

Answer 38

20
Causes:
- Habitat degradation
- Invasive species

Question 39

Define extirpated.

Answer 39

Locally extinct.

Question 40

What are the causes for extirpation in lake Huron?

Answer 40

Historically overfishing
Habitat degradation
Invasive species

Question 41

One study predicted the collapse of global fisheries by ______.

Answer 41

2048

Question 42

What is a fishery collapse?

Answer 42

Means the fishery no longer has enough fish to be viable commercially. There are still fish there bu they aren’t worth the company’s money.

Question 43

When there is ____ species richness, there is a _____ likelihood of fishery collapse.

Answer 43

low

high

Question 44

Describe how increasing the number of species caught can lead to a stable fishery.

Answer 44

By increasing the number of species that are considered viable, this takes pressure off of some of the commonly fished species.
The same tonnage can be caught but there will be more variety, increasing the likelihood of rebound in fish populations.

Question 45

Competing demands drive fisheries management.
What is the goal?
What is easier to sell to voters?

Answer 45

The goal is to fish at MMSY - multiple species maximum sustainable yield.
What is easier to sell to voters?
- Maintaining high employment

Question 46

What are the competing demands that drive fisheries?

Answer 46

1 - Maintaining biodiversity
2 - Maintaining high catches
3 - Maintaining high employment

Question 47

How do the competing demands conflict?

What is the best solution?

Answer 47

Politicians want high employment which means that they want a high catch rate initially but, that will lead to a decline.
If maintaining biodiversity is the goal, thats fine but it will have a negative economic impact in most cases.
Aim for MMSY.

Question 48

Describe MMSY.

Answer 48

Highest possible sustainable exploitation rate.

Government regulators aim for a high catch rate in a sustainable way to prevent overfishing.

Question 49

MMSY is generally what percentage of exploitation rate?

Answer 49

40-60%

Question 50

What occurs as exploitation rate is increased?

Answer 50

Number of collapsed species increases.

Question 51

What occurs when fishing rates increases?

Answer 51

total biomass caught tends to decrease

Question 52

As overfishing is approached, what happens to the size of fish?

Answer 52

Mean length, max size all decrase.

See a decrease in size of fish.

Question 53

As overfishing is approached, what exarcerbates the problem?

Answer 53

As overfishing begins to become more and more of a problem, the fish caught become smaller and smaller and have not reached reproductive age, furthering the issue.

Question 54

Globally, what is the trend leaning towards for the competing demands?

Answer 54

Higher employment

Question 55

Describe the study performed off the coast of Kenya on how reduced fishing was of economic benefit.

Answer 55

Fishermen off the coast of Kenya typically used seine nets.
These do not discriminate between fish species and can catch non-target species.
More, bigger nets can destroy reefs.
In the study, the workers worked with authorities to fish at different areas.
Some fishing has no restrictions, other areas used less destructive fishing means and some areas were completely closed off to fishing.
The least amount of money was made with no restrictions. The most was made in the less destructive fishing method and in the areas closed off due to tourism.