'... Join The Wildlife Trusts in celebrating the UK's amazing sea animals and plants during National Marine Week ...'
For events during National Marine Week, go to
www.wildlifetrusts.org/index.php?section=places:events:marineweek

Commercial fishing has decimated both fish stocks and the aquatic environment. Herring, cod, hake, redfish and mackerel are the fish species that are most commonly exploited commercially across the world, and some of these are close to extinction because of over-fishing. Fishing methods include trawling, with vast nets which are dragged across the ocean floor. Between 60 and 80 million tons of fish are caught from the seas of the world each year by trawling. The total for all methods is about 100 million tons. Fish that are too small, or of 'non-target' species or species with no commercial value are discarded, ie dumped back in the sea, usually dead. The discard can include almost every creature from the sea or sea bed - sea urchins, brittle stars, crabs, dolphins, seals and sea-birds. Shrimp nets also drown thousands of endangered sea turtles every year. Detached nets can drift and kill large numbers of animals and birds. Thousands of dolphins, porpoises, small whales, sea lions and walruses are killed by drifting detached nets each year.
Over-fishing, by removing fish from the sea, causes sea birds to starve and populations to suffer. Commercial fishermen often demand ‘culling’ to prevent wild birds and seals from competing with them for fish. Over-fishing and the subsequent collapse of many commercial fisheries has led to an increase in fish farming. Wild fish are caught and fed to some farmed fish (it takes 5 tons of wild fish to produce one ton of factory-farmed salmon); fish farms also damage the marine environment. Parasites from factory-farmed fish infect wild fish.
The ecological balance of the oceans is disturbed when the catch rate exceeds the natural reproduction rate. This is over-fishing. All 17 of the world's major fisheries have either reached or exceeded their limits; the North Sea is cleared of a quarter of its fish every year.
Wild fish swim desperately to escape the nets, and if they are caught, suffer decompression as they are hauled up to the surface. They die of asphyxiation or bleed to death, by the million.
Wild fish can be dumped back in the sea dead, used for food, used for animal or fish feed, or even to make fertiliser.
For more information, go to
www.viva.org.uk/campaigns/fish/index.html