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Breeding

How Commercial Fishing Affects the Environment

Commercial fishing’s environmental effects vary with the species, location, gear and management. Key impacts include pressure on target stocks, bycatch, habitat disturbance, fuel use and lost gear.

By Animalso Team 4 min read

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Commercial fishing affects the environment through fishing pressure on target populations, accidental catch of other animals, disturbance from some fishing gear, fuel use and lost gear. The scale and kind of harm depend on what is caught, where fishing takes place, the gear used and how the fishery is managed. There is no single, supported ranking that captures the environmental impact of every fishery.

How does commercial fishing affect the environment?

Fishing removes animals from wild populations. When fishing mortality is too high relative to a population’s ability to replenish, a stock can become overfished. Accidental catch can add mortality for non-target fish and protected animals, while some gear can disturb seabed habitats. Fishing vessels also burn fuel, and lost gear may keep capturing animals after it is no longer being used.

These effects are not interchangeable: a fishery can have one kind of impact without having the same level of another. A useful assessment asks about the target stock, incidental catch and discard survival, contact with sensitive habitat, and fuel and gear losses—rather than treating all commercial fishing as one method.

What happens to target fish populations?

Fishing mortality affects the abundance of the species a fishery intends to catch. If the rate of fishing is too high for a stock to replenish, the stock may become overfished. In plain language, overfishing describes a fishing rate; overfished describes a stock’s condition. Fisheries management aims to prevent overfishing and rebuild stocks that are overfished.

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Stock condition matters beyond the target species: changes in the availability of fish can affect predator-prey relationships. Management that sets and adjusts fishing rules for a particular stock is one tool for limiting this pathway, but its effectiveness depends on the fishery and how the rules are implemented.

What is bycatch, and why does it matter?

Bycatch is catch that is not kept as the intended product, as well as some animal deaths from direct encounters with fishing vessels and gear. NOAA’s National Bycatch Reduction Strategy defines it as “discarded catch of marine species and unobserved mortality due to a direct encounter with fishing vessels and gear.” NOAA notes that legal definitions can differ by statute.

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Bycatch can include non-target fish and protected animals, including marine mammals, sea turtles and seabirds. Some discarded animals survive; others die, depending on the species and what happens during capture and handling. Discarding therefore does not make the ecological effect disappear. Bycatch can affect protected populations, complicate stock-rebuilding efforts and change the availability of prey. NOAA also identifies effects on habitat-forming corals and sponges.

Discarding has been measured differently across places and periods, so historical estimates should not be mistaken for present-day totals. FAO published a provisional 1994 estimate of 27.0 million metric tonnes of global commercial-fishery discards, with a range of 17.9 to 39.5 million tonnes. It is a historical estimate, not a current global figure.

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How can fishing gear affect seabed habitat?

Bottom trawls and dredges contact the seabed and can disturb benthic habitat—the communities and physical features on or near the ocean floor. The effect depends on the habitat involved, the gear, and how often and intensely it contacts the area. A result documented for one habitat or region should not be generalized to every bottom-contact fishery, let alone to all commercial fishing.

Gear that does not contact the seabed has a different habitat pathway, but it can still catch non-target animals or create other impacts. A meaningful comparison therefore names both the gear and the environmental effect being compared, rather than labeling one method simply “good” or “bad.”

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What are the effects of fuel use and lost fishing gear?

Fishing vessels use fuel and produce emissions. Energy use also occurs beyond capture, including in seafood processing, storage and transport. These are related but distinct parts of the seafood chain; a capture-fishery emissions figure would not, by itself, describe the whole chain. The available evidence does not establish a current, globally comparable total for emissions from capture fisheries, so a single figure or overall emissions ranking would be misleading.

Fishing gear that is lost or discarded can continue capturing animals, a process known as ghost fishing. Gear marking can help identify and manage gear, while designs intended to break down or disable lost gear can reduce continued capture. These measures address a particular risk; they do not prevent all gear loss or its effects.

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Can commercial fishing be sustainable?

Some harms can be reduced through fishery-specific management and changes in fishing practice, but no single measure guarantees sustainability. Measures need to be assessed against the species and ecosystem at risk, and against the impact they are intended to reduce.

  • More selective gear and fishing practices: Modifications and avoidance practices can reduce unwanted catch, but their performance depends on the fishery and species involved.
  • Monitoring and reporting: Better information about catch, discards and encounters can help identify problems and assess whether mitigation is working.
  • Time-area measures: Adjusting when or where fishing occurs can help avoid particular species or sensitive places; the benefits depend on the fishery and the risk being addressed.
  • Stock management: Rules intended to prevent overfishing and rebuild overfished stocks address pressure on target populations.
  • Lost-gear measures: Marking gear and using designs that reduce ghost fishing address risks from gear that is lost or abandoned.

NOAA Fisheries reports that dolphin bycatch in the yellowfin tuna fishery fell by more than 99 percent, attributing the reduction to the Marine Mammal Protection Act and domestic and international agreements. The page does not state the comparison period; this is an example for that fishery, not a universal expected result. NOAA also reports Alaska longline-fishery seabird bycatch counts of 6,353 in 2005 and 3,712 in 2010. Those counts are specific to that fishery and those years, not a general measure of fishing impact.

Because the pathways vary, a sound environmental judgment compares defined fisheries and states what is being compared: stock status, bycatch and discard mortality, habitat contact, or fuel and emissions. Current evidence does not support collapsing those differences into one global score for commercial fishing.

Product prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on Amazon at the time of purchase will apply.

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