Fishies: life or death?

Imogen Smith

Overfishing is serious yet common issue that affects the entire food chain. there are many things we could do to fix the issue but for some reason, we haven't.

3 ways that overfishing affects the North Sea and all around the world:

1. When a species of fish is removed from the ocean in a large area the things in the food chain above and below it is greatly affected.

2. Fish species often help the oceans by eating algae. By removing the fish there is no longer anything to eat it, and it grows out of control, eating things like coral.

3. Without smaller fish for sharks and dolphins to eat, they eventually disappear, causing reefs of fish to be unable to flourish.

By removing fish species from areas of the ocean, you also remove a layer from the food chain. The things that the fish eat will grow too large or there will be too many of them, while the species above them will no longer have anything to eat. Like a domino effect, the species below them will thrive and below that, they will begin to go into a pattern of too many and too little.Above the removed species the will dies due to lack of food and one by one species will go extinct.

Groups of fish this size (slightly smaller or larger) are removed from the ocean on a daily basis.

If more people were to stop eating sea food or at the very least, less of it, the fish AND the food chain would have time to catch up with its self. By staying like this (eating less or no sea food) the oceans would be able to flourish properly, fixing many other issues at the same time. The fish would get rid of more of the algae that is eating coral reefs. Coral reefs provide shelter to many thousands of underwater species.