Overfishing Effects More Than Just the Ocean

Salmon mig point yearly from the open peaceable Ocean to the coastal aras of the Pacific Northwest in order to pop send off some 5-6 weeks reproducing. During this time bears in any case migrate to these coastal beas to exhaust on the pink-orange which is a large part of their diet. This rude(a) interaction has been an substantial factor of the ecosystem in the Pacific Northwest for many an(prenominal) years and straight off that humankind have imposed on this process by over weighting we ar seeing changes in the ecosystem itself.While knowledge of this issue has been around for about 30 years, scientists only began researching it beginning in the early 90s. consort to this research the ongoing problem of overfishing is already beginning to show its make on the ecosystem, what may happen to the fo sopors and animals of the Pacific Northwest if this issue is non resolved? by the research of Dr. Tom Reimchen and a nonher(prenominal)(prenominal) scientists, an interact ion mingled with pink-orange and the forests of the Pacific Northwest has been discovered.Each year black and grayish bears travel from further away to the shoots and rivers in the Pacific Northwest to feed on the pink-orange that migrate there during their six week spawning period. This practises a local interaction, when the bears catch a fish they take it into the forest so they squeeze out expel it and non be disturbed. Usually the bears only wash up about half of from each one fish they catch and leave the rest on the forest floor, which is then consumed by birds, other small animals and insects.Through the decomposition of the chromatic as well as the bodily wastes of the bears and other animals, the soil in the forest absorbs nutrients as well as northward from the salmon. The use of stable nitrogen isotopes allows us to identify the relative voice of salmon to the ecosystem (Reimchen 2001 14), this research showed that nitrogen 15, an isotope of nitrogen is pres ent in a large number of the plants in the Pacific Northwest forests.Nitrogen 15 is mostly found in marine algae and salmon are highly enriched with it so it makes sense that the plants use the remnants of the salmon as a sort of fertilizer to make them grow causing large graduated table interaction. The presence of the nitrogen in the plants of the Pacific Northwest forests does not stiff that the plants necessarily need it to grow. In another experiment performed by Reimchen he sought to answer this question, I examined yearly growth rings of 13 trees of similar size from sites differing in (salmon) carcass density.Average growth rate over the last 50 years was 2. 5mm per year within 10m of the stream where carcasses were most abundant and less than 1mm per year where carcasses were not present (Reimchen 2001 14). These results are debatable because other factors such as the amount of rainfall and temperateness they set forth effect plant growth too, but another reflection w hich keystones the theory that nitrogen helps the plants grow is that the amount of salmon brought into the forest by the bears each year varies drively with the amount of salmon coming back to the stream each year.In the conclusion of his research thus far Reimchen believes that if it is not stopped, the result of disforestation and overfishing lead have ecosystem-level consequences for the remaining forests (Reimchen 2001 16). repayable to the overfishing of salmon by world, the migrating salmon population has reduced 80-90 percent in the last 100 years. In nature predators and prey coexist in equilibrium, but with human interference the salmon butt end not be sick fast enough to keep up with the amount being caught resulting in a large decrease in their population.Although there are programs standardized the MSY or maximum sustainable yield in place which tells fisheries how many fish they are allowed to catch, they do not factor in the natural predators of the salmon an d therefore they throw off the balance of the ecosystem. A direct result of over fishing is the harvesting of salmon in fish farms, the salmon are raised in net pens that usually bluster in areas off the coast. The biggest problem with fish farming is the fish escaping into the nonsensical, for voice in 1997, 360,000 salmon escaped from a single farm off the Washington coast. The salmon raised on fish farms are, ed strong feed and medication to maximize the conversion of feed into growth spot minimizing the loss of fish due to disease and escape (Reimchen 2001 139), the effects of the salmon raised on farms escaping into the wild may be genetic, ecological, and can cause problems with disease and parasites. The genetic problems the farm salmon can cause are they will interbreed with wild salmon and disrupt their genetic adaptations, switch their genetic variability and their evolutionary potential. The competition for food, space, and habitat between the farmed and wild salmon could in any case be a problem.Farmed fish sometimes sterilize sea lice or ISA a contagious lethal virus that they can pass to the wild salmon. All of these factors are depleting the amount of wild salmon as well as altering the way the salmon live. other contributing factor to the decline of the salmon population is the political ecology involved. On one side there are the state involuntary to do anything in their power to protect and restore the status of the salmon in the pacific northwest, but on the other more muscular side are the people who see the salmon as a huge money maker and are doing everything they can to continue overfishing so they can kale from it.The fisheries not only catch salmon so they can sell it locally, but where they get the most money from is tape transport it to large grocery store chains across the country. They must overfish in order to meet the demands of the stores they supply or else the stores will go to another source for salmon, so many fisheries ignore the problem and continue overfishing because they rally that if they stop someone else is just going to come in profit off of what they are not catching.The problem with overfishing and fish farms are not only harming the salmon population, but if nothing is done about these issues it will effect the animals in the pacific northwest as well as the vegetation. Black and Grizzly bears get around 75% of their yearly dietary requirements from the salmon, with the amount of salmon available becoming less and less each year the bears are not going to have enough to eat and their population will decrease as a result.I also think that with the introduction of the farmed salmon and the diseases they can carry the bears may get sick and die from eating diseased fish. With less bears the vegetation in the pacific northwest will also suffer because less salmon will be transferred into the forests where the plants can absorb the nitrogen and the plants will not grow as much or as quickly, it may also make the plant population less diverse. I believe that the overfishing take to be controlled by more extreme measures so that the salmon can be allowed to reproduce naturally and keep their population up.If companies sold salmon raised in a fish farm at bring low prices and raised the price of wild salmon this may help as well because the more expensive it is, the less people will debauch and the fishing companies will not have to catch as many. Its course of like how you can go to the store and buy either veritable(a) fruit or pay extra for organic, and there is always people who are willing to pay more. I also think that fish farms should not be integrated in the coastal waters, they should be in a completely different location than the wild salmon so there is no chance of them escaping and contaminating the wild salmon.In auxiliary to the repercussions of fish farming and overfishing on the ecosystems in the Pacific Northwest forests, deforestation i s another action by humans that is threatening this area. With the growth rate of the trees already falling due to lack of nitrogen from salmon and humans cutting them down at an alarming rate, it is inevitable that unless serious move are taken to protect both the salmon and the forest itself from humans the ecosystem in the Pacific Northwest will fail and the forests will be completely destroyed.References1)Frissell, C. (1995). Topology of Extinction and Endangerment of Native Fishes in the Pacific Northwest. saving Biology, 7. http//www.jstor.org/pss/2386432 2)Reimchen, T. (Fall 2001). Salmon nutrients, nitrogen isotopes, and coastal forests. Ecoforestry. 3)Sachs, J. (15, Jan. 2010). Icon for an Endangered Ecosystem. http// www.nwf.org/News-and-Magazines/National-Wildlife/Animals/Archives/2010/Icon-for-an-Endangered-Ecosystem.aspx