Minnie Explains it All

Giant jellyfish FTW.












Subject: Overfishing and it's devastating effects on the environment.



Here's an interesting segment I heard on NPR's Fresh Air yesterday about overfishing.

I don't feel that the story was urgent enough though (I blame Terry Gross and her love for fish and obvious unwillingness to stop eating it- haha). It did make some very good points though, about how the fishing industry is impacting our environment. If only people would realize that the only true way to stop the madness is to simply stop eating fish. There are no "safer" choices anymore. The idea that switching to different fish when a certain species is diminished is effectively wiping out entire ecosystems.

Trawlers with nets big enough to fit 6 jumbo jets side-by-side in them are being dragged across the ocean floor. That's a lot of fish. But these nets aren't selective; everything is raked up, from sea turtles, to coral reef dwellers, to sponges, and even smaller invertebrates. Basically, as Daniel Pauly states in the NPR segment, the ecosystem is being mowed down, like a forest transformed into a plowed field.

Read Daniel Pauly's original article in it's entirety.