![Greetsiel 33 Poseidon 01](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/52/Greetsiel_33_Poseidon_01.jpg)
Commercial fishing is the activity of catching
fish
Fish are aquatic, craniate, gill-bearing animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish as well as various extinct related groups. Approximately 95% of li ...
and other
seafood
Seafood is any form of sea life regarded as food by humans, prominently including fish and shellfish. Shellfish include various species of molluscs (e.g. bivalve molluscs such as clams, oysters and mussels, and cephalopods such as octopus an ...
for
commercial
Commercial may refer to:
* a dose of advertising conveyed through media (such as - for example - radio or television)
** Radio advertisement
** Television advertisement
* (adjective for:) commerce, a system of voluntary exchange of products and s ...
profit
Profit may refer to:
Business and law
* Profit (accounting), the difference between the purchase price and the costs of bringing to market
* Profit (economics), normal profit and economic profit
* Profit (real property), a nonpossessory intere ...
, mostly from
wild fisheries
A wild fishery is a natural body of water with a sizeable free-ranging fish or other aquatic animal (crustaceans and molluscs) population that can be harvested for its commercial value. Wild fisheries can be marine (saltwater) or lacustrine/ri ...
. It provides a large quantity of food to many countries around the world, but those who practice it as an industry must often pursue fish far into the ocean under adverse conditions. Large-scale commercial fishing is also known as
industrial fishing
The fishing industry includes any industry or activity concerned with taking, culturing, processing, preserving, storing, transporting, marketing or selling fish or fish products. It is defined by the Food and Agriculture Organization as including ...
.
The major fishing industries are not only owned by major corporations but by small families as well.
In order to adapt to declining fish populations and increased demand, many commercial fishing operations have reduced the sustainability of their harvest by fishing further down the food chain. This raises concern for
fishery managers and researchers, who highlight how further they say that for those reasons, the sustainability of the marine ecosystems could be in danger of collapsing.
Commercial fishermen harvest a wide variety of animals. However, a very small number of species support the majority of the world's fisheries of these species are
herring
Herring are forage fish, mostly belonging to the family of Clupeidae.
Herring often move in large schools around fishing banks and near the coast, found particularly in shallow, temperate waters of the North Pacific and North Atlantic Oceans, i ...
,
cod
Cod is the common name for the demersal fish genus '' Gadus'', belonging to the family Gadidae. Cod is also used as part of the common name for a number of other fish species, and one species that belongs to genus ''Gadus'' is commonly not call ...
,
anchovy
An anchovy is a small, common forage fish of the family Engraulidae. Most species are found in marine waters, but several will enter brackish water, and some in South America are restricted to fresh water.
More than 140 species are placed in 1 ...
,
tuna
A tuna is a saltwater fish that belongs to the tribe Thunnini, a subgrouping of the Scombridae (mackerel) family. The Thunnini comprise 15 species across five genera, the sizes of which vary greatly, ranging from the bullet tuna (max length: ...
,
flounder
Flounders are a group of flatfish species. They are demersal fish, found at the bottom of oceans around the world; some species will also enter estuaries.
Taxonomy
The name "flounder" is used for several only distantly related species, thou ...
,
mullet,
squid
True squid are molluscs with an elongated soft body, large eyes, eight arms, and two tentacles in the superorder Decapodiformes, though many other molluscs within the broader Neocoleoidea are also called squid despite not strictly fitting t ...
,
shrimp
Shrimp are crustaceans (a form of shellfish) with elongated bodies and a primarily swimming mode of locomotion – most commonly Caridea and Dendrobranchiata of the decapod order, although some crustaceans outside of this order are refer ...
,
salmon
Salmon () is the common name for several list of commercially important fish species, commercially important species of euryhaline ray-finned fish from the family (biology), family Salmonidae, which are native to tributary, tributaries of the ...
,
crab
Crabs are decapod crustaceans of the infraorder Brachyura, which typically have a very short projecting "tail" (abdomen) ( el, βραχύς , translit=brachys = short, / = tail), usually hidden entirely under the thorax. They live in all the ...
,
lobster
Lobsters are a family (biology), family (Nephropidae, Synonym (taxonomy), synonym Homaridae) of marine crustaceans. They have long bodies with muscular tails and live in crevices or burrows on the sea floor. Three of their five pairs of legs ...
,
oyster
Oyster is the common name for a number of different families of salt-water bivalve molluscs that live in marine or brackish habitats. In some species, the valves are highly calcified, and many are somewhat irregular in shape. Many, but not al ...
and
scallop
Scallop () is a common name that encompasses various species of marine bivalve mollusks in the taxonomic family Pectinidae, the scallops. However, the common name "scallop" is also sometimes applied to species in other closely related families ...
s. All except these last four provided a worldwide catch of well over a
million
One million (1,000,000), or one thousand thousand, is the natural number following 999,999 and preceding 1,000,001. The word is derived from the early Italian ''millione'' (''milione'' in modern Italian), from ''mille'', "thousand", plus the au ...
tonne
The tonne ( or ; symbol: t) is a unit of mass equal to 1000 kilograms. It is a non-SI unit accepted for use with SI. It is also referred to as a metric ton to distinguish it from the non-metric units of the short ton ( United State ...
s in 1999, with
herring
Herring are forage fish, mostly belonging to the family of Clupeidae.
Herring often move in large schools around fishing banks and near the coast, found particularly in shallow, temperate waters of the North Pacific and North Atlantic Oceans, i ...
and
sardine
"Sardine" and "pilchard" are common names for various species of small, oily forage fish in the herring family Clupeidae. The term "sardine" was first used in English during the early 15th century, a folk etymology says it comes from the Ital ...
s together providing a catch of over 22 million metric tons in 1999. Many other species are fished in smaller numbers.
In 2016, of the 171 million tonnes of fish caught, about 88 percent or over 151 million tonnes were utilized for direct human consumption. This share has increased significantly in recent decades, as it was 67 percent in the 1960s.
In 2016, the greatest part of the 12 percent used for non-food purposes (about 20 million tonnes) was reduced to fishmeal and fish oil (74 percent or 15 million tonnes), while the rest (5 million tonnes) was largely utilized as material for direct feeding in aquaculture and raising of livestock and fur animals, in culture (e.g. fry, fingerlings or small adults for ongrowing), as bait, in pharmaceutical uses and for ornamental purposes.
Economics
The industry, in 2006, also managed to generate over 185 billion dollars in sales and also provide over two million jobs in the United States, according to an economic report released by NOAA's Fisheries Service.
Commercial fishing may offer an abundance of jobs, but the pay varies from boat to boat, season to season. Crab fisherman Cade Smith was quoted in an article by ''Business Week'' as saying, "There was always a top boat where the crew members raked in $50,000 during the three- to five-day king crab season—or $100,000 for the longer snow crab season".
That may be true, but there are also the boats who do not do well; Smith said later in the same article that his worst season left him with a loss of 500 dollars.
The industry has had to adapt through the years in order to keep earning a profit. A study taken on some small family-owned commercial fishing companies showed that they adapted to continue to earn a living but not necessarily make a large profit.
Many people working in commercial fishing are self-employed, with some or all of their pay dependent on the proceeds from the sale of the fish caught. In the UK, the technical term for this is share fisherman, which refers to anyone working without an employment contract, on a boat crewed by more than one person, and relying for their livelihood at least partly on a share of the profits or gross sales of the fishing boat's catch.
Methods and gear
![Fishing-methods](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/76/Fishing-methods.png)
Commercial fishing uses many different methods to effectively catch a large variety of species including the use of pole and line,
trolling
In slang, a troll is a person who posts or makes inflammatory, insincere, digressive, extraneous, or off-topic messages online (such as in social media, a newsgroup, a forum, a chat room, a online video game), or in real life, with the i ...
with multiple lines,
trawling
Trawling is a method of fishing that involves pulling a fishing net through the water behind one or more boats. The net used for trawling is called a trawl. This principle requires netting bags which are towed through water to catch different speci ...
with
large nets such as seine-netting, and
traps or
pots. Sustainability of fisheries is improved by using specific equipment that eliminates or minimizes catching non-targeted species.
Fishing methods vary according to the region, the species being fished for, and the technology available to the fishermen. A commercial fishing enterprise may vary from one man with a small
boat
A boat is a watercraft of a large range of types and sizes, but generally smaller than a ship, which is distinguished by its larger size, shape, cargo or passenger capacity, or its ability to carry boats.
Small boats are typically found on inl ...
with
hand-casting nets or a few
pot traps, to a huge fleet of
trawlers processing tons of fish every day.
Commercial fishing gears in use today include surrounding
nets (e.g. purse
seine
)
, mouth_location = Le Havre/Honfleur
, mouth_coordinates =
, mouth_elevation =
, progression =
, river_system = Seine basin
, basin_size =
, tributaries_left = Yonne, Loing, Eure, Risle
, tributarie ...
), seine nets (e.g. beach seine),
trawl
Trawling is a method of fishing that involves pulling a fishing net through the water behind one or more boats. The net used for trawling is called a trawl. This principle requires netting bags which are towed through water to catch different speci ...
s (e.g.
bottom trawl
Bottom trawling is trawling (towing a trawl, which is a fishing net) along the seafloor. It is also referred to as "dragging". The scientific community divides bottom trawling into benthic trawling and demersal trawling. Benthic trawling is tow ...
), dredges,
hooks and lines (e.g.
long line Long line or longline may refer to:
*''Long Line'', an album by Peter Wolf
*Long line (topology), or Alexandroff line, a topological space
*Long line (telecommunications), a transmission line in a long-distance communications network
*Longline fish ...
and
troll line), lift nets,
gillnet
Gillnetting is a fishing method that uses gillnets: vertical panels of netting that hang from a line with regularly spaced floaters that hold the line on the surface of the water. The floats are sometimes called "corks" and the line with corks is ...
s, entangling nets, Pole and Line, and
traps
Commercial fishing gear is specifically designed and updated to avoid catching certain species of animal that is unwanted or endangered. Billions of dollars are spent each year in researching/developing new techniques to reduce the injury and even death of unwanted marine animals caught by the fishermen. In fact, there was a study taken in 2000 on different deterrents and how effective they are at deterring the target species. The study showed that most auditory deterrents helped prevent whales from being caught while more physical barriers helped prevent birds from getting tangled within the net.
Occupational health and safety
![Trawl fishermen personal flotation devices](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/13/Trawl_fishermen_personal_flotation_devices.jpg)
During 2010-2014, 188 commercial fishing fatalities occurred in the United States, with fatality rates in different fishing fleets ranging from 21 to 147 deaths per 100,000 full-time equivalent workers (FTEs), which is many times higher than the fatality rate for all U.S. workers. During 1919 and 2005, 4111 fishermen died in fishing related accidents in the
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...
industry alone. These deaths are generally a result of a combination of severe weather conditions, extreme fatigue because any one fisherman usually puts in a 21-hour shift, and dangerous equipment.
Commercial fishing has been identified by the
National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH, ) is the United States federal agency responsible for conducting research and making recommendations for the prevention of work-related injury and illness. NIOSH is part of the C ...
(NIOSH) as a priority industry sector in the
National Occupational Research Agenda The National Occupational Research Agenda (NORA) is a partnership program developed by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH). The program was founded in 1996 to provide a framework for research collaborations among univer ...
(NORA) to identify and provide intervention strategies regarding occupational health and safety issues.
Hazards and hazard controls
![San Miguel Rescue - The Coast Guard Rescued Three Commercial Fishermen](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c6/San_Miguel_Rescue_-_The_Coast_Guard_Rescued_Three_Commercial_Fishermen.jpg)
Common causes of fishing-related deaths include vessel disasters, falls overboard, and onboard injuries.
Between 2000 and 2010, most vessel disasters often were initiated by flooding, vessel instability, and large waves, and that severe weather conditions contributed to a majority of fatal vessel disasters.
The most frequent cause of death is
falls overboard. Falling overboard specifically killed 182 fishermen in the period between 2000 and 2010.
This fatality rate is 3 times that of the next most dangerous job in the U.S. and more than 25 times that of the national average across all workers.
Most falls overboard went unwitnessed, and in none of the cases documented was the victim wearing a
personal flotation device (PFD).
Several institutions have tried to change the culture surrounding safety on commercial fishing boats, especially around wearing personal flotation devices. The
Alaska Scallop Association mandates that every fisherman must wear a PFD while on deck of the boat, and other organizations have purchased more wearable PFDs.
[
]
Onboard injuries often result when a crew member is caught in a line and pulled into a winch
A winch is a mechanical device that is used to pull in (wind up) or let out (wind out) or otherwise adjust the tension of a rope or wire rope (also called "cable" or "wire cable").
In its simplest form, it consists of a spool (or drum) attache ...
on deck. The installation of a readily accessible emergency stop switch on the winch can potentially prevent these kinds of injuries. Injury data collection systems have begun tracking fishing-related injuries (fatal and non-fatal), using publicly available reports such as news media.
Regulation
The U.S. Coast Guard
The United States Coast Guard (USCG) is the maritime security, search and rescue, and law enforcement service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the country's eight uniformed services. The service is a maritime, military, mul ...
has primary jurisdiction over the safety of the U.S. commercial fishing fleet, enforcing regulations of the U.S. Commercial Fishing Industry Vessel Safety Act of 1988 (CFIVSA). CFIVSA regulations focus primarily on saving lives after the loss of a vessel and not on preventing vessels from capsizing or sinking, falls overboard, or injuries on deck. CFIVSA regulations require that commercial fishing vessels carry various equipment (e.g., life rafts, radio beacons, and immersion suits) depending on the size of the vessel and the area in which it operates. Not all commercial fishermen follow safety regulations and advice. One study of Maine fishermen found that less than 25% of the fishermen interviewed had recent training in first aid or CPR, only 75% of the boats had survival suits and only 36% had a survival craft. Even the ships that did have the necessary equipment did not consistently have a captain that fully understood how to use the safety equipment.
Environmental risk
The ocean
The ocean (also the sea or the world ocean) is the body of salt water that covers approximately 70.8% of the surface of Earth and contains 97% of Earth's water. An ocean can also refer to any of the large bodies of water into which the wo ...
s cover nearly two thirds of the Earth's surface, and are continuously threatened by human behaviors and practices. By taking so many fish from the seas, humans have managed to remove entire links from the marine food chain
Compared to terrestrial environments, marine environments have biomass pyramids which are inverted at the base. In particular, the biomass of consumers (copepods, krill, shrimp, forage fish) is larger than the biomass of primary producers. This ...
. This causes a chain effect, leading to an overall upset of the delicate ecological balance.
Sharks
Sharks are a group of elasmobranch fish characterized by a cartilaginous skeleton, five to seven gill slits on the sides of the head, and pectoral fins that are not fused to the head. Modern sharks are classified within the clade Selachimorp ...
are one of the ocean's most threatened species (see list of threatened sharks) because they are mistakenly caught by vessels searching for fish, and end up getting tossed back into the ocean dead or dying Some Asian cuisines value shark fin as a delicacy
A delicacy is usually a rare and expensive food item that is considered highly desirable, sophisticated, or peculiarly distinctive within a given culture. Irrespective of local preferences, such a label is typically pervasive throughout a r ...
, incentivizing excessive catching of sharks and even finning
Finning is a Canadian industrial equipment dealer specializing in Caterpillar
Caterpillars ( ) are the larval stage of members of the order Lepidoptera (the insect order comprising butterflies and moths).
As with most common names, t ...
practice among unregulated fishermen. This disappearance of sharks has enabled prey animals like rays to multiply, which alters the food chain dynamics.
Bycatch
Bycatch (or by-catch), in the fishing industry, is a fish or other marine species that is caught unintentionally while fishing for specific species or sizes of wildlife. Bycatch is either the wrong species, the wrong sex, or is undersized or juve ...
is the industry term for what they consider "unwanted or economically-worthless aquatic animals who are unintentionally caught using destructively indiscriminate fishing methods like longlines and driftnet
Drift netting is a fishing technique where nets, called drift nets, hang vertically in the water column without being anchored to the bottom. The nets are kept vertical in the water by floats attached to a rope along the top of the net and weig ...
s, which generally target marketable marine creatures such as tuna
A tuna is a saltwater fish that belongs to the tribe Thunnini, a subgrouping of the Scombridae (mackerel) family. The Thunnini comprise 15 species across five genera, the sizes of which vary greatly, ranging from the bullet tuna (max length: ...
and swordfish
Swordfish (''Xiphias gladius''), also known as broadbills in some countries, are large, highly migratory predatory fish characterized by a long, flat, pointed bill. They are a popular sport fish of the billfish category, though elusive. Swordfis ...
" There are also billions of other animals that are killed in this manner every year such as: sea turtles
Sea turtles (superfamily Chelonioidea), sometimes called marine turtles, are reptiles of the order Testudines and of the suborder Cryptodira. The seven existing species of sea turtles are the flatback, green, hawksbill, leatherback, loggerhead, ...
, marine mammal
Marine mammals are aquatic mammals that rely on the ocean and other marine ecosystems for their existence. They include animals such as seals, whales, manatees, sea otters and polar bears. They are an informal group, unified only by their reli ...
s, and sea birds
Seabirds (also known as marine birds) are birds that are adaptation, adapted to life within the marine (ocean), marine environment. While seabirds vary greatly in lifestyle, behaviour and physiology, they often exhibit striking convergent ev ...
. Between 1990 and 2008, it was estimated that 8.5 million sea turtles were fatally caught in nets or on longlines as bycatch.
Coral reef
A coral reef is an underwater ecosystem characterized by reef-building corals. Reefs are formed of colonies of coral polyps held together by calcium carbonate. Most coral reefs are built from stony corals, whose polyps cluster in groups.
Co ...
s are biodiversity
Biodiversity or biological diversity is the variety and variability of life on Earth. Biodiversity is a measure of variation at the genetic (''genetic variability''), species (''species diversity''), and ecosystem (''ecosystem diversity'') l ...
-rich ecosystems which provide habitat for millions of aquatic species such as sponges, star fish, jellyfish, sea turtles, etc. Unfortunately, reef ecosystems are highly sensitive to chemical, temperature, and population changes. There has been an increasing disappearance of large predators such as barracuda
A barracuda, or cuda for short, is a large, predatory, ray-finned fish known for its fearsome appearance and ferocious behaviour. The barracuda is a saltwater fish of the genus ''Sphyraena'', the only genus in the family Sphyraenidae, which was ...
, Nassau grouper
The Nassau grouper (''Epinephelus striatus'') is one of the large number of perciform fishes in the family Serranidae commonly referred to as groupers. It is the most important of the groupers for commercial fishery in the West Indies, but ha ...
s, and sharks This makes the reefs more vulnerable to invasion by non-native species.
Fish farming
upright=1.3, Salmon farming in the sea (mariculture) at Loch Ainort, Isle of Skye">mariculture.html" ;"title="Salmon farming in the sea (mariculture">Salmon farming in the sea (mariculture) at Loch Ainort, Isle of Skye, Scotland
Fish farming or ...
is the raising of fish for food in underwater enclosures, otherwise known as aquaculture
Aquaculture (less commonly spelled aquiculture), also known as aquafarming, is the controlled cultivation ("farming") of aquatic organisms such as fish, crustaceans, mollusks, algae and other organisms of value such as aquatic plants (e.g. lot ...
. There are environmental hazards such as waste, damage to ecosystems, and negative effects on humans. Because they are so densely packed together, the fecal matter that accumulates can create algal bloom
An algal bloom or algae bloom is a rapid increase or accumulation in the population of algae in freshwater or marine water systems. It is often recognized by the discoloration in the water from the algae's pigments. The term ''algae'' encompas ...
s, or deadly parasites and viruses that thrive on the filthy environment. These can infect wild fish that swim near the enclosure, or whole colonies of fish if an infected farm fish escapes the enclosure.
Overfishing
Overfishing is the removal of a species of fish (i.e. fishing) from a body of water at a rate greater than that the species can replenish its population naturally (i.e. the overexploitation of the fishery's existing fish stock), resulting in th ...
occurs because fish are captured at a faster rate than they can reproduce. Both advanced fishing technologies and increased demand for fish have resulted in overfishing. The Food and Agricultural Organization has reported that "about 25 percent of the world's captured fish end up thrown overboard because they are caught unintentionally, are illegal market species, or are of inferior quality and size" It should not go unnoticed that overfishing has caused more ecological extinction than any other human influence on coastal ecosystems.
The global environmental problem of oceanic microplastics
Microplastics are fragments of any type of plastic less than in length, according to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the European Chemicals Agency. They cause pollution by entering natural ecosystems from a v ...
is largely caused by plastic-made fishing gear that is wearing down by use, lost or thrown away.
See also
*Fishing industry
The fishing industry includes any industry or activity concerned with taking, culturing, processing, preserving, storing, transporting, marketing or selling fish or fish products. It is defined by the Food and Agriculture Organization as including ...
*List of canneries
This is a list of canneries. A cannery is involved in the processes of canning, a method of preserving food in which the food contents are processed and sealed in an airtight container.
Canneries
United States
* Bush Brothers Cannery - Chest ...
*List of harvested aquatic animals by weight
This is a list of aquatic animals that are Commercial fishing, harvested commercially in the greatest amounts, listed in order of tonnage per year (2012) by the Food and Agriculture Organization. Species listed here have an annual tonnage in exces ...
*List of seafood companies
This is a list of seafood companies. Seafood is any form of sea life regarded as food by humans. Seafood prominently includes fish and shellfish. Seafood companies are typically involved with fishing, fish processing, distribution and marketi ...
*Whaling
Whaling is the process of hunting of whales for their usable products such as meat and blubber, which can be turned into a type of oil that became increasingly important in the Industrial Revolution.
It was practiced as an organized industry ...
Sources
References
External links
WorldFishingToday.com Internet site for and about the commercial fishing
{{fisheries and fishing