Blog 17

I read the essay Overfishing of Inland Waters by David Allen. The problem described in the essay is how the stock of fish is depleting in bodies of water due to overfishing. I chose this essay because I have always been wanting to know what overfishing is doing to the world and exactly why it is a big problem. Before I read it I knew overfishing was when fishermen would fish so much that there wouldn’t be much of that type of fish left. But this essay really opened my eyes on how horrible overfishing really is. Fish don’t only lose a big part of their population size but over time they decrease in size because of the types of nets used while fishing. Also there are two types of overfishing, intensive fishing and assemblage or ecosystem overfishing. “Intensive fishing is when fishing of a targeted species leads to marked declines in catch per unit effort and size of individuals captured.” The population of the species decreases along with their size. Assemblage/ecosystem “overfishing is when catches proceed beyond the asymptotic maximum of a plateau-type curve or decline below the asymptotic or plateau level.” The essay goes on to say how the decrease in size of fish is unacceptable in some parts of the world. That is crazy. Also I chose this essay because I feel like I will be able to find connections between this essay and the other two essays we were assigned. A connection I can make is how there is not that much public awareness about this issue and I believe art can show people how sad overfishing is try to open their eyes on the topic. I find this article to be trustworthy because when I was looking on the library website I checked the box for the “peer review.” This means that since there are so many facts and numbers in this article many people looked it over to make sure it was 100% accurate. I also feel it is a good essay to use because when I clicked on the “scholarly and peer review” tab it was still the first one to pop up. Overall I believe this essay really opened my eyes about the issues of overfishing and I feel I will be able to make good connections in my essay.