Loss of Ocean Treasure: The Decline of Fish as a Sustainable Source of Food

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Introduction President Roosevelt’s word ring true and sadly at a point of dire straits. The wonderment and bounty of fish as a sustainable food source is increasingly declining with every day. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations reports “It is estimated that between 15 and 20 percent of all animal proteins come from aquatic animals” and “of the 30 countries most dependent on fish as a protein source, all but four are in the developing world” showing fish to be a key source of protein for many people of the global community (FOA, 2014). This statistic gives weight to a detriment of society, due to the loss of sustainability of fish, if it lost as a primary source of food. Fish is high in protein, lower in most fats and cholesterols, which are important to everyday dietary needs. Fish has become a more popular choice in protein and the United States is third in the world in seafood consumption (FOA 2014). With the increasing population of the planet and development of resources, fish has become scarce as a food source, even though the Earth is mostly covered in water. Why is that? To better understand the change in the availability and potential of fish as food, this paper will hopefully give insight to how we are losing a great treasure from the oceans and other waterways. The Causes of the Decline The causes of the decline of fish as a sustainable food source come from multiple outlets. Humans and continued to grow and evolve. In our natural growth progression, we have continued to inhabited places outside of, previous boundaries, changing the landscape causing loss of habitats for a land and marine animals. Humans bring new species to areas that become invasive. We also have changed the dynamic of food ... ... middle of paper ... ...http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12709791> • Jackson, Jeremy BC, et al. "Historical overfishing and the recent collapse of coastal ecosystems." science 293.5530 (2001): 629-637. • Lohmeyer, Adam M., and James E. Garvey. "Placing the North American invasion of Asian carp in a spatially explicit context." Biological invasions 11.4 (2009): 905-916. • Marchetti, Michael P., Peter B. Moyle, and Richard Levine. "Invasive species profiling? Exploring the characteristics of non‐native fishes across invasion stages in California." Freshwater biology 49.5 (2004): 646-661. • Merriam-Webster Dictionary. Merriam-Webster, n.d. Web. 23 Apr. 2014. . • Rotschild, B., et al. "Decline of the Chesapeake Bay oyster population: a century of habitat destruction and overfishing." Marine Ecology Progress Series111 (1994): 29-39.

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