Longterm consequences of overfishing

Overfishing is now THE #1 MOST damaging issue affecting marine ecosystems impacted by humans. Marine species are becoming extinct due more so to overfishing than because of climate change, pollution, degradation of water quality, and habitat disturbance (14).

Research observes a drastic decline over recent history of species in correlation to fishing capabilities. The scariest thing of all of this, is that we haven't even begun to see the consequences of our most recent actions. This is called an "extinction debt" which theorizes that there is a time lag of decades to centuries between the initial act of overfishing to when we see the consequential ecological cascade effects (14).

Figure 14. No more fish?! www.chrismadden.co.uk