Fish population in the seas and rivers are falling sharply due to over fishing this fact worries many Asian and European countries. Governments should have controlling policies so that the fish population may have chance to replenish.
More importantly fish are killed early so they don’t live long enough to reproduce, as a result the stock it comes from doesn’t get chance to recover. Scientists have been warning politicians about the disastrous effect of over fishing for years. Many of the popular species that were abundant in our rivers and seas several decades ago, have slowly became rarity, if not extinct. Fishermen have a tendency to over fish for economic reasons. There are not enough adult fished to meet the demand so fishermen are catching the baby ones and government doesn’t have a strong surveillance to stop baby fish killing.
Many market popular species of fish are victim of over fishing and under-aged fishing. For instance, Hilsha, the national fish of Bangladesh is facing acute threat of over fishing and the availability of adult hilsha has falled dramatically. The average size of hilsha caught has also been reduced by almost 40% in last two decades. Hilsa population has been reduced significantly due to over fishing. Most of the Hilsha fish is kiled under-aged, before they become adult and many are killed before spawning.
Due to exhaustive and indiscriminate fishing, our rivers and canals are already void of fishes and many common fish species has become a rarity. As an effort to stop this, government is trying to enforce a fishing policy that rivers and canals will be declared as reserved areas and commercial fishing will be banned in rivers and canals for next two years so that the young fishes can breed and replenish the stock. Meantime the affected fishermen will be offered alternate means to earn livelihood.
To make any difference in the current practice, government must take decisions to make radical changes.
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