Overfishing Quotes

• The ocean is like a checking account where everybody withdraws but nobody makes a deposit. This is what's happening because of overfishing.

  Enric Sala

  Ocean, Deposits, Checking Accounts

  107 Copy quote

• If you're overfishing at the top of the food chain, and acidifying the ocean at the bottom, you're creating a squeeze that could conceivably collapse the whole system.

  Carl Safina

  Ocean, Science, Creating

  92 Copy quote

• The biggest danger we face is overfishing. We literally could fish out our oceans, some scientists believe, in the next 40, 50, 60 years. We are fishing out the top of the food chain, and it's pretty crucial because about 200 million people depend on fish and fishing for their livelihood, and about a billion people, mostly in poorer countries, depend on fish for their protein. So this is a big problem. Good news is, it's fixable.

  Ted Danson

  Country, Believe, Ocean

  Source: www.pbs.org

  57 Copy quote

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• By the end of the 20th century, up to 90 percent of the sharks, tuna, swordfish, marlins, groupers, turtles, whales, and many other large creatures that prospered in the Gulf for millions of years had been depleted by overfishing.

  Sylvia Earle

  Turtles, Sharks, Years

  42 Copy quote

• Overfishing is an obvious threat to our capacity to feed ourselves.

  Tim Winton

  Capacity, Obvious, Threat

  Source: www.sas.org.uk

  22 Copy quote

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• If we were to lose our fish that we appreciate so much by overfishing; or if we were to lose some of our favorite beaches to overbuilding and pollution, then how would we feel? It's become a case of not knowing what you've got until it's gone.

  Aaron Peirsol

  Beach, Knowing, Appreciate

  Source: www.nbcnews.com

  27 Copy quote

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• Most of the damage suffered by the ocean up until now has been caused by local insults - overfishing, pollution, and destruction of habitats. If we tackle these problems now, we buy ourselves time to work on climate change.

  Nancy Knowlton

  Ocean, Habitat, Damage

  20 Copy quote

• Fish farming, even with conventional techniques, changes fish within a few generations from an animal like a wild buffalo or a wildebeest to the equivalent of a domestic cow.

  Charles Clover

  Change, Animal, Cows

  Charles Clover (2008). “The End of the Line: How Overfishing is Changing the World and what We Eat”, p.312, Univ of California Press

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• The Ocean Health Index is like the thermometer of the ocean. It will allow us to take the temperature to know what is going on at the global level, trying to integrate different impacts, including overfishing, invasive species, coastal development, and climate change.

  Enric Sala

  Ocean, Impact, Trying

  12 Copy quote

• Today, our incentives aren't set up well - you can make a lot of money burning fossil fuels, digging up wetlands, pumping fossil water out of aquifers that will take 10,000 years to recharge, overfishing species in international waters that are close to collapse, and so on.

  Ramez Naam

  Aquifers, Years, Water

  "Q&A with Ramez Naam: Dialogues on the Environment". Interview with Mark Tercek, bigthink.com.

  23 Copy quote

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