Fish Habitat: Essential Fish Habitat and Rehabilitation

Part Three: Fishing Impacts on Fish Habitat

Ann Bucklin

doi: https://doi.org/10.47886/9781888569124.ch12

As ocean researchers and commercial harvesters increasingly acknowledge the importance of habitat in building sustainable fisheries, questions about the effects of man’s activities on marine biodiversity, fisheries productivity, and ecosystem health will become of even greater concern. In their examination of the impact of commercial harvesting on fish habitat, the speakers in this session demonstrated the value of diverse perspectives and approaches to questions of environmental policy.

Peter Auster and Richard Langton discussed the use of conceptual models, based on ecological disturbance theory, for needed predictive assessments of gear impacts on fish habitat. The models are particularly useful to understand impacts on fish population dynamics, species composition, and diversity for a variety of gear types used in a variety of habitats. An examination (by Judith Pederson and Madeline Hall-Arber) of fishermen’s perspectives on fishing gear impacts on habitat represented an important—and usually ignored— aspect of this issue. This preliminary study makes clear the need for more extensive and carefully designed methods of seeking information on the attitudes, opinions, and knowledge base of commercial fishermen. Michel Kaiser et al. compared diverse benthic communities in shallow and deep water in the southern North Sea and eastern English Channel to infer the communities’ vulnerability to disturbance and their topographic complexity—and to hypothesize about the importance of these habitat characteristics for various fish species. Joseph DeAlteris et al. provided a synthesis of comprehensive side-scan sonar survey data from Narragansett Bay, Rhode Island and provided a valuable comparison of anthropogenic impacts and natural disturbance.

The studies included in this section demonstrated the need for the integration of physical, biological, and social science perspectives in the examination of any issue in marine resource use. Integration of these perspectives is particularly important when the results of scientific inquiry have profound import for the environment, the health of marine ecosystems, the economic viability of coastal communities, and the preservation of a traditional way of life.