Freshwater fishing is more difficult than saltwater fishing - Essay Example

This body constitutes just three percent of the earth's water while the rest ninety seven percent constitutes saltwater and includes water in the oceans. Only about one-fifth of the world's total fish catch comes from fresh-water fisheries, while the rest comes from saltwater. Going by simple arithmetic, freshwater fishing has a lower input to the fishing industry than saltwater fishing. Commercial freshwater fisheries have never been as economically important as commercial saltwater fisheries, with exception in certain local areas like the Mekong River Basin.

Furthermore, the economic importance of fresh-water fisheries worldwide is diminishing because depleted fish populations and various other threats continue to make the harvesting of wild stocks uneconomical. In view of the above, along side other information, one would be able to make a line of argument on which kind of fishing is more difficult than the other. The line of argument taken for this paper is based on the assumption that both kind of fishing are being carried out for commercial purposes, and as such the degree of difficulty/ease would depend on the following: avenues for expansion and growth, availability of fish, regulations governing the practice of each method, as well as other.

My interview and information search revealed that freshwater sources have limited species diversity compared to saltwater sources. With this limitation in species, it becomes difficult for business engaging in freshwater fishing to provide the market with a wide range of fish choices. This means that a rival company engaging in saltwater fishing would be able to thrive in the business with its diverse fish species availability, hence making business difficult for the freshwater fishing company.

Secondly, over-fishing has always been seen to hamper continuous freshwater fishing compared to saltwater fishing. Overfishing rapidly depletes the resources in freshwaters than in saltwater. In this regard, expansion of freshwater fishing is limited by the availability of, and access to, wild resources. But this is not the case in saltwater fishing where the vast nature of the ocean waters means over-fishing appears to be a less worrying problem. Added to this dilemma is the reality that rudimentary netting techniques in freshwaters leads to by-catch of non-target species, including other native fish and mammals, some of which may be vulnerable to local extinction.

Accurate recording of catch and equipment is not always undertaken by commercial fishers in freshwaters. This, combined with changes to data-recording systems and turnover of staff of the regulator, reduces the accuracy and value of the industry monitoring. One of the most obvious consequences of the above for freshwater fishers would be the implementation of control procedures for temporary fishing bans, catch limits, size limits. Such would be the case too when authorities want to stem over-fishing.

This therefore partly explains why freshwater fishing is difficult than saltwater fishing.Apart from the above, most freshwater fishing activities use net and line methods rather than trawls and are therefore lighter in construction than their seagoing counterparts. The smaller nature of these freshwaters dictate that the nets and lines used would be generally small such