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Secrets of the Sea

By Fag of Arabia

Edited by 050 in Japan

(put the date here)

Table of Contents

* Introduction

* Close to extinction

* Causes of extinction

* Conclusion

* References

Introduction

The ocean takes up almost 75% of the earth's surface. It is vast, and since the dawn of time man has used the ocean for many means such as transport, food, wealth, a source of energy. But have we gone too far? Have we selfishly used the ocean and its belongings to our advantage without giving thought on the consequences?

The word 'ocean' comes from the Greek word 'Okeanos' and is a body of saline water and a principle component of hydrosphere that supports a huge multi-ecosystem. Taking up roughly 361 million square kilometres of the earths surface (75% roughly) the ocean is divided into several oceans and seas. The oceans carry many secrets that have yet to be discovered, and depths yet un-reached.

Close to Extinction

The problem faced today is the increasing number of marine life that are finding their way onto the endangered species list. It started out with the Blue Whale a couple of years ago, and through aggressive intervention by environment conscious unions it has been controlled. At one point the Dolphins close to the oceans surrounding Japan found their way on to the endangered species list as well.

Since 1986 commercial whaling has been a problem. It is thought that there are less than 5,000 blue whales today. The whaling industry has been under pressure to cease hunting whales in the Antarctic. In 1930-1931 some 30,000 whales were slaughtered. It will take almost 100 years of protection before they are removed from the extinct species list.

The Baiji fresh water dolphin in China is considered the most endangered cetacean. The population dropped from 300 (1985) to 21-23 (1999).

A well-studied case about the collapse of fishery is the Pacific sardine fishery of the coast of California. From 790,000 tonnes in 1937 to 24,000 tonnes in 1968, at which point the fishery itself found it economically unable to continue because of such low margins. Clearly, there is a relative effect of the fishery industry as well if destructive fishing activities continue.

Causes of Extinction

This is greatly due to the 'over fishing' activities that began sometime in the 70's. Pressure to move into deep sea territories caused negative effects because of the difference in reproduction. As opposed to the allocated fishing areas, deep ecosystem species take a longer time to reproduce, sometimes not even until their late teens. Meaning that aggressive fishing in deep waters would clearly put those species on the endangered list.

For example,