The Arapaima is a more than four hundred pound fish in the
Amazon River and is completely extinct in 8 basins in the river. The reason for
this is over fishing because they need to come to the surface to breathe every
5-15 minutes which makes it easy for fisherman to catch them. The pink Amazon
River dolphin is another animal becoming extinct and has become a reoccurring
event in the Amazon River. A solution would be to inform fisherman that this
huge fish is becoming extinct and to let it free if they happen to catch it.
One way to do this could be to post signs along the river and monitor fishing
areas along it. Another way would be to make it illegal to catch the Arapaima
and other nearly extinct fish in the river and charge a fine to whoever is
caught killing it. A barrier to this problem is that it would be incredibly
hard to monitor the whole Amazon River and most people would try to get away
with it. Making it illegal to catch it would also make the fish very rare and
more valuable. I believe that things like this should at least be attempted
though because we do not need more animal becoming extinct.
I agree with you that laws against catching the Arapaima fish should be put in place until the species is able to grow to larger numbers. If people continue to fish for them, it will be not only a problem for the Arapaima fish, but also for other animals that live in the ecosystem. If we overfish this species, it could throw off the whole balance of nature in the Amazon, and it could also negatively affect other species’ populations.
ReplyDeleteThis is a huge problem in the amazon for sure! The problem with any solution is that the people who fish for these animals are extremely poor, so they will do anything to feed their family. The governments of these countries would rather side with their people then an environmentalist, so an entire system would have to be put in place for this plan to work.
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