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When the population collapses, the species will go extinct.

eloff 6y ago
Depends. Both outcomes are possible.
tartuffe78 6y ago
I mean the population would presumably dip low enough to where fishing becomes too difficult to be profitable before total extinction.
- dragontamer 6y ago
  I'm sure hunters of the Passenger pigeon thought the same too. Many fish and bird species have shear reprodutive ability as their only defense. In the case of Passenger Pigeons, they had very little defenses against predators, but migrated in huge flocks of hundreds of thousands at a time. No predator could really harm the flock as a whole. Well, until Humans became too good at hunting anyway. (Also, USA used to be covered in forests. But we cut those trees down to make room for our cities) As described in 1813 (From Wikipedia): > The air was literally filled with (passenger) Pigeons; the light of noon-day was obscured as by an eclipse; the dung fell in spots, not unlike melting flakes of snow, and the continued buzz of wings had a tendency to lull my senses to repose.
  - jeffbee 6y ago
    I recently read this book which suggests that the abundance of passenger pigeons in America was itself a result of human interference with the ecosystem. The general point of the book is that current people have no idea what a natural landscape looked like, and the places we think of as natural or pristine were themselves already severely degraded by prehistoric people. https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Once_and_Future_World.html?id=DzYoDYRqjGUC&source=kp_book_description https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Once_and_Future_Wor...
    - dragontamer 6y ago
      Well, I never liked naturalism as an argument anyway. But with that being said: I like Talapia. I like Salmon. I like various fish. They're all quite tasty, and I'd like to keep eating them throughout my life (and possibly let my children have a chance at it too). For people who liked one food: the passenger pigeon, that opportunity is now gone, because the species has gone entirely extinct. And overhunting of that species is cited as a potential cause for extinction. --------- It has nothing to do with naturalism or the state of things. Just from a purely selfish point of view: if you like a certain food source, you have to take care of it, lest it goes extinct and disappears forever.
grugagag 6y ago
Even worse, another unpredictable aspect can occur within the whole ecosystem, either another dependent species dies as well or something goes out of whack. It's sad to see so many species disappear in such a short timespan.
ashtonkem 6y ago
Usually commercial exploitation becomes unviable before actual extinction occurs, although some species have been hunted to death for sport. You’d typically see this being a bigger problem for highly valued species like tuna where consumers are willing to pay premium prices for the remaining creatures, rather than more commodity species. The bigger risk extinction wise isn’t that we’ll fish a species to death, it’s that we’ll leave it in such a rough state that any number of random events might finish the species off.

Depends. Both outcomes are possible.

I mean the population would presumably dip low enough to where fishing becomes too difficult to be profitable before total extinction.

dragontamer 6y ago
I'm sure hunters of the Passenger pigeon thought the same too. Many fish and bird species have shear reprodutive ability as their only defense. In the case of Passenger Pigeons, they had very little defenses against predators, but migrated in huge flocks of hundreds of thousands at a time. No predator could really harm the flock as a whole. Well, until Humans became too good at hunting anyway. (Also, USA used to be covered in forests. But we cut those trees down to make room for our cities) As described in 1813 (From Wikipedia): > The air was literally filled with (passenger) Pigeons; the light of noon-day was obscured as by an eclipse; the dung fell in spots, not unlike melting flakes of snow, and the continued buzz of wings had a tendency to lull my senses to repose.
- jeffbee 6y ago
  I recently read this book which suggests that the abundance of passenger pigeons in America was itself a result of human interference with the ecosystem. The general point of the book is that current people have no idea what a natural landscape looked like, and the places we think of as natural or pristine were themselves already severely degraded by prehistoric people. https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Once_and_Future_World.html?id=DzYoDYRqjGUC&source=kp_book_description https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Once_and_Future_Wor...
  - dragontamer 6y ago
    Well, I never liked naturalism as an argument anyway. But with that being said: I like Talapia. I like Salmon. I like various fish. They're all quite tasty, and I'd like to keep eating them throughout my life (and possibly let my children have a chance at it too). For people who liked one food: the passenger pigeon, that opportunity is now gone, because the species has gone entirely extinct. And overhunting of that species is cited as a potential cause for extinction. --------- It has nothing to do with naturalism or the state of things. Just from a purely selfish point of view: if you like a certain food source, you have to take care of it, lest it goes extinct and disappears forever.

grugagag 6y ago

Even worse, another unpredictable aspect can occur within the whole ecosystem, either another dependent species dies as well or something goes out of whack. It's sad to see so many species disappear in such a short timespan.

ashtonkem 6y ago

Usually commercial exploitation becomes unviable before actual extinction occurs, although some species have been hunted to death for sport. You’d typically see this being a bigger problem for highly valued species like tuna where consumers are willing to pay premium prices for the remaining creatures, rather than more commodity species. The bigger risk extinction wise isn’t that we’ll fish a species to death, it’s that we’ll leave it in such a rough state that any number of random events might finish the species off.