ive fish and aquatic resources (USFWS "Vision," 2002, p. 7).
But the biggest problem faced by both the world's and the United States's fish stock resources is overfishing. In its Preliminary Report of the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy, the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy ("the Commission") reported that 25 percent of the United States' major fish stocks are either already overfished or in the process of being overfished (Commission "Preliminary Report," 2004, p. 13). In addition, the Commission could not determine the status of 650 other fish stocks, which were not subject to commercial fishing. Thus, the Commission noted that agencies sanctioned with the power to determine fisheries regimes in the United States, in particular, currently have a limited understanding of the overall state of the nation's fisheries and these fisheries' roles in the marine ecosystem (Commission "Preliminary Report," 2004, p. 13).
The Commission also concluded that bycatch, habitat loss, pollution, climate change, and uneven management are also resulting in declining fish populations in the United States. In many cases, the full effect of these events and activities cannot be determined or projected. For example, the Commission notes the event of what it calls "fishing down the food web," whereby fishermen who relied on overfished species turn to smaller, less valuable, and once discarded species. The fishing of these species will necessarily impact the size, age structure, genetic makeup, and reproductive status of fish populations, although in ways that have not yet been observed or studied. In other cases, the effects of these events and activities can be documented, such as in the economic impact of the loss of fish stocks. For example, the Commission points to the substantial social and economic costs of the collapse of the North Atlantic cod fishery in the early 1990s, which resulted in the loss of an estimated 20,000 jobs and $349 ...