Fishery | fisheries - meaning and illustration

Fishery/fisheries can mean either the enterprise of raising or harvesting fish and other aquatic life;[1] or more commonly, the site where such enterprise takes place (a.k.a. fishing ground). Commercial fisheries include wild fisheries and fish farms, both in freshwater bodies (about 10% of all catch) and the oceans (about 90%). About 500 million people worldwide are economically dependent on fisheries.

According to the FAO,

"a fishery is an activity leading to harvesting of fish. It may involve capture of wild fish or raising of fish through aquaculture." It is typically defined in terms of the "people involved, species or type of fish, area of water or seabed, method of fishing, class of boats, purpose of the activities or a combination of the foregoing features".

This definition often includes a combination of mammal and fish fishers in a region, the latter fishing for similar species with similar gear types (Wikipedia). Some government and private organizations, especially those focusing on recreational fishing include in their definitions not only the fishers, but the fish and habitats upon which the fish depend.

Classification of fishery

Fishery, from its definition given above, can be subdivided into other subsectors including aquaculture (which is the culture of aquatic organisms), fishing (i.e. harvest of aquatic living resource from their natural habitat), fishery management (human control over fishery stocks for sustainable exploitation), fish processing, and fish marketing. All these subsectors of fisheries are also subdivided into their various branches. In this article, we are going to have an overview of the above mentioned subsectors of fishery. For more information about a subsector, kindly follow its link to access its full article, or search the particular subsector in the search box above. Here are major fishery sectors in order of existence:

1. Fishing (captured fishery)

Fishing is the harvest of living aquatic resource from their natural habitat. First and foremost, we need to have in mind that the term fishery is so polysemic and has more than 5 meanings. It may mean the industry, the stock exploited, the aquatic environment, the academic certificate, and so on and so forth. Moreover, 'fishing' is sometimes used interchangeably with 'fishery' to mean the harvest of fish. However, this article considers fishery in the context of an activity relating to the culture, management, harvest, processing or marketing of aquatic animals – thereby making fishing to be classified under fishery.

Fishing is the oldest of all fishery subsectors, with authors holding that it the activity dates back to around 30,000 BC, when a group of Neanderthals was caught trying to fish in a river in Germany. Over time, fishing evolved from a pure subsistence activity to a commercial and leisure activity.

2. Aquaculture (culture fishery)

Aquaculture is simply the culture of aquatic organisms. This is the second oldest subsector of fishery, likely to have originated before the 1950s. Aquaculture on its part subdivided into pisciculture, algoculture, shrimp farming or astaciculture, etc.

3. Fishery management

The subsector of fishery management includes all human action geared towards managing fishery stocks for sustainable exploitation. Fishery management happens to be a more recent concept, with the word ‘fishery management’, which probably originated around late 19^th century. As time went by, this subsector developed and gave birth to many other subcategories. Today, international organisations have been established to handle fisheries management issues notably Regional fisheries management organisations (RFMOs). Examples of which are: International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT), North-East Atlantic Fisheries Commission (NEAFC), Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization (NAFO), etc.

4. Fishery processing / fish processing

The subsector of fish processing deals with the chemical or mechanical transformation of fish to obtain derived and by-products, for sale or better storage. The fish processing industry equally developed far back after the development of fishing. In ancient times, the fish processing industry was yet traditional as fishers used artisanal methods to conserve their surplus fish arising from fishing. Such artisanal or traditional fish processing methods include smoking, drying, salting, and just to name a few. Today, with the advent of modern industrial techniques, the fish processing industries is fast developing and fish can be processed into a variety of valuable products, and by-products such as fish meal, fish oil, etc.