By Megan treacy, Source: Treehugger

When we think of poaching, we tend to focus on land animals being illegally hunted toward extinction, but a similar event is happening to fish in the sea. According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, nearly one-third of global marine fish stocks have been overfished and over 90 percent of the world’s fisheries are either fully exploited or over-fished.

Overfishing not only has a huge effect on marine ecosystems but hundreds of millions people around world depend on healthy fish stocks for their livelihoods and for food. So far, it’s been easy for fishing vessels to carry out illegal fishing activities like catching more than is regulated, fishing during off-seasons, fishing in protected waters or with illegal methods because it’s hard to monitor ships that are far out in the ocean, out of sight.

Read more at: Treehugger