Over the limit

The other day as I was flipping through the channels on my T.V, I came to a stop on animal planet and watched an episode about recent grizzly bear attacks in Alaska.  Recently more and more people have been bothered by these giant creatures searching for food.  As most of us know, bears typically stay close to rivers or streams catching fish as their primary food source. However, as the show stated, the reason for the bears movement from these rivers and streams is due a recent decrease in the amount of fish available.

In the beginning of this class, I really just believed a lot of the things we were learning about the oil crisis and humans over using their resources was really just an exaggeration to help us become aware of the situation.  However, now the more and more I read the news, or see things on T.V, I realize that a lot of the things we learn really are not exaggerations at all. Everything we have been learning and discussing in class is really beginning to tie together.   

The other day in class we watched a video called Affluenza.  This video discussed our over fishing of our water sources.  It discussed how over the past few decades the decreasing abundance of plankton (the primary fish food), our use of electronic fish finders, and fishing techniques such as bottom trawling have greatly decreased the fish populations.  The fish cannot reproduce fast enough to keep up with our demanding protein diets and our means of fishing destroy the fishes environments.  In the end, even if the fish were reproducing fast enough, they would have no where to grow into adult fish.  Now more than ever the rapidly depleting fish population is not only effecting the fishermen and consumers but people all over the world.  

When animals, wether it be bears or any creature can't find enough food in their primary locations, they will either adapt and move to find new food sources, or they will stay where they are and possible die off.  If bears are moving further from the streams and closer to people in order to get the food they need then who knows what will come next. 

Fish are not the only resource being overused and taken for granted but one of many.  Wether its oil, corn, or fish, several of our common resources we think nothing of having are all quickly decreasing. People need to really start to take a step back and realize that all their actions no matter how small it may seem effect not only them but the entire world.  How far over our limit will we really have to be in order for people to make a change? Soon we are going to have to really decide if something that we want is really something that we need but most likely by the time people do this it will be late.