Fishing with Light: Ecological Consequences for Coastal Habitats

Abstract

The use of artificial lights (metal halide lamp, incandescent lamp) for attracting fish and increasing catch is a common practice in the world fisheries and has been regarded as one of the most advanced, efficient and successful methods for capturing purpose as a result of our depleting fish stock resources, coral reef degradation, increased fishing input to low catch output and operational cost. This fishing aggregating method has been found to be environmental-unfriendly due to catching of immature stocks, overfishing, high rate of bycatch and discard and green gas emission. Therefore, there is an urgent need to develop an eco-friendly light fishing technology and fishing regulation in the near future. The purpose of this paper is to review some of the literatures on light fishing in relation to the impact on sustainable fisheries and proffered solutions to the problems.