Commercial fishing

        Commercial fishing is a worldwide enterprise that involves the capture of marine and freshwater fish and shellfish and their preparation for market. Fishing equipment ranges from small boats whose nets are cast and hauled in by hand to factory ships equipped with the most advanced technologies for finding, harvesting, and preparing huge amounts of fish. These large catches are very costly, however, not only in the price of their equipment and fuel, but also in …

…to closing commercial fishing in the Georges Bank for a number of years.         Fishing in international waters has also proved difficult to control. While it is believed, for example, that most nations have obeyed the UN moratorium on drift-net fishing, monitoring compliance remains an unsolved problem. The US Navy's Sound Surveillance System, a 48,000-km network of undersea cable, is capable of tracking drift-net operations, but budget considerations may eventually force the sound surveillance system shutdown.