[INFORMATIVE] Direct Harvesting and its Effects on Ecosystems

Direct Harvesting and its Effects on Ecosystems

By Yohalma Inoa

What is Direct Harvesting?
Direct harvesting is the process of taking a species out of its habitat. Humans use direct harvesting as a way to produce resources we need. In the United States, direct harvesting is very common with species like salmon or Papua New Guinea fish. Although direct harvesting can benefit the amount of resources for our needs, it is harmful to the environment because it can disrupt ecosystems, decrease biodiversity, or cause a species to go extinct.

The Pros of Direct Harvesting
Direct harvesting can negatively affect the environment by disrupting ecosystems. If you were to remove a fish from its natural habitat, it would decrease the amount of food available for its predators while increasing the amount of prey, therefore causing an imbalance. This can also affect humans by “deranging our oceans and the ones living in it” (Gale 2). Direct harvesting has an indirect effect on the limits we see today on wildlife.

Another illegal example of direct harvesting is hunting for animals on prohibited land. Hunting is something commonly seen in states among the Appalachian Mountains (New York, Maine, Vermont, etc.). Most people hunt deer, ducks, antelopes, or animals found in the woods like the ones listed previously. The problem with this is that unless you are hunting in a designated area (or have permission), it is illegal. In addition to this, there is the risk that the deer you caught today might be the last of its kind.

Direct harvesting has a negative impact on ecosystems because it decreases biodiversity. If you remove multiple salmon from their natural habitat to breed them, you “run the risk of affecting the entire species,” since certain animals have different niches. Direct harvesting through fishing is the most common type and the one we see that impacts us the most negatively.

The Salmon Fish Model
The most well-known example is direct harvesting to clone salmon fish. The process starts by removing the salmon from its habitat—one with desirable traits is picked out, which enables cloning to be successful (selective breeding). Then, it is placed into an aquatic cage, where it is cloned. This has multiple impacts on humans and the fish's environment. When salmon escape the farm (which is something seen very often), it will cause a decrease in the biodiversity of its habitat since the one escaping is cloned. It can negatively impact us in the way that if one of the salmon has a parasite, then all the cloned ones can also have it (since they have the same traits). This could cause the salmon we eat to be contaminated or even contain microplastics, depending on the parasite.

The Cons of Direct Harvesting
Direct harvesting also has its positive points. When only removing one animal from its habitat, we have the ability to clone it, which prevents us from hurting any other animals within the same species. Since our population is exponentially growing in such short periods of time, our resources are very rapidly becoming finite, which is why it is up to us how we manage them.

We can direct harvest for very useful things. Some of the most abundant direct harvesting examples are salmon, cows (for milk), or goats (for cheese or milk). Some of our methods are very efficient, like cow farming methods. When cows are taken in for milk production, they are usually well-fed and maintained healthy. That way, they can produce good milk for the nation. The rest of the cows on the farm are normally selectively bred or just generations from the cows that have already been there. Sometimes humans create their own direct harvesting farms for things such as beans, eggs, meat, or fur.

How Can We Replace Direct Harvesting?
There are alternatives to direct harvesting. We can always take samples from animals in order to genetically modify them to what we want the result to be, instead of messing with a natural habitat. This process can be produced from gene splicing, which is taking a segment of a gene we want and joining it with a bacterial plasmid in order to produce our product quickly (since bacteria divide at such a fast rate). This would obviously involve specific conditions like a certain pH, a specific room temperature, and a diet that the bacteria would have to follow.

Another alternative would be to use vegetarian products. This would be a much less effective alternative, since it would mean we would have to come up with different variants to what we currently use—dairy. Direct harvesting is usually for products involving animal species, although it can apply to plants. Making a wide variety of products into a vegetarian diet would be far above the budget and does not apply to everyone.

What is to Come for Direct Harvesting?
Since our current methods of production and cultivation are effective, direct harvesting is something that will be on our radar for years to come. It might only be replaced with the advancement of AI and as our scientific knowledge grows.

Like various methods we use or scientific knowledge we have, direct harvesting has its good and bad points. Direct harvesting is the type of procedure that when done on a small scale isn’t necessarily harmful, or if the products that come out of it are more abundant than those put into it.

Whether we think of it or not, direct harvesting surrounds our lives. The United States population sustains themselves through harvesting methods, while other nations indirectly do the same, with some doing this in more eco-friendly ways than others. Maybe in the future, we will find something more successful than our current slightly selfish approaches to a better human race.


Sources
“Focusing on Smarter, Sustainable Fertilizing Strategies.” No, No-Till Farmer, 18 May 2020, www.no-tillfarmer.com/articles/9434-focusing-on-smarter-sustainable-fertilizing-strategies.

Drew, Joshua A., et al. "Quantifying the Human Impacts on Papua New Guinea Reef Fish Communities across Space and Time." PLoS ONE, vol. 10, no. 10, 14 Oct. 2015. Gale In Context: Opposing Viewpoints, dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0140682. Accessed 25 Sept. 2024.