The Story of a Question

Someone asked the other day, "What would happen to sea animals if we didn't fish the oceans?"
Their question was in a tone of support for fishing.
As if to suggest, we are doing sea animals a favor.
As if to suggest, there are too many fish in the sea.

The question went unanswered and was overshadowed by a more aggressive conversation at the table about the slaughter methods of cattle.
How one person came up with a method to do this in a way that the animal is comforted and not scared. Ok, I can kind of appreciate this- but that's not what is happening on the large majority of farms.

But back to the question about sea life.
I wanted to say:
The oceans would have a chance to once again flourish.
Sea animals could attempt to rebuild what we have broken.
Dolphins, and whales, and sharks, and everything that dies as a result of our desire to catch and eat fish, would live and reproduce and hopefully stop being at risk of extinction.

The ocean would have a chance to be as it was before humans began invading it.
Back when it was doing fine on it's own.
We are not doing it a favor by taking away it's life forms.
The ocean is vast, but it is no longer plentiful.

The same thing with rivers.
When white settlers came to the Pacific Northwest and saw the salmon in the rivers, they killed as many as they could, as quickly as they could.
The Native Americans had always practiced only taking what they needed.
They knew the salmon would always be there, so they did not practice greed.

Even if we stopped fishing though, the ocean and rivers would face problems. We pollute their homes with plastic, chemicals, animal excrement. Farming runoff has raised the oceans temperature to a heat that many species of sea life cannot survive in.

What would happen if we left the oceans and rivers alone, stopped killing sea animals and using it as a dumping ground for our waste?

Well, I would love to see that.