'Profound' decline in fish stocks shown in UK records
Found on BBC News on Monday, 03 May 2010
Four times more fish were being landed in UK ports 100 years ago than today, and catches peaked in 1938.
But despite the growing power and range, the amount of fish caught for each unit of effort has gone drastically down, with 17 times more effort required now to catch the same amopunt of fish as compared with the late 1800s.
That's not much of a surprise. When you sent out thousands of trawlers which can sail during even the worst weather and harvest tons of fish each time, it's pretty obvious that sooner or later the sea gets emptied.