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Overfishing: An Overview
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Humans have been fishing the ocean since they first made contact with it. And, since the early 1800’s when they decimated the worldwide whale population in search of lamp oil, they’ve been overfishing it too. However, the worldwide decimation of the seas population began to fully hit its stride in the mid-20th century when the international community decided that in order to increase world wide health, there needed to be a larger source of protein rich foods12. Fishing capacities almost doubled, and loans and subsidies became much more common. This lead to the rise of massive fishing conglomerates, and in much of the developed world the local fisherman was replaced by industry.
Theses commercial fleets were extremely aggressive and continually developed faster and more efficient ways to harvest more fish, without regard for the health of the ecosystem they were fishing in. Consumers quickly got used to having a large variety of fish with prices at a fraction of their previous cost, and were either oblivious or apathetic to the massive degradation of the marine habitat12.