Research carried out by marine ecologists at Dalhousie University, Canada, has revealed that the numbers of large ocean fish are now at just 10% of their 1950s levels - before the introduction of industrial fishing techniques.

Anyone who has dived for more than 10 years will tell you that there are less fish around than there used to be, and they're absolutely right. In the most thorough survey of fishstocks ever undertaken, researchers Ransom Myers and Boris Worm studied 50 years of data worldwide, gathered from governments and the fishing industries. The results indicate that since the introduction of increasingly efficient fishing techniques, stocks of large fish have taken a dramatic nosedive.
In recent years it has taken only 15 years to reduce fish stocks by 80% once a particular species has been targetted. Of particular concern was the impact of longline fishing, which the study shows is able to wipe out 90% of a fish species in just 10 years.
Myers and Worm's research paper Rapid worldwide depletion of predatory fish communities is reported in this month's Nature journal.

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