Too few fish in the sea Fishing by net in Grenada, in the West Indies, does not net as much fish as it once did. The signs of shortage have been gathering for almost a century. After years of steady growth, total global catch leveled off at about 100 million metric tons in the late 1980s.
Commercial fishing is banned or heavily restricted on some of the world's richest fishing grounds.
In 1992, Canada closed the Grand Banks, idling about 35,000 fishing people. And fishing has been heavily restricted on Georges Bank, the erstwhile cod-fishing Mecca that helped name Cape Cod and lure settlers to the Northeast. After four hours of pulling, only a skimpy catch remained in the net. Still, the global fishing fleet continues to exploit desirable species and move on to others as those fish are depleted. As a result, local fishing people who depend on the sea's protein for survival are getting less to eat, and the price of choice fish has soared.