For thousands of years humans have looked to the sea for a source of food and resources. For the majority of this time we have been happily fitting into the food chain and coexisting with nature taking only what we needed so we could be sure that there was some food to catch in the future.
In the modern era, aided by new technologies it has become easier and easier for us to harvest the oceans on a global and catastrophic level. No longer are people looking at the sea on their door step taking what there was there, whilst looking for a future. People are now in a position to buy what is being caught on the other side of the world. Supermarkets are meeting the demand of the public by supplying us with more specialised sea food s from around the world that fishermen are going out only fishing for the most valuable food items, meaning all other by catch is thrown back more often than not dead. This by kill can account for far more weight than the food source the fishermen were out for.
Peoples desire for specific fish has driven the fishing industry to the preposterous position they are in today where they are catching fish now that were previously considered too small to keep, and even keeping fish that are too small to have bred. this means the nets have to be small enough to catch these small fish, so the larger ones are caught as well, and if we are catching ones too small to breed then we could be eating the last generation of that species.
