[gnat]

Daniel Pauly is amazing. We hosted him for a conference here in NZ a few years ago. Such a mind!

What is your connection to shifting baselines and fishing policy? My father (former commercial fisherman) is part of a recreational fishing group arguing that the goal of fish policy should be abundance not short-term profit. http://legasea.co.nz

[CalRobert]

I don't have a strong connection to it, I just know that it's an apt illustration and we have photos for it - I doubt fishers today would turn away giant groupers. It's also discussed in a book I just read, Whittled Away, about Ireland's horrendous wildlife and fishery management (while pretty, virtually the whole island has been stripped of its wildlife to turn it in to livestock grazing). In short, there used to be a hell of a lot more fish, of different species, and the stocks we want to return to are levels from an already diminished time. Though it's got a lot to do with the EU's common fisheries policy, which was similarly awful, but has been improved somewhat since, with at least a ban on deep sea trawling.