Bad news, and good news, in our emptying oceans

[Staff]

Bad news, and good news, in our emptying oceans
Global study finds dramatic drops in marine life over the centuries, but it also finds hope that some depleted populations can recover
Anne McIlroy
From Monday's Globe and Mail, Monday, May. 25, 2009 10:01AM EDT

Bad news, and good news, in our emptying oceans - The Globe and Mail
excerpt from above:

An international team of researchers has combed through old ships' logs, tax accounts, ancient texts and other records to reconstruct the vast number of whales, fish and other sea creatures that once swam in the earth's oceans.

Their work, to be presented at a conference in Vancouver this week, offers an unprecedented global overview of the once astonishing abundance of fish and marine mammals, 10 times more than can be found beneath the waves today.

A text written in Sicily in 1153 describes the seas of the North Atlantic as having “animals of such great size that the inhabitants of the islands use their bones and vertebrae in place of wood to build houses. They make hammers, arrows, spears, knives, seats, steps and in general every sort of thing elsewhere made of wood.”