The price of fish in the 1800s has helped to reveal the long-term effects of bottom trawling, a fishing practice in which nets are dragged across the seabed.

Ruth Thurstan, now at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia, and her colleagues examined the testimonies of hundreds of fishermen in the northeast of England about changes to fish stocks and practices during the nineteenth century.

Statements about catch rate, price and fish size, which were given during two Royal Commissions of Enquiry (in 1863–66 and in 1883–85), revealed a perception by fishermen that numbers of white fish, such as cod, had fallen by 64% during their careers. Many fishermen blamed the declines on trawling. These largely forgotten records suggest that trawling began to affect fish stocks long before scientific monitoring and official statistics began.

Fish Fish. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/faf.12034 (2013)