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Published online 25 September 2003 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news030922-12

News

North Sea fish have shrunk

There are lots more small fish in the sea thanks to fishing.

Fish in the North Sea have got smaller and overfishing is probably to blame, researchers will announce at the North Atlantic's most important fisheries meeting this week.

"Fish smaller than about 30 centimetres have actually increased in abundance," says ecologist Niels Daan of the Netherlands Institute for Fisheries Research in Ijmuiden.

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