Though whales are mammals not fish, 19th-century whaling was the largest single fishery industry - collapsing populations from which most species have never recovered.
Era: ModernRegion: North Atlantic, North Pacific
📖 Overview
Commercial whaling in the 1800s hunted whales as fisheries hunted fish - and collapsed populations to a degree never previously seen. Sperm whale hunting for whale oil fueled the Nantucket and New Bedford economies. The 20th-century industrial whaling era killed nearly 3 million whales. Right whales, blue whales, and bowheads are only now beginning to recover after the 1986 international moratorium. Modern Japanese, Norwegian, and Icelandic whaling continues at reduced levels.