Nothing, however, compares with the fate of cod. In the late fifteenth century, the explorer John Cabot found cod in incredible numbers on the eastern banks of North America—shallow areas of water popular with bottom-feeding fish like cod. Some of these banks were vast. Georges Banks off Massachusetts is bigger than the state it abuts. The Grand Banks off Newfoundland is bigger still and for centuries was always dense with cod. They were thought to be inexhaustible. Of course they were anything but.
然而，命运最惨的要算是鳕鱼。15世纪末，探险家约翰·卡伯特发现北美东部沙洲的鳕鱼多得简直难以置信。沙洲是浅水区域，是鳕鱼那样的在水底进食的鱼类爱去的地方。有的沙洲范围很大。马萨诸塞州近海的乔治斯沙洲的面积超过了它毗邻的那个州，纽芬兰近海的大沙洲还要大，在多少世纪里一直密密麻麻的都是鲤鱼，它们被认为是捞之不尽的鱼类。情况当然并非如此。

By 1960, the number of spawning cod in the north Atlantic had fallen to an estimated 1.6 million metric tons. By 1990 this had sunk to 22,000 metric tons. In commercial terms, the cod were extinct. "Fishermen," wrote Mark Kurlansky in his fascinating history, Cod, "had caught them all." The cod may have lost the western Atlantic forever. In 1992, cod fishing was stopped altogether on the Grand Banks, but as of last autumn, according to a report in Nature, stocks had not staged a comeback. Kurlansky notes that the fish of fish fillets and fish sticks was originally cod, but then was replaced by haddock, then by redfish, and lately by Pacific pollock. These days, he notes drily, "fish" is "whatever is left."
据估计，到1960年，在北大西洋产卵的鳕鱼数量减少到了160万吨。到1990年，这个数量又降至22000吨。从商业的角度来看，鳕鱼已经灭绝。“渔民们，”马克·库尔兰斯基在他精彩的历史书《鳕鱼》中写道，”已经把鳕鱼捞个精光。“西大西洋可能再也看不见鳕鱼。1992年，大沙洲完全禁止捕鳕，但据《自然》杂志的一篇文章报道，直到2002年，贮量仍然没有回升的迹象。库尔兰斯基指出，餐桌上的鱼肉和鱼条原来指的是鲤鱼，后来以黑线鳕取而代之，后来又以红大马哈鱼取而代之，近来又以太平撑的绿鳕取而代之。如今，他干巴巴地说“鱼”就是“剩什么鱼就是什么鱼”。
Much the same can be said of many other seafoods. In the New England fisheries off Rhode Island, it was once routine to haul in lobsters weighing twenty pounds. Sometimes they reached thirty pounds. Left unmolested, lobsters can live for decades—as much as seventy years, it is thought—and they never stop growing. Nowadays few lobsters weigh more than two pounds on capture.
许多别的海鲜的情况也差不多。在罗德岛附近的新英格兰渔场，过去经常捕得着重达9千克的大龙虾。有时候，它们的重量越过了13千克。要是不被干扰，大龙虾能活几十年——据认为，能活长达70年。它们不停地长大。如今，能捞到的1千克以上的大龙虾也已为数极少。