I had no idea what we'd lost -- about 90%. North America had more large animals than Africa. Sailing ships in the middle of the Atlantic would grind to a halt from the density of fish. Whales as far as the eye could see all day. Beautifully written.
> and around 1600 English fishing captains still reported cod shoals "so thick by the shore that we hardly have been able to row a boat through them."
The passage about the fish comes 45 seconds in to the first video in a NY Times quote from it, then the quote in context from the book at 5:15, though I recommend watching both videos and reading the book whole.
The title is actually "The Once and Future World". I find it fascinating that the two similar titles create very different expectations in my mind. Maybe it's just my own cognitive associations, but 'world' makes me think of wider implications (eg social, political, environmental) while 'earth' seems more scientific (eg natural processes). Someone might say "look at the world around you" but not "look at the earth around you." In French, 'tout le monde' translates literally to "all the world" but is used to mean 'everybody' -- and specifically, humans.
This seems absurd. How could fish survive in such conditions?