The rapid depletion of fish populations across the oceans and seas, as a result of increasing human demand worldwide, is somewhat old news. Still, I’m surprised by the United States’ contribution to this seafood feeding-frenzy:

Global consumption of fish, both wild and farm raised, has doubled since 1973, and 90 percent of this increase has come in developing countries. (You’ll sometimes hear that Americans are now eating more seafood, but that reflects population growth; per capita consumption has remained stable here for 20 years.)

The result of this demand for wild fish, according to the United Nations’ Food and Agricultural Organization, is that “the maximum wild-capture fisheries potential from the world’s oceans has probably been reached.”

One study, in 2006, concluded that if current fishing practices continue, the world’s major commercial stocks will collapse by 2048.

I don’t doubt that per capita figure. Anecdotally, it seems like Americans don’t eat much fish, as compared to the tonnage of beef, chicken, and pork they down. I always figured that if people in this country were to really start gorging on the fish entrees, to the same degree that they scarf up other meats, aquatic extinction would be near-complete within a couple of years.