Fishermen

Long ago' before the history of mankind men learned how to catch fish. A man traded fish to his neighbors in return for other kinds of food. Eventually the fisherman and his progeny learned to make a good living by fishing and selling the fish. As time went on the fishermen learned to use ships with nets to catch loads of fish. When large fish became scarce, the fishermen netted and sold small fish like sardines. The sea was full of sardines. The fishermen sold the sardines to be used by the farmers as fertilizer. A small portion of the catch went to feed cats, and people ate cans of sardines. The fishermen caught so many sardines that the large fish had nothing to eat and they died of hunger. The sardines became scarce. Fishing for sardines was not profitable, and the fish canneries closed.

Men learned to use nets that were miles long. The men caught fish that swam in deep or shallow water, and the men used nets to scrape every living thing from the bottom. Men learned to use kelp for fertilizer and medicine. The fish who depended on kelp for food and shelter died when the men used up the kelp beds. Because of using nets there were hardly any fish left in the seas and the fishermen went broke. People stopped eating fish because the few that were caught were expensive to buy.

A few sardines and larger fish had survived the centuries of slaughter, and some of the plant life was still alive. After men stopped commercial fishing, the seas gradually regained a fish population and other sea life. It took hundreds of years.