were between them taking twice as many fish from the sea as they had just twenty-five years earlier. 它们每年从海里的捕鱼量是25年前的两倍。

Trawlers are sometimes now as big as cruise ships and haul behind them nets big enough to hold a dozen jumbo jets. 现在的拖网渔船有时候大得很像巡洋舰，后面拖的网大得能装下十几架大型客机。

Some even use spotter planes to locate shoals of fish from the air. 有的甚至使用侦察机从空中寻找鱼群。

It is estimated that about a quarter of every fishing net hauled up contains "by-catch", 据估计，每拖上来一网，大约有四分之一是“无意捕获物”，

fish that can't be landed because they are too small or of the wrong type or caught in the wrong season. 即因为太小而抓不住的鱼，或不该捞的鱼，或不该在那个季节捕的鱼。

As one observer told the Economist: "We're still in the Dark Ages. We just drop a net down and see what comes up." 正如一位观察员对《经济学家》杂志说的：“我们仍处于愚昧黑暗时代。我们只是把网一撤，看看能捞上来什么。”

Perhaps as much as twenty-two million metric tons of such unwanted fish are dumped back in the sea each year, mostly in the form of corpses. 每年大约有多达2200万吨这类不要的鱼倒回海里，大多数是以尸体的形式。

For every pound of shrimp harvested, about four pounds of fish and other marine creatures are destroyed. 每收获1千克虾，就有大约4千克鱼和别的海洋动物遭受灭顶之灾。

Large areas of the North Sea floor are dragged clean by beam trawlers as many as seven times a year, 北海的大片海床，每年要被横衔拖网渔船扫荡七次，

a degree of disturbance that no ecosystem can withstand. 哪个生态系统也受不了这等干扰。

At least two-thirds of species in the North Sea, by many estimates, are being overfished. 据许多人估计，北海至少有三分之二的鱼类处于过捕捞的状态。

Across the Atlantic things are no better. 在新英格兰近海，

Halibut once abounded in such numbers off New England that individual boats could land twenty thousand pounds of it in a day. 原来大比目鱼如此之多，分散的渔船一天可以捕捞到9000多千克。

Now halibut is all but extinct off the northeast coast of North America. 如今，大比目鱼在美国东北海岸附近几乎已经灭绝。