Some fish and some fishing

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, БЂњfishБЂ«is БЂњwhatever is left.БЂ«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. БЂњBiologists,БЂ«according to the New York Times, БЂњestimate that 90 percent of lobsters are caught within a year after they reach the legal minimum size at about age six.БЂ«Despite declining catches, New England fishermen continue to receive state and federal tax incentives that encourage them-in some cases all but compel them-to acquire bigger boats and to harvest the seas more intensively. Today fishermen of Massachusetts are reduced to fishing the hideous hagfish, for which there is a slight market in the Far East, but even their numbers are now falling ...»