... Decline and fall of a marine empire. 35 The charts, each representing one fish population, por-tray the near universal decline, in the last decades, of the abundance of commercial fishes in the ... Atlantic, and the increase of the fishing mortality to which they aresubjected.Figure 10. Summary view of the decline in populations of largepredatory fishes in the North Atlantic since 1950. ... Far from being the scourge of fishing vessels, it is the North Atlantic that suffers.Hundreds of feet below the surface, along the continental shelfoff the coast of Maine where the Andrea Gail...