The destructive process of overfishing has been documented as far back as 1,000 years ago when Europeans exploited local freshwater fisheries until they collapsed, which meant they started relying more on coastal fisheries.
Since then, fishing technology has evolved to the point where we can target species everywhere they swim rather than focusing on the migration patterns that bring them within reach.
Once coastal fisheries were wiped out, offshore fisheries became the new target. Now, as those fisheries become depleted, the industry is starting to fish even deeper using the same wasteful and indiscriminate practices like bottom trawling, dredging, longlining, and drift netting that are destroying offshore fisheries.