The collapse of Atlantic cod from the Grand Banks due to overfishing in 1992 represents the largest fisheries collapse in history, with welfare implications for billions of fish and ecosystems still recovering decades later.
The Grand Banks collapse caused welfare harm at multiple scales: the direct mortality of billions of fish through catch and bycatch, and the ecosystem disruption that degraded welfare conditions for surviving marine life through altered prey availability and competition. Fish that die in fishing nets or from oxygen depletion in holding areas experience suffering proportional to their sentience. The welfare lesson of the cod collapse is that unsustainable fishing ultimately harms both the fish populations and the human communities that depend on them. Recovery requires patience measured in decades.