Medieval Overfishing of Herring (14th Century)
New net technologies in the 1300s multiplied catch sizes for North Sea fishing fleets. Towns competed fiercely to land more herring. Market demand encouraged larger harvests each season. Nobody noticed the warning signs until fish populations suddenly crashed. Fishing villages faced starvation as their primary resource disappeared. Trade networks built around preserved herring collapsed across Northern Europe. This medieval resource disaster foreshadowed the industrial-scale fishery collapses that would follow centuries later.
