Fisheries biology arose in the mid-1800s in Northern Europe from concerns around the conservation of what appeared to be dwindling stocks in the face of new technology.

Norwegian zoologist Johan Hjort and American ichthyologist David Starr Jordan were both consulted on Canadian fisheries issues in the early period.

[2] The Biological Board eventually became the Fisheries Research Board, but Hubbard explains that "its activities [were] perennially challenged and eventually usurped by federal departments" while constantly hampered by conflicting priorities among its federal funders and the academic biologists who volunteered as its staff.

[1] The book's explanation of "the complex tensions that result when a problem places science, business, government, and environment at potential cross-purposes" thus provide useful background for understanding the collapse.

[3] In its analysis of the background of collapse, the book is part of a growing effort in the early twenty-first century to historicize the ocean, and particularly fisheries, following marine biologist Daniel Pauly's identification of the "shifting baseline" concept in the measurement of fish populations over time.