It draws on knowledge from many different areas including anthropology, ichthyology, economics, oceanography, and marine botany.
This area of study seeks to understand the details of the interactions of humans with fish, including both cognitive and behavioural aspects.
[2] An early use of the term was in a 1967 paper by Warren T. Morrill on the folk knowledge of the french-speaking fishermen (known locally as Cha-Cha) living in Carenage (Frenchtown), Saint Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands.
Such specimens were thought to provide accurate information on taxonomy, but limited knowledge of their natural behavior and ecology.
However, the behavior of fish, including such details as sensory capabilities, were known to the Cha-Cha based upon such knowledge being useful in selection the best methods for finding and catching each species.
The collapse of the cod fishery in Newfoundland and Labrador was due to a lack of ethnoichthyological knowledge and conservation efforts.
At one point, the French, English, Spanish and Portuguese would anchor as nearby as 12 miles off the Newfoundland shore with large trawlers in order to maximize their catch.
[11] The Canadian federal government was forced to issue a moratorium on cod fishing in 1992 due to populations reaching dangerously low numbers.
Though local inshore fishermen had been voicing concerns about the state of the population since the early 1980s, the government choose to rely on scientific data.
Large companies lost business and subsistence fishermen were forced to find new ways of making a living.
[2] A small fishery on the Piracaba river in Brazil was the subject of a recent ethnobiological study by Renato et al..[2] Researchers wanted to examine the knowledge of the Brazilian fishermen to see how it compared to data in the scientific literature.
The fishermen displayed a great deal of knowledge pertaining to diet, predation, distribution, reproduction, and migration.
It is time consuming because it requires a great deal of precision as the technique varies with the size and shape of the fish.
Ten or fifteen pounds of small fish called "fry" are ground up in a mixture of sand and then tossed into the water.
Fish star in many novels and movies such as The Old Man and the Sea, Jonah and the Whale, Jaws, Shark Tale and Finding Nemo.
Jesus Christ multiplied loaves of bread and fish in order to feed a large gathering of people.