Neanderthals were fishing by about 200,000 BC.

Fishing in Africa is evident very early on in human history.

Archaeology features such as shell middens, discarded fish bones, and cave paintings show that seafood was important for survival and consumed in significant quantities.

Isotopic analysis of the remains of Tianyuan man, a 40,000-year-old modern human from eastern Asia, has shown that he regularly consumed freshwater fish. Main articles: History of fishing and History of seafood Fishing tools from the Mesolithic and Neolithic periodįishing is an ancient practise that dates back to at least the beginning of the Upper Paleolithic period about 40,000 years ago. In 2005, the worldwide per capita consumption of fish captured from wild fisheries was 14.4 kilograms (32 lb), with an additional 7.4 kilograms (16 lb) harvested from fish farms. Fishing industries and aquaculture provide direct and indirect employment to over 500 million people in developing countries. When bioblitzes occur, fish are typically caught, identified, and then released.Īccording to the United Nations FAO statistics, the total number of commercial fishers and fish farmers is estimated to be 38 million. Fishing tournaments are held, and caught fish are sometimes kept long-term as preserved or living trophies. In addition to being caught to be eaten for food, fish are caught as recreational pastimes. Nor is it normally applied to hunting aquatic mammals, where terms like whaling and sealing are used instead.įishing has been an important part of human culture since hunter-gatherer times, and is one of the few food production activities that have persisted from prehistory into the modern age, surviving both the Neolithic Revolution and successive Industrial Revolutions. The term is not normally applied to harvesting fish raised in controlled cultivations ( fish farming). The term fishing broadly includes catching aquatic animals other than fish, such as crustaceans ( shrimp/ lobsters/ crabs), shellfish, cephalopods ( octopus/ squid) and echinoderms ( starfish/ sea urchins). Fishing techniques include hand-gathering, spearing, netting, angling, shooting and trapping, as well as more destructive and often illegal techniques such as electrocution, blasting and poisoning. Fish are often caught as wildlife from the natural environment, but may also be caught from stocked bodies of water such as ponds, canals, park wetlands and reservoirs. Fishing is the activity of trying to catch fish.

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