>>Actually, I wasn't referring to an individual school of fish, but was using the singular to try to illustrate a point. It
>>was a lot easier than trying to refer to multiple schools every time.

And I pointed out that this was misleading. There’s no comparison between finding a ghost town in Arizona, and finding the entire state all but deserted. The former is analogous to the example you were using; the latter is analogous to what the scientists have found.

>>… I think that you made a valid point when you pointed out that the fish congregate where the food is and then
>>asked the question where would they go.

And the obvious answer is that there’s nowhere else for them to go. They could no more survive “somewhere else” than they could survive in Antarctica or the Mojave Desert.

>>This was one of my points as well when I pointed out that they could be
>>attracted from one place to another.

In which case the fishing fleets would simply follow them. The fact that the fishing fleets haven’t been able to do so indicates strongly that the fish haven’t “gone someplace”, they’ve just gone.

>>I don't deny that various places may be overfished, but I maintain that it is a stretch to say that we have lost 90%
>>of the world's large fish.

But you don’t seem to offer anything other than a personal opinion, whereas the scientists who have been studying this for years have hard facts.

>>I think it that It is obvious that we aren't going to convince each other, so what say we agree to disagree
>>agreeably?

I’ve never been a big fan of this argument, that we should be allowed to believe anything we want, regardless of whether or not it is supported by the facts.

Suppose you posted on this forum that you thought Potassium Cyanide was harmless and nutritious, and that you intended to feed large quantities of it to your children so they would grow up big and strong. Should we be expected to simply “agree to disagree”? <img src="images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

We’re talking about the potential destruction of the world’s fisheries, and your response boils down to “Don’t worry, be happy, it’ll all sort itself out in time.” Which is probably true, but we may not be around when it does. <img src="images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />