It is possible that over time, the school has learned that certain sounds signal danger, such as the sounds of the engines of the fishing boats or other equipment. That is not as far-fetched as it may seem. Whitetail deer learn over time that the presence or absence of certain sounds and scents are normal. They instinctively preceive any change in the norm as a danger signal and react accordingly. Depending on the danger, they may permanently leave the area.
To presume that fish, with brains the size of thumbtacks or smaller could exhibit the kind of sophisticated response to their environment that deer do is a great reach. Further to think that this sort of sophisticated response would be sufficiently sophisticated to fool the vast number of highly advanced humans and their technology who are making a living hunting them when even deer haven't been able to do so is completely absurd.
Whether it is 90% depletion or 20% depletion is, perhaps, open to debate. That there is some significant depletion of world-wide fishing stocks is beyond question. The search for the cause of this depletion is worthy of attention. Commercial and political response to this depletion is likely to be effective if done correctly. Whether the lower availablity of fish in our oceans (it's not just here or there, everyone is reporting it from everywhere on the globe. If the Japanese were finding a tripling of fish in their water then it wouldn't be so alarming that there is a drastic reduction of fish in Canadien waters.) is due to global warming, polution, over-fishing or whatever, if fishing is curtailed then one of the pressures on the fish populations will be aleviated.
It is provable that humans have hunted to extinction various species on land. Why then is it so hard to believe that we can do it in the oceans?
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