Describing Ocean Life in Olden Days, Researchers Upend Modern Notions of “Natural” Animal Sizes, Abundance

Using such diverse sources as old ship logs, literary texts, tax accounts, newly translated legal documents and even mounted trophies, Census researchers are piecing together images – some flickering, others in high definition – of fish of such sizes, abundance and distribution in ages past that they stagger modern imaginations.
Experts convene May 26-28 in Vancouver en route to an historic first global ocean Census of Marine Life—past, present and future—in October 2010.