Snippets paraphrased from Bill Bryson's Short History of Everything.

Edible fish are in short supply in most parts of the globe. In the 1970s, the commercial fishermen of Australia (as well as a few New Zealanders) were pleased to discover a species of fish called an 'orange roughy' living in what they'd assumed were more or less barren waters. Roughies were delicious and the fishermen set to, hauling in 40,000 tonnes a year. Unfortunately, once marine biologists got involved, they discovered the reason roughies were able to live in such nutrient-poor seas: they mature very slowly. Many of the fish being caught in the Seventies would have hatched when Queen Victoria was still on the throne. Some might be 150 years old. And it's possible that many of them would spawn only once during that long lifetime. Each fish caught could take decades to replace. Unfortunately by the time these details were discovered a good proportion of the roughy population had already been eaten. Oops. (That's my editorial 'oops', not BB's. He's subtler than that.)