Fish stocks around the UK have declined so precipitously that sail-powered boats in the late 1800s were 17 times more efficient at catching fish than their high-tech modern descendants.

Researchers from the University of York and the Marine Conservation Society analysed a previously untapped set of information on the amounts of bottom-dwelling fish such as cod and haddock landed by UK fishing boats. They corrected this data for the ‘fishing power’ of ever-improving boats and found that landings per unit of fishing power fell by 94% from 1889 to 2007.

“This implies a massive loss of biomass of commercially fished bottom living fish from seas exploited by the UK fleet,” write the study authors in Nature Communications. “The loss is particularly serious as it encompasses an entire component of the marine ecosystem rather than a single species.”

Landings of bottom-living fish per unit of fishing power of large British trawlers. Phase 1: 1889 to onset of World War. Fleet converted from sail to steam power. Phase 2: Inter-war years, 1919 – 1939. Vessels seek new grounds in Arctic and West Africa. Phase 3: 1956 to 1982. Collapse in catches as distant-water stocks become fully exploited. Phase 4: 1983 onwards. Advent of the Common Fisheries Policy.

These numbers are largely in line with previous estimates, which have also suggested declines in certain fish stocks of 90% of more since the 1900s. However, the new work uses the longest continuous national-scale statistics available and give a solid boost to previous work that either looked at individual species or relied heavily on theoretical models.

“We were astonished to discover that we landed over four times more fish into England and Wales in 1889 than we do today,” Ruth Thurstan, lead author of the study from the University of York’s Environment Department (press release). “For all its technological sophistication and raw power, today’s trawl fishing fleet has far less success than its sail-powered equivalent of the late 19th century because of the sharp declines in fish abundance.”

Not everyone is pleased with the work.

Philip MacMullen, of industry group Seafish, called the findings “tenuous at best”.

“It’s all very well emphasizing ‘the urgent need for action’ but the authors would do well to look at what’s happening in today’s marine environment, rather than dredging up dodgy data from the past,” he adds.

As Thurstan’s paper notes, in 2009 the European Commission said it believed that 88% of monitored fish stocks were overfished. Earlier this year a paper in Fish and Fisheries warned that Europe’s fish stocks are so depleted that even a complete suspension of fishing now would mean nearly a quarter of species would not recover in time to meet international targets set for 2015.