Overfishing causes frequent fish population collapses but rare extinctions

Burgess et al.’s report in PNAS, “Range contraction enables harvesting to extinction” (1), provides a highly valuable perspective on the consequences of species range contractions that maintain local densities of declining populations. The authors suggest that this density-dependent contraction maintains local harvesting yields and economic incentives that enable depleted natural populations of both marine and terrestrial species to be harvested until collapse and extinction. Burgess et al.’s approach, combining modeling and empirical review, covers a large spectrum of species with convincing … [↵][1]1To whom correspondence should be addressed. Email: olivier.le.pape{at}agrocampus-ouest.fr. [1]: #xref-corresp-1-1