Collapse of the Atlantic northwest cod fishery in the context of "John Crosbie"

Overexploitation, also called overharvesting or ecological overshoot, refers to harvesting a renewable resource to the point of diminishing returns. Continued overexploitation can lead to the destruction of the resource, as it will be unable to replenish itself. The term applies to various natural resources such as water aquifers, grazing pastures and forests, wild medicinal plants, fish stocks, and other wildlife.

In ecology, overexploitation describes one of the five main activities threatening global biodiversity. Ecologists use the term to describe populations that are harvested at an unsustainable rate, given their natural rates of mortality and capacities for reproduction. Such practices can result in extinction at the population level and even extinction of whole species. In conservation biology, the term is usually used in the context of human economic activity that involves the taking of biological resources, or organisms, in larger numbers than their populations can withstand. The term is also used and defined somewhat differently in fisheries, hydrology, and natural resource management.

The Grand Banks of Newfoundland are a series of underwater plateaus south-east of the island of Newfoundland on the North American continental shelf. The Grand Banks are one of the world's richest fishing grounds, supporting swordfish, haddock and capelin, as well as shellfish, seabirds and sea mammals. Overfishing in the late 20th century caused the collapse of several species, particularly Atlantic cod, leading to the indefinite closure of the Canadian Grand Banks fishery in 1992.