Israel's government has introduced a two-year ban on fishing in the biblical Sea of Galilee where St Peter and other apostles once fished at the command of Jesus. According to the Gospels, when Jesus told Peter to cast his nets into deep water, "they caught fish in such large numbers their nets began to break", BBC News reports.
From Biblical times to the great travel writers of the 19th century, people wrote about the abundant fish stocks of Lake Galilee.
The Sea of Galilee, in reality a large freshwater lake, has supported fishermen and their communities along its shores for hundreds of years.
As recently as 10 years ago there were more than 100 small boats and eight trawlers working the lake, the BBC says.
Today Menachem Lev skippers the last large boat on the Galilee but as he casts his nets into deep water he knows they won't come up full.
The fishermen on the Galilee say the cormorants take too many fish
There are a few mullet and catfish - but alarmingly few of the large St Peter's Fish, for which the Galilee is famous.
Official figures show that as recently as 2005 almost 300 tonnes of the local St Peter's Fish were caught here.
Last year that figure fell to just eight tonnes.
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