Seaspiracy and it's Legacy

Have you watched #seaspiracy yet?

There’s been a lot of internet noise going on since its timely release. I’ve been doing some investigations in response to the negative comments about the groundbreaking documentary.

“Fishing is Sustainable”

Basically “sustainable fishing” is justified from some very bad science used after the second world war. (Beverton and Holt, 1957) Estimating fish stock sizes is a fatally flawed system because virgin biomass numbers (numbers of the fish present before fishing started) are impossible to quantify. The idea that if you “accidentally ‘’ overfish the populations will bounce back has now been proven wrong, other species may invade, (the UK’s north sea cod were replaced by lobsters) also if the original virgin biomass estimates were wrong the species can become extinct.

No industrial fishing method is OK, plus bycatch, plus bottom trawling, plus human slavery. Plus nearly half the fish caught globally are illegally caught, with zero regulations.

There’s literally no way to trace where fish were caught unless you’re doing it yourself, (and this also changes biospheres, fish are very curious and calm in no-take zones, where they are hunted they swim away. Some fish mate for life, we can only imagine how losing their partners affects them.

“It’s too Dramatic”

A documentary by nature has to be compelling viewing, but the drama of the situation we’re in should be enough to make people pay attention and be shocked into changing behaviours.

If people can’t process this information, whichever way it’s delivered, they’re missing the point.

Our oceans are dying because of human greed.

“But there’s Protected Areas”

Globally less than 8% of our oceans are nominally protected and less than 3% are fully protected zero fishing zones. Sea Shepherd is one of the few organizations that work on the front line. Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) are often declared by governments but without direct protection, they can often be just another PR greenwash.

“There’s plenty of fish in the sea”

To say there’s plenty of fish off the coast of West Africa and everything is fine is ridiculous, the big international trawlers are stealing from the oceans with little or no government protection.

If they continue at this rate, fish stocks will disappear.

In what I call the over-developed world, anyone rich enough to have a smartphone, contract and time to use it can make food choices. They are privileged enough to take food from starving countries, fish that’s often ground up and fed to farmed fish or land animals. Extending food chains unsustainably.

It’s got to stop.

I’m bored of hearing excuses now, whilst over developed countries waste around half of their food from field to plate.

“It’s all fake”

It’s too easy for critics to say parts of the documentary are staged without saying which bits.

I know people who’ve spent time in the Faroe islands and know people who’ve been to Taiji. They’re both bloodbaths, disgusting waste of beautiful sea creatures, one to satisfy hunters who don’t need the food and the other to supply pretty dolphins to a lifetime of misery in touristic dolphin shows.

By their very nature, it’s impossible to film the life-threatening accounts shown in cartoon form in the documentary. I’ve met people who have worked on large fishing fleets in Australia and Thailand, they told me firstly of fisher injured at sea, without adequate onboard first aid and at the refusal of the captain to take them back to port because of fuel costs, the injury became infected and they died. Secondly, they explained how easy it is for boats to hide illegal catches, there’s usually a hidden compartment built into most fishing boats, containing the haul of mainly shark fins and lobsters, if an inspector appears on the radar they have over two hours to dispose of the stash. I’m sure the situation is far worse than shown in Seaspiracy. There are only around 20 marine biologist inspectors for the whole Australian oceans.

“Attacking NGOs is bad”

There’s a lot of oceanic NGOs who take large donations and bang on about plastic straws and cotton buds, refuse to discuss fishing and put the blame on individuals.

That’s criminal.

Currently, there are 7,800,000,000 (7. 8 billion) people on planet earth. 90% of the ocean’s large fish have been wiped out by industrial fishing.

1,000,000,000,000 to- 3,000,000,000,000 (1 to 3 trillion) wild fish are killed each year.

(Not including IUU fishing or bycatch, which could be 30- 40% more, no one knows). The numbers of farmed fish slaughtered each year are around 100,000,000,000 (100 billion).

Bycatch kills around a million large sea creatures each year, bycatch is the non-target species caught in nets, they usually die and are thrown back in the water. Every species including whales, dolphins, sharks, turtles, rays and sea lions are all killed as bycatch. Shark populations have been decimated since the seventies. The fishing industry is heavily subsidized to the tune of 35 billion dollars globally, imagine if that money was used to encourage organic vegetable production?

“But / what about? / you don’t know what you’re talking about”

Anyone attempting to defend the indefensible needs to consider the consequences of not acting quickly.

There’s plenty of marine biologists and scientists defending the fishing industry because their well-paid jobs depend on it, which does not make them experts or make their claims valid, a fancy education does not automatically mean you know more than passionate environmentalists who take zero money from the industry. I wonder why humans consider fish to be stupid? I’ve spent many peaceful hours underwater, free diving and scuba diving, the creatures I’ve observed live in harmony with their environment, I feel the humans could learn a thing or two from the underwater world.

Please consider what you consume and how it affects our collective environment. It’s heartwarming to see the majority of online responses are in favour of stopping or reducing consumption of fish, the film has made a huge impact and that’s exactly what our oceans need.

The makers of Seaspiracy are pushing for 30% of our oceans to be protected by 2030.

https://www.crowdfunder. co.uk/30by30

Hope spots are being designated by Sylvia Earle’s Mission Blue campaign.

https://mission-blue.org/hopespots

Each one of us can choose to not consume fish and gently encourage friends and family to follow suit, please share pictures of the majestic underwater world and patiently explain the threats, invite them around for dinner and a movie, you know which film to show, we’re literally all in this boat together.