The dark side of fishing
I love fish and anything that can be pulled from the sea. I am terrified to think that there may soon be no more of it.
I just watched a harrowing documentary on Netflix called The Dark Side of Fishing. It paints a very grim picture of what we humans are doing to our oceans every day.
Dolphins are taken for amusement parks. For every one taken, twelve are killed. But boycotting water parks won't change anything, because dolphins are killed primarily because they compete with fishermen.
The tuna fishing industry is worth $40 billion a year. The species is disappearing due to overfishing. The current dolphin population is 3% of what it was a few decades ago.
Sharks are killed mainly for their fins. In China, a bowl of shark fin soup can cost up to $100. It is devoid of nutritional value and taste, but it is a status symbol.
Sharks clean the ocean, protect the colorful reefs. Without them, the ocean will turn into a swamp. Sharks drive small fish to swim just below the surface, thanks to which seabirds have something to eat. In the last few decades, we have wiped out 90% of the shark population, which was the main reason for the extinction of 70% of the seabird population.
Sharks kill 10 people a year. Man kills 20,000 sharks every hour.
Half of sharks die as bycatch. Bycatch, the taking of non-target animals while targeting specific species, is one of the most tragic consequences of fishing.
50 million sharks die each year as bycatch.
There are almost 5 million fishing vessels in the seas and oceans. No one controls how many marine animals die as a side effect of fishing. Governments have practically abandoned controls.
The sustainable fishing labels that we can find on fish products were supposed to guarantee a reduction in bycatch, but in practice it is one big farce. The certificates mean nothing and are only a good profit for the companies that dishonestly issue them.
Commercial fishing poses a greater threat to wildlife than ocean plastic and oil spills. When talking about ocean pollution, straws are mostly mentioned, which make up 0.03 percent of ocean plastic, while fishing nets make up almost half of all ocean trash.
6 out of 7 turtle species are threatened with extinction, mainly due to bycatch and entanglement in abandoned fishing nets.
By 2050, 90 percent of coral reefs will be gone. Not because of climate change, but because of the lack of fish whose experiments are the reef's main food.
Fishing has caused the extinction of 90 percent of fish species. It is estimated that at the current rate of fishing, fishing will cease due to lack of fish by 2048 at the latest.
Every minute, 5 million fish are taken from the oceans and seas. No other industry on earth kills as many animals.
Of the cod population of several decades ago, 14 percent remains, and of the halibut population, 1 percent.
Marine plants bind 20 times more carbon dioxide than forests. Every year, 10 million hectares of forest are cut down on Earth. Trawling destroys two hundred times more surface area of the seabed and ocean floor.
Today, only 5 percent of the seas and oceans are protected, and the ban on industrial fishing applies to only 1 percent.
Fishing regulations are not working. In the US, one in three fish is caught illegally. The entire coast of Africa is being plundered of fish by trawlers from all over the world, depriving the people living there of their livelihoods.
Fish farming, which now accounts for about half of the world's fish consumption, is a hidden fishery because fish farms produce fewer fish than are needed to produce food for their farms.
According to scientists, the only way to save the seas and oceans is to drastically reduce the consumption of fish and seafood.
Will I stop eating fish after watching this documentary? No, I won't. If I did, it would be a worthless protest. It seems that nothing will be able to stop this ocean carnage.
