Today, oceans are thought to be plentiful with unlimited catch for the fishing industry, but this is not the case, by the year 2048, there will be no fish left in the oceans. This piece is inspired by the Netflix documentary, SEASPIRACY.
After watching the Netflix documentary, SEASPIRACY with the folks at home, and learning the horrors of fishing, we as a family made it a mission not to eat fish. We denied fish a place on our plate from there on, dinner, lunch, breakfast, you name it.
A common debate is, can fish feel pain? ,Well the answer is, yes, they can experience pain.
“Fish do feel pain. It’s likely different from what humans feel, but it is still a kind of pain.” At the anatomical level, fish have neurons known as nociceptors, which detect potential harm, such as high temperatures, intense pressure, and caustic chemicals.
Sourced from: https://hakaimagazine.com/features/fish-feel-pain-now-what/
Furthermore, fish are an essential part of the ocean, the ocean is the greatest contributor to oxygen generation and this stems from oceanic plankton which photosynthesise. Unfortunately, they are also destroyed during fishing.
Sourced from: https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/ocean-oxygen.html
The trawlers that pick up fish also going to damage the ocean floor, which has important marine biomes that are essential to the reproduction of oxygen in the planet. The ocean is more important than the forests, the forests… they’re important too, but the ocean needs more focus, as it is undergoing drastic changes.
Yes, the planet’s doomed! As always, someone will say, but not if we change now! The truth is, so far, we have not taken on significant enough changes that to protect the planet and we might not even be able to live our full lifetimes due to this. Yes, there’s no going back for us, but maybe, we can sacrifice our habits for the planet’s sake.
But back to the point, the ocean’s are at risk, in less than 25 years, we’ll be without fish, and this is a growing concern, still only in its infancy.
The problems regarding fishing and our oceans are:
- Lack of fishing seasons where there is time fish are not being taken from the ocean.
- Ghost fishing, illegal fishing activities
- Commercial whaling (Blue whales are listed as endangered on the IUCN list and there is less than 1% of the original population in the Antarctic now. West Pacific grey whales are the most endangered with only a few more than 100 left in the oceans. Despite strict regulations on whaling, there are still a number of countries such as Japan and Iceland which use loopholes to continue commercial whaling)
- And of course, plastic (rubbish such as beer wrap which gets caught on fishes gills).
Everyone’s watched JAWS, right? Well the sharks of the ocean should be more respected than the ones in the MEG and other films, around 1 billion sharks live in the ocean, currently 100 million are killed a year by commercial trawlers and other illegal activities in our oceans.
To wrap this up, there is one last terrifying fact to be aware of… DOLPHIN TINS.
That’s right, dolphins, among fish caught in a net, are placed in our tuna tins. These loveable creatures are often killed before the can be freed from the net, and instead of being chucked off board, they place them in the factories used to process the dead fish into tins.
The assessment suggests that 80,000 dolphins may be accidentally caught every year by tuna gillnetting boats, with India alone contributing 10,000 dolphins annually. Approximately 4.1 million dolphins may have been caught since tuna gillnetting began in the Indian Ocean in 1950.
However the companies that sell the tuna and fish products deny this, as proven in SEASPIRACY.
If you want to learn more, please check out:
I recommend the last link, it’s organisation is non-profit and has been praised by SEASPIRACY.
For more information in the way our actions affect fish in the ocean, watch SOS (Sea Of Shadows) on DISNEY+, it tells of real life illegal fishing in the Mexican region of Baja California. And of course, SEASPIRACY is a must watch, to understand the extent of illegal fishing.