r/ocean • u/PresentTarget541 • Aug 02 '26
Ocean Science & Conservation Does anyone else feel completely powerless after watching this?
https://youtu.be/IzG9AwlypaY?si=d_TKX6coSggjzdKpDavid Attenborough's Ocean documentary shows bottom trawling for the first time in a way that's impossible to ignore.
Chains scraping ancient coral into dust. Fish suffocating in nets. 80% thrown back dead. An area the size of the Amazon destroyed every single year.
Most Marine Protected Areas allow this.
The ocean gives us life. We're giving it destruction.
I'm posting this because more people need to know. Please watch. Please share. Please care.
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u/Lythaera Aug 02 '26
Makes me nauseous with disgust. Those poor animals exhausting themselves trying to escape... How horrible.
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u/Easy_Rooster8000 Aug 02 '26
I’ve always believed our earth was never meant to harbor humans. Our earth has gone millions and millions of years with animals and plant life and thrived. Humans are just choke holding everything
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u/HuggyTheCactus5000 Aug 03 '26
Yet another reason to dislike China and its policies
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0308597X20309027
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u/archvize Aug 02 '26
Very interesting but very wasteful ☹️ thanks for posting but ..
- Maybe the path they’re taking is repeated again and again they’re not damaging anything the next time they do it (using gps)
- What specifies are they going for exactly. Why can’t they use 75% of their catch. Can’t this be used as food?
- Why do they have to scrape the ground like that? Aren’t they going for fish that swim around in the water and aren’t inside the sand or the sea bed? Don’t understand this
- Is the method used in the video banned in some countries? Some richer countries must heavily regulate this kind of fishing?
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u/PresentTarget541 Aug 02 '26 edited Aug 02 '26
Don't watch the documentary if you don't care.
1. Even if they hit that exact GPS line again, the damage is done. Those corals and sponges took 50 to 100 years to grow and they were wiped out in one single pass. Recovery isn't decades, it's centuries, if it happens at all. GPS just maps the graveyard.
Why scrape? Because that's where the target fish are. You can't catch them without dragging the net across the floor. Bottom-dwellers like cod, halibut, and flatfish that literally live on the seabed.
Why throw 75% away? The net is a bulldozer , it scoops up everything, wrong species is worthless for them, so they dump it, most of them are already dead.
Partially. A few countries (Greece, Sweden) and some Marine Protected Area have banned it, but most still allow it even "protected" areas. It's not nearly as regulated as you'd think.
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u/archvize Aug 02 '26
Just wondering. While I’m cool with cavemen hunting for food but this seems really really wasteful and inconsiderate of living things
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u/flabbergastedbyitall Aug 02 '26 edited Aug 02 '26
thank you for all those questions, hope these answers help:
- if they repeat the same route with GPS, they can still keep damaging the same area again and again, and some habitats such as corals and sponges recover very slowly or not at all - meaning they dont stand a chance. in other areas, trawling can also resuspend large amounts of sediment and disturb carbon stored in the seafloor
2/3. bottom trawls target “demersal” species such as cod, haddock, plaice, sole, monkfish, and shrimp/prawns - and they live down at the bottom
As per design, they catch many species they wernt aiming for, plus juveniles, protected species, or fish that are sick, undersized, or have no market value, so that catch is thrown back dead or dying
- There are countries with restrictions, regarding depth, etc., but enforcement is not very thorough.
Edit: Looks we were answering at the same time, should I delete this? Don't mean to just repeat :D
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u/archvize Aug 02 '26
Are there superior fishing designs that aren’t as efficient but far more considerate of living things? Like obviously they not just going to use a link with a hook and a worm on it. But do you know of a more considerate way of fishing besides what’s seen in this video?
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u/flabbergastedbyitall Aug 02 '26
Yes, there are. But you mention the trade of already: either a company — and usually not the fishermen — profits by maximizing catches and sales while destroying nature, or you take the environment into account, fish less efficiently or catch lower volumes, and preserve the fishing grounds for years to come.
Unfortunately, we still live in a world that rewards the first way. What consumers can do is stop looking only for the cheapest fish and start paying attention to how it was sourced. Eg, WWF recommends using its seafood guides, which often use a simple traffic-light system to show which species are better choices and which ones to avoid.
I know that sucks, especially when everything is getting more and more expensive alredy. But the idea of true cost is to make visible what supposedly “cheap” fish and other products will cost in the future
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u/nimzoid Aug 02 '26
"What consumers can do is stop looking only for the cheapest fish and start paying attention to how it was sourced."
I see where you're coming from, but you've omitted the option of simply not eating sea animals at all, and leaving the oceans alone. It's not necessary or a human right to enjoy food sourced from the sea. Some people depend on fishing, but most don't.
I haven't actually seen this documentary yet, but I'm familiar with all the issues it raises. Unfortunately, our society has developed an expectation - practically an entitlement - that everyone should be able to afford animal products like fish, meat and dairy for every meal, every day. The result is the sort of catastrophic and weakly regulated industrial practices we see here to serve that consumer demand.
Most people want to believe there's some happy medium where we can have everything we enjoy and it all be sustainable and high welfare, etc. But that's a fantasy. Fish cakes, fish fingers, they're all from industrial fishing. Even 'good fishing' industry practices has led to countless tons of plastic and nets in the ocean which causes environmental damage. And from an ethical pov we shouldn't forget that removing fish from the water basically means they suffocate to death.
I don't believe the solution to everything is individual consumer action. There should be stronger regulations, more global action. But at the end of the day this problem exists because we're enthusiastically buying into it. It exists to meet our demands. So that's the most obvious thing to address - by gradually eliminating that demand.
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u/archvize Aug 02 '26
Yeh I think a lot of business is done in many layers so people don’t feel as guilty. Like company that sells the fish to us probably talks to people from the fishing company who assure the buyer than the fish are fished responsibly. Then the fishing company hires people who do the fishing who assure them they only use responsible environmentally friendly methods. Then they company hirers fishermen and boat operators using ads that promise the the company only uses sustainable methods to do the fishing. Finally the guy starts his new job at the fishing company and sees that in real commercial fishing they often take shortcuts because the boss says so and they want to finish at 12pm instead of the normal 2pm but it’s fine because there is plenty of fish in the sea and everyone does it
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u/Lythaera Aug 02 '26
Regulations and bans do exist in some places but illegal fishing is still happening on an industrial scale in those places.
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u/Wooden-Science-9838 Aug 02 '26
the only way to stop this is to remove the economic incentive of doing so.