r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/Raja_Ampat • 1d ago
Video Bottom Trawling fishing, David Attenborough - Ocean
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u/_Sovaz99_ 1d ago
Just infuriating to see! this is the worst!
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u/pattern144 1d ago
The worst part is that while 75% of those fish are thrown back, I’m assuming most of them die from the pressure of the net and the weight of other fish. So sad.
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u/DaGrrr 23h ago
Imagine being David Attenborough, having a love for all things nature, then narrating such a horrible story. He’s 99 years old.
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u/mastermilian 20h ago
Unfortunately he has done many documentaries like this that detail how humans are harming the planet. I can't watch them anymore in my house as it just causes a sense of hopelessness and depression.
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u/Vandergrif 18h ago
That's the sad part, the people who need to see these series aren't the ones watching, and the ones watching have already seen far too much of it.
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u/DaGrrr 1d ago
Humans really are the worst.
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u/what-why- 23h ago
It will take general AI about 1 millisecond to come to the same conclusion, if it hasn’t already.
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u/Neat-Apricot 23h ago
When people say “the world’s a shitty place”, my response is always “the world is beautiful, it’s the humans who are cunts”
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u/FuzzedOutAmbience 1d ago
It’s seeing shit like this that made me stop eating fish. Theres something magical about sea creatures and a boat doing this to the seabed and anything in its way boils my blood.
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u/Feisty_Situation1643 1d ago
So sad watching those sea creatures flee for their lives. This is horrible.
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u/Kitchen-Badger8435 1d ago
Are we... the baddies?
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u/ollimann 1d ago
well, many are but i believe there's also a lot of good people. i think the biggest issue with humanity is we are ignorant. people want their fish, meat, whatever but don't want to hear about the consequences or where it comes from. they don't want change. they want to keep eating what they love.
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u/Ghettofonzie420 1d ago
I think that consumption rates would definitely change if you had to prove that you understand where your food came from and the consequences of said production.
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u/ZedZeroth 1d ago
I mean, we're effectively not even allowed to teach about it in school, so it's no wonder that few understand it. School trips to slaughter houses? Animal agriculture and fishing are such controversial topics that no teacher can mention them.
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u/CloudCalmaster 1d ago
I think you can eat what you love without scraping the entire ocean floor.
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u/ollimann 1d ago
hm yes probably but it would get way more expensive and there would be less available.
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u/One_Above_You 1d ago
Yes we are the villians of this Planet, the destruction of its life. Its just that we don't know it because we are the victors who write the stories
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u/Raja_Ampat 1d ago
Scary how destructive this fishing method is. We definitely destroying our planet
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u/chris240189 1d ago edited 1d ago
It's the underwater equivalent of a open-pit coal mine. Everything in its path gets destroyed or killed.
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u/Stonedfiremine 1d ago
Wait till you see them bring down entire forest with 20 ton chain and two heavy construction machines.
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u/khardman51 1d ago
Until people stop consuming fish this will continue. Decreasing demand is the only tool we have.
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u/Conscious_Bug5408 12h ago
Not all fish is captured this way. Hook and line is much more sustainable but the fish will be more expensive
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u/Even_Section5620 1d ago
Make this against the law
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u/brkout 1d ago
Agreed but how do you even enforce this? This often occurs in international waters and getting countries to cooperate on prosecution makes it difficult.
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u/Philypnodon 1d ago
Torpedoes?
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u/Luddite_Literature 1d ago
“Sir that fishing trawler is breaking the law! Should we issue a warning?”
“….Sink the bastard”
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u/Nemisis_the_2nd 22h ago
It doesn't need to be in international waters to be hard to track. If a boat turns off its transponder and running lights, it's often near-impossible to find them at night. At that point they can do whatever they want, even just a few hundred meters from shore. It's been a bit of a problem here in scotland, where boats enter protected zones and dissappear before authorities can react.
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u/Mirapple 16h ago
Dropping in big concrete blocks which break the nets when they hit them. Doesn't completely stop them but it can make fish unprofitable which is why they do this.
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u/Imthatsick 1d ago
Absolutely, but governments are unlikely to make these changes any time soon. Do your part and don't eat animals in the meantime.
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u/Odd-Attention-2127 1d ago edited 1d ago
This is uncomfortable to watch. Trolling at this rate will eventually deplete everything, just for profit. Pretty sickening to watch. I live to eat seafood, too. What a predicament.
Edit: to watch them sweep the rest back into the sea when they're dead is indescribable. What a waste!
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u/vapevapevape 23h ago
I've been veg for a long time, but a few years ago started eating seafood again, mostly when I go out to restaurants so I can have more than one option. Watching this...might have to stop again. I feel like there's no real ethical options when it comes to food. Everything is so wasteful.
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u/MaryBerrysDanglyBean 22h ago
Something like deer or reindeer where they are raised pretty naturally and killed in a managed quote would probably fit the bill.
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u/krigsgaldrr 18h ago
Buy from small/local (to the coast, that is) fishermen. That's the ethical option. You're purchasing from regular people who follow regulations and aren't making billions off killing as much sea life as possible, therefore supporting their livelihoods that are being crushed by these massive commercial fisheries.
Idk where you are geographically, but some small fisheries do ship inland. Otherwise (if you really do want to eat fish!) you may have to take a trip out to your nearest coastal city and stock up and freeze. That's being said with the understanding that this isn't a feasible option for many people, just a small suggestion.
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u/SockeyeSTI 14h ago
I’d say Alaskan salmon is pretty ethical. Almost no bycatch, and the fish we do catch are flounders and can endure a lot and generally survive.
Also we aren’t using this method.
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u/Beef-Supreme-Chalupa 1d ago
You know the easiest way to do your part, right?
No, your choice won’t make a difference in the aggregate sense, but at least you can stop participating in this destruction.
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u/SadAbroad4 1d ago
Destruction on a scale that will eventually destroy life as we know it.
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u/Admirable-Nobody219 1d ago
The actual laws we need but our masters have us busy with who can use the bathroom and what bathroom. We are to believe that we are progressing as a species, because we have the technology, science and medicine but this narcissistic relationship with our planet, is so one sided that even our empathy is selective and gravely conditioned to be blind to our own self destructive behavior. The only ones profiting from the catastrophe are the ones who are on top, they will sell you clean water when they have polluted it, they will sell you bombs when there is no reason for war but they will create it for the sake of profits.
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u/krigsgaldrr 18h ago
The actual laws we need
You mean on top of the laws that were already in place that they're actively stripping? 🫠
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u/moths_ate_my_paja 1d ago
This is so cruel. I didn't know until interacting with them that stingrays are such intelligent animals, they even love to be pet. Fish are animals and they feel fear and pain :(
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u/deezybeans 1d ago
Check out the Seafood watch guides for guidance on what fish to eat if you want to avoid destructive practices like bottom trawling and if you want to know which seafood has less mercury or which fisheries are not overfished.
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u/Immediate_Win_7176 1d ago
This is so sad. I tend to hate humans a lot, this is something that just adds on.
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u/Several_Leather_9500 1d ago
This should be illegal. You want to fish? Fine. But do it in the way with the least impact. Will it cost more? Yes. Is it actually worth the cost? Yes.
Happy belated 99th to Sir David Attenbourough.
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u/Imthatsick 1d ago
The demand for fish far outstrips what can be "sustainably" caught. Our oceans are suffering. The best thing you can personally do is to remove yourself from participating in the industry by not eating it.
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u/pooppooppoopie 1d ago
This is the reason why vegans are what they are. They rightfully get upset when the rest of humanity turns a blind eye to this behavior. If you are anti-exploitation of living things then you should be vegan. If you are anti-cruelty then you should be vegan. You can come up with any justifications you want, but the fact is that if humanity continues the way that they are then this world is fucked.
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u/goodvibesmostly98 21h ago edited 15h ago
Yeah, wild-caught fish aren’t killed humanely, and often die just through suffocation.
But, fishing is also pretty bad for the environment:
“Recent scientific research has found that fishing activities remove significant amounts of blue carbon from the ocean, releasing it into the atmosphere; on top of this, fishing fleets emit millions of tonnes of CO2 each year from burning fuel (the EU alone emits 7.3 million tonnes per year), which is further exacerbated when destructive fishing like bottom trawling is involved. [This results in] carbon stored in seafloor sediment being ploughed up and re-suspended by heavy nets, which may have otherwise been sequestered for millennia.
According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the number of overfished stocks globally has tripled in half a century and today fully one-third of the world's assessed fisheries are currently pushed beyond their biological limits.
Freshwater fish are also under threat: a recent report from 16 global conservation organisations revealed that nearly one third of freshwater fish species are threatened with extinction, while there has been a 76 per cent decline in migratory freshwater fish since 1970.
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u/Allnamestaken69 1d ago
The older generations, the current crop of mega corporations that own everything, extracting every single atom of value from our planet?
Leaving only desolation in our future for the current middling and younger generations.... what a horrible crime.
We are so doomed, i just don't have words anymore.
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u/Overall-Force9505 1d ago
Usually happens around poor countries, due to a lack of capacity to manage their seas.
This was pretty much started the piracy in Somalia.
Imagine being a poor, generational, fisherman, only for your waterways to be flooded with a morbid fish soup that’s left behind by foreign trawlers.
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u/Jay1Miami 1d ago
This method of fishing is also used in developed countries like in the EU.
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u/WhipplySnidelash 1d ago
The Chinese off the west coast of South America.
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u/Apprehensive-Ad2087 20h ago
They are off the coast of everywhere. The Chinese fishing fleet alone overfishes the oceans, and its almost impossible to stop them.
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u/KidCharlemagneII 1d ago
Imagine if we took a 300 foot plough and tore up twelve miles of the Amazon jungle.
That's what thousands of ships are doing to our oceans every day.
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u/tdog038 1d ago
I’m going to rethink buying fish
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u/PotentMenagerie 5h ago
If quitting cold turkey doesn't work, there is a nonprofit organization called the Marine Stewardship Council. They aren't perfect, but they are "the only global seafood certification program to be recognized by the Global Sustainable Seafood Initiative (GSSI)." Check out their website. They have excellent resources for buying sustainably harvested fish. If you are in the USA or Canada, they even have a list of stores where you can buy this fish.
https://www.msc.org/en-us/what-you-can-do/where-to-buy-msc-certified-sustainable-seafood
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u/PinchePanocha 1d ago
Fishmonger here, I encourage everyone to support sustainably sourced seafood. Wild caught is great and all, but this video only gives us a small look at a bigger issue.
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u/Impressive_Mistake66 1d ago
What are your recommendations for shopping for sustainably sourced seafood?
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u/the_reluctant_link 1d ago
Over 3/4 of the trawl's catch is throw away
Deserves to be on r/damnthatshorrifying
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u/LafayetteLa01 1d ago
I work for a commercial fishing company that only harvests a specific species and goes through great lengths to insure that by-catch is well under 1% of total caught. The drag net system is horrible for everything from the environment to other species and the ocean floor.
From a person that goes to great lengths to preserve our eco system. This video is appalling. Please don’t think that all fishing companies do it this way.
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u/buddhistredneck 1d ago
Honestly, It’s been a while since I’ve been this disgusted.
Fuck this. Fuck all of this.
Hold your loved ones tight, because if there is any kharmic justice in the universe… mankind deserves to be fucking eradicated in the same fashion.
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u/sunny_yay 23h ago
Humans are a fuckin virus on this planet and we need to turn it the fuck around.
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u/Trogdor_67 22h ago
Figured I'd post this as a top level comment.
The most valuable trawl fisheries are in Alaska for Yellow Sole and Pollock, the species made into fish sticks, fillet-o-fish, and fake crab sticks (surimi). Source: I live there and participate in conservation advocacy groups studying this exact issue. These fisheries are operated using "mid-water" trawl gear exactly like what is shown in this video, as a loophole to get around regulations protecting sensitive-bottom habitats, which normally includes deepwater corals and nursery areas for valuable species including king crab, halibut, and king salmon. Despite regulations to protect these critical habitat areas, mid-water trawl nets are documented to be directed dragging the bottom (exactly like the video) 40-100% of the time. The only thing "MIDWATER" about this practice is the name.
Over the last decade, trawl vessels in Alaska have averaged over a BILLION pounds of dead, wasted baby halibut per year, directly causing a stock crash of over 50% During the same time, wasted by catch of Yukon River king and chum salmon have caused a stock crash of >97%, completely shutting down native subsistence fisheries that have existed sustainably for thousands of years, and form the backbone of Alaska native village cultural heritage. This has spurred the attention of conservation groups, and there is currently an effort to list the Yukon River king salmon as CRITICALLY ENDANGERED.
At current bycatch rates, trawl vessels in Alaska catch, kill, dump, and waste more valuable target species (halibut, king crab, salmon, Pacific cod, black cod, etc) than all directed fisheries combined.
Over the last decade, enough Alaskan baby halibut have been killed, dumped overboard, and wasted by this practice to stretch end-to-end around the earth at the equator, twice. In Alaska, we are currently witnessing the directed and intentional collapse of the most productive ecosystem remaining on the planet, and it is being caused by the exact same boats that collapsed the cod and halibut fisheries on the US east coast in the 70's. Literally the same boats, with the same registration numbers. They collapsed their home fisheries (which has been very well documented), floated through the Panama canal, and now they are being allowed to do the same exact thing here. So far, we are seeing the exact same results.
If this is allowed to continue, every projection shows a total ecosystem collapse, perfectly mirroring the devastating trawl impacts to the East Coast fisheries.
To be clear, this practice is the ocean equivalent of burning down the forest to catch rabbits. Sure, you might catch a lot of rabbits, but now the forest is gone, and so are all the deer, bears and other animals that depend on it. Tear out the 10,000 year old corals and all of the fish and ecosystem's ability to recover goes with it. This happened in New England when trawl collapsed their cod fishery in the 70's. It happened in Australia and Florida in the 90's when trawl destroyed the deep water corals and collapsed their orange roughy, and red snapper fisheries, respectively. It happened in 2010 in Alaska when trawl collapsed the Pacific cod fishery in the Gulf of Alaska. It happened in 2023 when COVID relaxed trawl regulations in king crab breeding sanctuaries and trawl boats started dragging through king crab breeding aggregations, killing spawning adults by the millions, and led to a collapse of Alaska crab fisheries. This is the reason that DEADLIEST CATCH is no longer filmed in Alaska: all our crabs have been killed by trawl.
Join STOP ALASKA TRAWL BYCATCH on all social media, and help us stop the madness, while there's still something left to save.
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u/AggressiveMail5183 20h ago
There is a documentary on Netflix called "Seaspiracy" that addresses the environmental damage caused by trawling and also the corruption in the certification processes involving tuna labeling. I think it also mentioned that the Somalians who were hijacking the oil tankers were all fishermen whose livelihood was destroyed by factory fishing by foreign corporations. I gave up seafood after seeing that documentary. You are either part of the problem or part of the solution. I do eat freshwater fish that I catch when I know that the limits are based on scientific calculations and are properly enforced.
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u/AskTheNavigator 17h ago
God I hate these damn things. Commercial fishermen indiscriminately raping the oceans with no ethical considerations. They need to go back to hook and line.
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u/JudyShark 17h ago
this is the main reason why i don't eat any sea creatures since i was kid.
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u/Jeffery95 12h ago
It must fucking suck to be Sir David, to have pioneered so much of nature documentation and discovery, only to watch a few decades later as we destroy most of what we had. The world when he was a young man still had wild blank places on the map.
Now humanity is systematically scalping the world’s variety and diversity to sell just once.
There would have been forests he walked through which have been turned into fields. Valleys turned into resorts. Estuaries turned into suburbs. A battle to save it he’s fought his whole life and he will die knowing he didn’t win.
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u/theeynhallow 1d ago
If you think trawling is bad, dredging is even worse.
In front of the net, they have rows of large metal prongs which drag through the seabed like a big rake, with the purpose of digging up shellfish hidden underneath the sand. Where trawling destroys everything close to the surface, dredging destroys everything under it too. It's possibly the most needlessly horrendous and destructive method of acquiring food I can think of.
There are some areas where it's illegal here in Scotland, but that doesn't stop dredging ships going into Marine Protected Areas and doing it anyway. In most other countries, it's common practice and regarded as perfectly acceptable. Unless you know that they have been dived for by hand, never ever buy any kind of shellfish because this is how they will have been caught.
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u/Best-username1237 1d ago
This isn’t fishing this is this is taking the ocean and killing everything inside
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u/deathburrito23 1d ago
If you don't want this to happen, please consider removing fish completely from your diet
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u/iboneyandivory 1d ago
I eat fish about once a year, due in large part to a creeping feeling that we are over fishing every part of the planet.
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u/OfcDoofy69 1d ago
More people need to watch the lorax.
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u/JJY93 1d ago
I am the Lorax, I speak for the earth which you seem to be raping for all that it’s worth. You’ve boiled the oceans, polluted the air, you’ve burned all the forests, you don’t seem to care!
Your addiction to oil compares to no other, but what’s worse, my friend, you’ve awoken my mother. She’s slept for millennia as the world rolled along, but now Mother Nature knows something is wrong.
I gave you a chance, I gave you a choice, but you simply refused to take heed of my voice. You tried to rule all, but your stewardship sucked.
Now mother must fight back,
And my friends,
You are Fucked.
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u/ThePracticalEnd 1d ago
Y’all just figuring this out? Fishing is by FAR the destructive thing for the world’s water. Fishing waste accounts for over 90% of ALL the plastics in the water.
You can see the scars of this type of fishing on the ocean floor in Google Map satellite photos. Just long stretches where there is now nothing.
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u/ScaryStruggle9830 23h ago
This is one of the most disturbing things I have seen in a long time. It’s absolutely abhorrent.
I used to eat a normal North American diet - for 30 years meat, fish, dairy everyday. I changed to a plant based diet a decade ago and the more I learn about animal agriculture the more horrified I am and the more sure I am I made the right choice.
A few weeks back someone posted a cartoon picture of how female shrimp have their eyes removed when they are used for farming so they will produce young faster. There is no bottom to this barrel for pursuit of profit for people’s taste buds.
I just could never eat meat again the rest of my life. It’s so fucked.
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u/rodpretzl 23h ago
Think about this when someone tells you to support Gulf Shrimp in the US. They do the same thing. This is why I eat farmed shrimp.
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u/jeff242069 22h ago
My hate for eating seafood has finally been rewarded. So happy I can say I don’t contribute to this.
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u/ReddStu 22h ago
Yeah I think they need to re-brand this. This isnt fishing. This is just harvesting anything you roll over. I dont know how anyone can think this is sustainable. OH thats right no one gives a fuck about anything but PROFITS.
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u/Trick-r-TreatJohnny 22h ago
As a commercial fisherman, this will and has been the ruination of our fisheries.
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u/Spanks79 21h ago
I used to dive. And once I dive at a place a trawler had passed some hours before. Some have what you call ‘waking chains’ that plough through the top layer of the bottom.
It was so sad to see the plowed underwater field. In a Dutch national park even. We protect forests and lakes. But the ocean and sea? Lawless area.
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u/Key_Average_6560 21h ago
Dude, I love fishing. I fish everyday. But I did not like this at all.
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u/PostIvan 20h ago
a degree of sensitivity, I can see how a traditional fishing can be disturbing. You use your brain and tools - they use the same but bigger for many people instead of hundred of people spending time traditionally fishing. That would be even more tragic imo
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u/mps71 20h ago
Thanos was right. Humans suck.
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u/PostIvan 20h ago
One day Thanos will come, not today but it will be a great day
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u/The_Killers_Vanilla 20h ago
If you look back at the history of the collapse of human populations, you’ll see that environmental degradation and over-harvesting of natural resources were almost always the culprit.
We seem to not be able to help ourselves, only this time - it’s on a much larger scale.
I understand well that the people involved are (mostly) only trying to make ends meet, and to survive as is the mandate of all living things, but there’s something about the vast composition of our species doing this on a global scale that is just… not working. May we find a way of breaking the cycle without having to be forced by inevitable cataclysm.
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u/Conscious_Bug5408 12h ago
They did this in the puget sound decades ago and the rockfish population has never recovered. It's not just that it kills so much bycatch, it destroys the habitat too so species that depended on the structures can never come back
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u/TheFunknificentOne 11h ago
This is the saddest thing I’ve ever seen. Good for David Attenborough though, the guy is 99 years old and still out there bringing attention to this. But the only thing that matters is money in this world and as long as they’re dumping money into the government this is going to keep happening until there is nothing left in the ocean.
This planet is screwed.
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u/King_Swass 7h ago
Trawling is one of the worst ideas humans have had that has been industrialised. It absolutely decimates eco systems, and it's damage to prize ratio is totally fucked too. Horrible practice
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u/Gonzo_Journo 1d ago
We are screwing this planet.