Seaspiracy, a recently popular and sensational documentary on Netflix about the environmental impacts of fishing in the ocean, has garnered worldwide attention with positive reviews for eliciting attention to the issues and negative reviews for its scientific accuracy. Atomic Hands want to take the time to dissect the Seaspiracy film and discuss what parts are truthful and what are false. This way, we all can be informed about our choices that concern the ocean. #STEMinASL
If you want to watch specific issues, here are the time stamps:
00:00 Introduction: Misinformation and Seaspiracy Summary
03:57 Sustainable Fishing
06:25 By-catch
10:45 Plastic Pollution
14:03 Aquaculture
18:35 Sustainable Seafood Certifications
22:06 Racism and Xenophobism
24:15 Food Production
26:06 Human overpopulation
27:06 Conclusion: Responsible Information Sharing and Realistic Solutions
Some parts of our message are excerpts from the articles below. If you want more in-depth information on truths and myths behind Seaspiracy and buying seafood responsibly, read the articles and blogs by renowned marine ecologists below:
What Netflix’s Seaspiracy gets wrong about fishing, explained by a marine biologist
https://www.vox.com/2021/4/13/22380637/seaspiracy-netflix-fact-check-fishing-ocean-plastic-veganism-vegetarianism
The Science of Seaspiracy
https://sustainablefisheries-uw.org/science-of-seaspiracy/
Ray Hilborn’s thoughts on Seaspiracy
https://sustainablefisheries-uw.org/ray-hilborn-on-seaspiracy/
Ray Hilborn on the Role of Industry Fishing
https://sustainablefisheries-uw.org/ray-hilborn-funding/
Seaspiracy: Why We Believe Responsible Aquaculture is More Important than Ever
https://www.asc-aqua.org/seaspiracy-why-we-believe-responsible-aquaculture-is-more-important-than-ever/
Marine Stewardship Council: Our Seaspiracy Response
https://www.msc.org/media-centre/news-opinion/news/2021/03/26/response-to-netflix-seaspiracy-film
How to eat more sustainable seafood (a guide)
https://attachments.convertkitcdnn2.com/161501/1ed9a857-7ef7-4bee-9e8f-b9ed8b6bfc60/SustainableSeafoodGuide2021UPDATED.pdf
In the recent decade and more so in the past year or two, we are battling a mass volume of fake information and misleading narrative online. We are currently living in the “post-truth” world where emotion and personal belief are more influential in shaping public opinion than objective facts. Seaspiracy is a recently popular and sensational documentary on Netflix. The film discusses the environmental impacts of fishing in the ocean. The film is an excellent example of fake information and misleading narratives to appeal to the viewers’ emotions at the expense of wholesome truth. Atomic Hands want to take the time to dissect the Seaspiracy film and discuss what parts are truthful and what are false. This way, we all can be informed about our choices that concern the ocean.
Seaspiracy is a documentary that discusses fishing impacts on marine life and corruption in the fishing industry. The film touches on varying topics such as pollution, overfishing, false sustainable seafood certifications, aquaculture, slavery. Last, the producers sum up the film with a drive home point that commercial fishing is the main cause of marine ecosystem destruction and that we all should stop eating fish altogether. The documentary has garnered worldwide attention with positive reviews for eliciting attention to the issues and negative reviews for its scientific accuracy. Many marine biologists including myself applaud them for getting millions of people talking about some of these challenges and putting the ocean’s struggle to the forefront of our minds. However, we disagree with how they portray our ocean, fishery, and the issues surrounding them. More specifically, they made some misleading claims, used out-of-context clips from the interviews, and showed incorrect statistics.
While there are many things we can discuss about the film, we will focus eight main points.
-
- The film said that sustainable fishing is not possible. NOT TRUE. Before I discuss why this claim is not true, I want to discuss what it means to fish sustainably. Fishing that leaves enough fish of a species left in the ocean so they can easily replenish themselves through reproduction without harming the overall population size and health is considered sustainable. So, back to the claim… the truth is that fisheries aren’t perfect. There are some fisheries around the world that fish illegally, and violate human rights and fishing regulations. BUT, there are so many fisheries out there that fish sustainably or are improving their practices and seeing positive results along the way. The famous catchphrase, “the oceans will run out of fish by 2048,” is false and is misinterpreted from a published scientific paper. The paper and other papers that came after it showed that fish populations are declining in some areas but fish populations that are being monitored are, on average, increasing in abundance and have been for years, and they represent over half of the world’s catch.
- The film showed harrowing clips of dead fishes and marine mammals that we all love such as whales, swordfishes, sharks, and sea turtles being tossed aboard after being accidentally caught. And, the film proceeded to show a seemingly convincing graph saying “up to 40% of catch gets thrown back as by-catch.” NOT TRUE. The global authority on world fisheries, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), defines by-catch as, “the total catch of non-target animals.” This is the widely accepted definition. However, an important nuance is that by-catch can either be used for other purposes or discarded. Used by-catch is generally accepted as sustainable so long as the non-target species isn’t a threatened species. Discards, on the other hand, are wasteful and an unfortunate reality of food production. The most recent research showed that about 10% of fish have been discarded at sea over the past decade. So how did 10% get inflated to the film’s 40%? In 2009, four people decided to write a paper arguing that the definition of “by-catch” needed to be redefined to include all catch that is not just unused or discarded but also from unmanaged fisheries. Fisheries that do not have specific management to ensure the take is sustainable are called unmanaged fisheries. The authors suggested that, when these unmanaged fisheries rake in their catch, ALL caught fishes should now be counted as by-catch including both the fishes that are legal to take and those that are illegal. No serious scientist or organization counts unmanaged catch as by-catch. Iit is a ridiculous thing to conflate, thus causing a jump from 10% to 40%. Discards are what matter. 10% is the more informative number to cite.
- The film showed a massive swirl of plastic in the middle of the ocean, also known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. They said that 46% of plastic in the ocean is from fishing nets. It is a misleading claim. The fact is that plastic in the ocean, including fishing nets, is a terrible problem. In 1980s, lost or discarded fishing gear may have made up the majority of ocean pollution, particularly in the North Pacific, where the first studies of marine debris were conducted. However, nowadays, about 80% of plastic in the oceans comes from what we throw away on land: soda bottles, food packaging, tires, and so forth. While 20% comes from marine sources (including fishing nets). But the way the film presented the 46% statistics, and the lack of scientific understanding actively hurts efforts to reduce plastic waste. In the plastic research of the garbage patch where the film used the statistics from, the scientists estimated that trillions of pieces of buoyant plastic are swirling around. They measured buoyant plastic in two different ways: (1) by the number of individual plastic, and (2) by weight. Of those trillions of buoyant plastic pieces in the ocean, megaplastics (larger than 50 cm or ~1.5 feet) make up around .0005% of individual pieces. Of those megaplastics, some are fishing nets. The percentage is so small. But, measuring plastic by weight, it is a different story. Of the plastic that doesn’t sink, the researchers estimate that fishing nets comprise 46% of the weight in the garbage patch. Again, this is only for plastic that floats. There is a lot of plastic that sinks and they are largely unstudied. We still need more research on the effects of plastic because it is a massive and complicated issue.
- The film briefly discussed the horrors of aquaculture by showing clips of farmed salmons being eaten alive by sea lice and swimming in their own filth. It is true that some aquacultures out there are operating under horrible conditions. However, the number of these irresponsible aquacultures is dwindling as more regulations and oversights are set in place to ensure the health of farmed fish. Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC), an independent, international non-profit organization, is one of the major organizations that manage certifications for responsible aquaculture. Their farm standards set strict requirements for responsible aquaculture such as seafood producers must keep accurate records of any fish mortalities, arrange on-site visits from veterinarians several times a year, work with nearby aquacultures to keep the number of sea lice below a certain level to protect wild salmon populations. Furthermore, aquacultures do play a major role in relieving the fishing pressure on wild fishes. The film also commented how gray salmon meats were being dyed pink to deceive the customers. It is true that fish feed in salmon farming contains the colorant astaxanthin but it is important to understand the role of astaxanthin. Astaxanthin is naturally produced by algae and other aquatic microorganisms and gives shrimps, flamingos, and salmons their pink color. Crustaceans (like krill and shrimp) that feed on astaxanthin-producing algae store the pigment in their shells, causing their shell to turn pink. In turn, fish (like wild salmon) that eat the crustaceans (or the algae) store it in their skin and tissue, also causing their tissue to turn pink. Astaxanthin is an important nutrient for growth and survival in salmon. Since farmed salmon do not eat the same food as wild salmon would so they get astaxanthin in their feeds as an added dietary supplement. The pigment is not dyed or added to salmon meat during the processing like the film made it out to be.
- The film showed Earth Island Institute that gives out dolphin-safe labels making comments that there is no oversight on dolphin hunting and they do not know whether dolphins are being killed. The film also said that Marine Stewardship Council seafood certifications are too easy to obtain and are not credible. These two organizations, Earth Island Institute and Marine Stewardship Council, have put out a release saying that the documentary used their interview out of the context. While it is true that there is no guarantee that not a single dolphin will be killed, but by implementing the dolphin-safe tuna programs around the world, it caused the largest decline in dolphin deaths by tuna fishing vessels in history. In 1986, dolphin mortality peaked at 132,000 in the Eastern Tropical Pacific. After implementing the dolphin-safe program, improving fishing gear, mounting political, economical, and social pressures, the number of dolphin mortality fell to 819 documented deaths in 2018. However, there is still a lot of work to be done with the program. Furthermore, Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) is an independent, non-profit organization that tries very hard to be transparent about the certification process for sustainable seafood. In fact, their certification process is not carried out by the MSC; instead, it is carried out by independent third-party assessors. Multiple environmental non-governmental organizations also have seats on MSC’s advisory board to provide inputs/objections on certification decisions. All of their assessments of fisheries and finances can be viewed online by the public. Getting certified by MSC is not an easy process, and some fisheries spend many years improving their practices in order to reach MSC’s standards.
- The film had racist and xenophobic undertones by spending a lot of time shedding a bad light on Asian countries about their fishing practices. While it is easy to point a finger and accuse others of doing bad deeds, we need to re-evaluate our accusations. Firstly, currently, 3.3 billion people rely on seafood as their primary source of protein, and this number is only expected to increase. But let’s assume you do agree with the claims of the film and want to create a world with no commercial fishing. And, it happens – there is no commercial fishing. What do the 3.3 billion seafood-reliant humans eat? Plants? Ok, how do we grow them? Where? Not all countries have land they can farm on nor can they afford the luxury of importing food from other places. Because these people rely heavily on seafood, they are most invested in the success of fish populations and sustainable fishery because their survival depends on it. Secondly, many of these Asian countries that the film is publicly shaming are catching fishes for who? Us, the western countries, the white people. We engorge on a limitless supply of seafood thus creating a demand that allows other countries to supply without seeing firsthand of our effects on the ocean and those countries who rely on fishes.
- The film offered a solution to all of the issues… to stop eating fish altogether. This is unrealistic considering not all of us have the privilege to stop eating fish and choose other food options. This is a position that only a small fraction of the population of wealthier countries can take. Furthermore, a complete halt to fish-eating habits would only substitute one set of environmental and social issues for another, because all food production has impacts and can be damaging if it is done irresponsibly. Basically, if you eat less fish, you will, in turn, eat more red meat or plants as a substitute. For example, increased land production – if done irresponsibly – can lead to the destruction of natural plant ecosystems (e.g., forests, grasslands), and deaths of animals through clearings and processing of crops. Rather than not eating any seafood, or plants for that matter, an essential part of the solution is to look at the performance of individual food producers (such as fishers and farmers), and encourage them to improve their own practices and reduce their specific impacts.
- The film’s solution of not eating fish also ignores a larger underlying issue of them all. The larger, underlying issue is human overpopulation. We are blaming non-white people for causing problems to our ocean and our planet while we continue to reproduce at a staggering rate. These environmental issues are warning signals that we have overpopulated and the Earth cannot sustain the massive number of humans. Instead, we should focus on limiting ourselves and finding ways to live in harmony with other species on Earth.
Last but not least of all points we have made… the film’s oversimplification and egregious claims about our ocean’s health and fishing industry show great disrespect to scientists, advocates, and fishers who’ve been working to make fisheries better for a long time and are successful in doing so.
To sum it up… We need to be more responsible with information sharing to make sure the information highlights the issue properly without taking things out of context and recognize the progress we have made since then. While it is important to recognize the issues, we cannot trivialize the complexity of issues with simple solutions. We need to create realistic solutions that, with time, are measurable, achievable, and customized to various situations. Collectively, we have been and are still working towards a better, healthier planet.
