Hacker Cinema
The End of the Line
2009 · Film · documentary · 86 min
Directed by Rupert Murray
Examines the devastating effect that overfishing has had on the world's fish populations and argues that drastic action must be taken to reverse these trends. Examines the imminent extinction of bluefin tuna, brought on by increasing western demand for sushi; the impact on marine life resulting in huge overpopulation of jellyfish; and the profound implications of a future world with no fish that would bring certain mass starvation.
4 positivefrom 4 commenters
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4 comments on Hacker News
I believe that when a fish population declines by 80–90% it never recovers, that's it. Even if you leave them alone. It happened to cod in Newfoundland.
The excellent 2009 documentary "The End of the Line" was the first place I heard discuss catastrophic fish population crashes, and it covers this dramatic topic and its very serious implications in detail. It also talks about the mind-boggling, almost unbelievable scale at which modern fishing vessels such as supertrawlers operate.
Frankly, I was horrified by what I learned about modern fishing watching this movie.
https://theendofthelinemovie.com/
I think this is a simplification which overlooks the parent point.
It seems reasonable that the gyres have always collected crap and sealife has avoided it. Now that crap is plastic.
But, the gyre already provides the function of avoid-getting-killed-by-plastic, so it's not clear why we should aggressively reduplicate that effort.
The garbage patch may offer benefits to the ecosystem which are not immediately obvious. Whereas, filtering is likely to damage the ecosystem in some ways.
Human record of tending to the ocean has not been very good and we're not good at predicting consequences. I recommend watching documentary film "The End of the Line" http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1176727/ before assuming that filtering is a panacea.
Make sure to watch the film The End of the Line: http://endoftheline.com/ - which explains the Canadian Cod collapse,the current state of affairs, and potential solutions.
Also take the time to watch some of the recent TED talks from Mission Blue which offer a good outline of the state of the ocean's and potential solutions.
http://www.tedprize.org/mission-blue-voyage/
This already well underway. The book & film "End of the Line" is well worth a read. Also the massive disruption of the eco-system by removing large numbers of species has un-predictable knock on effects - for example massive numbers of jelly fish in some areas and of course the algae/plankton population explosions which in turn effect the ecosystem to the detriment of other species.
There is also a lot of deception in the naming of fish. Fish species are renamed in order to make them sound like fish we are used to. The fish species you get in British Fish and Chip shops are rarely the species our parents and grandparents ate