“Today’s commercial fishers use massive ships the size of football fields and advanced electronic equipment and satellite communications to track fish. These enormous vessels can stay out at sea for as long as six months, storing thousands of tons of fish onboard in massive freezer compartments. Commercial fishing has become a big business...commercial fishers kill hundreds of billions of animals every year—far more than any other industry."
Oh, PETA. Excellent cause. And so well-argued. Fishing is such a "big business" in the United States these days that the average fisherman brings home $28,280 a year and works in the occupation with the highest rate—by far—of fatalities on the job in the entire country. Commercial fishing is so gargantuan, in fact, that in 2007, it contributed just $34.2 billion to the United States GNP, which I think doesn't even warrant it a single percentage point.
But hey, cute fishie graphic. I myself like my sea kittens grilled and marinated with rosemary and basil-infused olive oil. Preferably fresh out of Nantucket Sound. Oh wait! There's only one commercial dragger left there. Damn.
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#1 by suzannah on December 2, 2008 - 7:01 pm
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I’m no fan of PETA, but you have to realize that the reason fishermen are broke and there’s only one trawler left in Nantucket Sound is because the fishing industry literally took all the fish that were left there. Overfishing is bad for fish, for the economy, and for the billion+ people on earth who depend on fish as their primary source of protein. 90 percent of big predator species – sharks, tuna, swordfish – are gone. Gone! We ate them. If we continue to fish at the rate we’re fishing now, all commercial fish species will be extinct or nearly so by the middle of this century.
The “sea kittens” stuff is vomity, of course. But as someone who works for a marine conservation nonprofit (disclosure time!), I can tell you the biggest challenge we face is getting people to care. Bluefin tuna aren’t whales or dolphins. But guess what! Whales won’t survive if we take all the fish out of the sea. The system just doesn’t work that way. Meanwhile, the poor individual fisherman has been replaced by multinational corporations that just care about that quarter’s bottom line. It’s bad all around.
PSA over!