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Everybody is talking about Seaspiracy, an intense 90-minute documentary trending on Netflix, with some talking about never eating fish again.

On the other side of My Octopus Teacher, which was a lovely, heartwarming ocean-based film, is Seaspiracy, a harrowing documentary out to get the big catch.

I must admit, I’ve been put off the mere thought of chewing on a little salmon rose after watching director Ali Tabrizi reveal the true monster in our deep, dark oceans. Nope, not straws, or any single-use plastic for that matter.

It’s the fishing industry.

I always thought the sole focus on straws as a way to save the oceans was a bit fishy…

The doccie, which was made by the same people who were behind Cowspiracy, takes us on a heart-wrenching, gut-twisting journey from the dolphin cove in Taiji, Japan, all the way to the fish farms in Scotland, while questioning if sustainability is possible out at sea.

It turns out there’s way more to be concerned about when it comes to saving the seas; slavery and ‘blood shrimp’, fishing garbage making up 50% of the infamous ocean ‘garbage patches’, the killing of dolphins to make way for more (very lucrative) tuna, sea-bed deforestation worse than what we see in the Amazon, and tons of ocean species dying off as bycatch from large fishing operations.

As for that dolphin-safe label on your favourite tuna can, doubt is cast on the veracity of those claims, too.

After getting completely swept up in the current, it turns out there’s actually a fair amount of criticism from the NGOs and interviewees featured in the film. A few experts quoted in the film say that some of the statistics and claims were misleading, if not totally wrong.

As per The Guardian, Mark Palmer, the associate US director of the International Marine Mammal Project (IMMP) responsible for the Dolphin Safe tuna label, is adamant his comments were taken out of context:

“The film took my statement out of context to suggest that there is no oversight and we don’t know whether dolphins are being killed. That is not true.”

Is it worth mentioning that more labels = more money?

Ali Tabrizi responded:

“The label does not say 95% dolphin safe. It claims to be dolphin safe. In the words of Mark Palmer himself, ‘one dolphin and you’re out’. This wasn’t taken out of context.”

Another interviewee of the film, Prof Christina Hicks, an environmental social scientist at Lancaster University, tweeted his criticism:

“Unnerving to discover your cameo in a film slamming an industry you love and have committed your career to.”

There’s also the wild claim, as per The Telegraph, that the oceans will be empty of fish by 2048, which was and still is a questionable claim, from the first time it appeared in a paper written in 2006.

Here’s marine conservationist, Prof Callum Roberts, who is quoted in Seaspiracy:

“My colleagues may rue the statistics, but the basic thrust of it is we are doing a huge amount of damage to the ocean and that’s true. At some point you run out. Whether it’s 2048 or 2079, the question is: ‘Is the trajectory in the wrong direction or the right direction?’”

Ultimately, the documentary is creating a conversation, which is always good. Here’s the trailer:

Dubious claims and possibly out-of-context interviews aside, the effects of the film are still lingering.

I can’t help but take some big names in ocean conservation and environmentalism (the likes of Dr Sylvia Earle, Prof Callum Roberts, and George Monbiot) more seriously than some of the organisation and corporations being paid for blue ticks and tuna.

[sources:guardian&telegraph]