Seaspiracy — Stunning Ocean Life Endangerment Documentary on Netflix

Ocean Life is slowly dying. Without ocean life our ecosystem will topple, humans will become extinct.

This is something I felt that has to be shared to bring awareness to what is happening to this world around us, especially our oceans and seas, where the fishing industry is purposely endangering marine life, with no regard to the ecological systems in our oceans. They are emptying the oceans of the fish and trashing the ocean floors with plastic garbage, and destroying coral reefs, which can seriously affect human life on this planet because we are interdependent on ocean life for our survival.

I watched “SEASPIRACY,” an oceans documentary made by Ali and Lucy Tabrizi, along with Kip Andersen. It depicts how the governments of various nations and marine life conservation non-profits are turning a blind eye to the raping and pillaging of our seas and oceans. This documentary absolutely horrified, shocked, and stunned me. I am still processing what I saw. This documentary is certainly not for the faint of heart. Please don’t watch it with your kids present.

My Caption: A brilliant poster of the planet (we, humans) putting our crushing weight on the fish of the sea and marine life, wiping out the ocean’s delicate ecosystem in the process. Featuring Ali Tabrizi, the Director of Seaspiracy, who filmed this documentary with Lucy Tabrizi, and Kip Andersen. Photo credit: Mothership

I have decided to do my part by writing about it and sharing this, so others can watch this documentary and decide for themselves how they can help save the oceans. New York Times called the documentary “a cheap imitation of hard-hitting investigative journalism”. I don’t agree. I personally found Ali’s documentary to be a bit hurried and had a choppy, rushed effect, but it certainly was not “a cheap imitation of hard-hitting investigative journalism.” Rather, I justify it as Ali Tabrizi trying to cram in as much information as he could, as he kept finding additional layers of how the fishing industry is raping the oceans and marine life on this beautiful planet, which sustains all life, we call Earth.

ASIDE: I think what New York Times expected was some snobbish coverage of the issue at hand. Instead, this documentary is simple to the core, just states the problem and displays the butchery and rape of marine life going on in plain sight. I think New York Times was expecting some highfalutin persona with a dramatic voice-over. None of that is present in this documentary. Who gave New York Times the right to set journalistic standards anyways? We may never know. They just assumed that judgment seat of power for themselves. (No offense, NYT, this freedom of speech, expression, writing, ya-da, ya-da, goes both ways).

The documentary starts off with Ali Tabrizi stating his love and awe for the oceans, (the largest carbon sink on the planet) the mysterious seas, the wondrous beauty, and the coexistence of marine life, which provides oxygen for all living beings on earth. He talks about how Jacques Costeau and a few others inspired his love for the sea and ocean life.

The oceans are a mysterious place. I read somewhere that Scientists and Oceanologists have knowledge of only 12% of marine life. The rest 88% is shrouded in mystery. Photo by Nariman Mesharrafa on Unsplash

Then he states that most Marine Life Preservation non-profits are turning a blind eye to the ravaging of the oceans. For example, did you know that only 0.03% of the world’s straws go into the oceans? Yet Hollywood and many of the non-profits made such a hue and cry about banning the use of straws. The problem of plastic invading our oceans is much worse. And the culprit is not straws. It’s plastic and nylon fishing nets. But, as Ali Tabrizi says, all the marine-related non-profits, who claim their mission is to save marine life and saving the ocean species, are keeping quiet (mum) on the subject. Maybe, some of them are quietly doing their part, by cleaning the ocean’s beaches of plastic waste. They are turning a blind eye to the real problems the ocean's ecosystem is facing at the hands of the fishing industry. They are instead driving dramatic narratives that are meaningless and intended to collect/raise funds for worthless causes.

This is the trash Angela Compagnone found on a beach in Spain, plastic bottles, straws, and fishing nets. Photo by Angela Compagnone on Unsplash

Take-away Points from this documentary “Seaspiracy”:

1. Governments are subsidizing the fishing industry, so this results in overfishing and illegal fishing, without a limit.
2. Straws are only 0.03% of the ocean’s polluting waste. Over 90% are fishing nets, fishing gear, equipment, and other types of plastics. Yet Ocean and Marine Life Activists are yelling “Fire” and pointing out things they want you to see and turning a blind eye to the rest of the problems.
3. Sea farms are the highest rated in pollution. The fish they grow swim in circles, in their own waste. These fish (especially salmon) are infested with lice, which eat the fish alive as they swim in this putrid, stinking water. Salmon meat is colored with Astaxanthin, a reddish pigment that belongs to a family of chemicals called Carotenoids. Astaxanthin helps people with Diabetes, Heart Disease, improves Blood Pressure, manages High Cholesterol, and helps with Heart Damage Repair. So that part is good. ** More below on Carotenoids.
4. The sea and marine life are filled with industrial pollutants of all types, including automobile waste, used tires, scrap metal, fishing nets, chemical waste, and industrial run-offs into rivers, streams, that finally enter the seas and oceans, polluting all marine life.
5. The Plastics in our oceans disintegrate over time broken down into micro-plastics by bacteria which are then absorbed into the fish, shrimp, lobsters, and the squid that we eat, poisoned seafood on our dinner tables.
6. Tuna is being driven into extinction by the overfishing of this species. Now they are only 3% of our sea’s population. Very soon, the Tuna will become extinct. A single Bluefin tuna is sold as high as $3,000,000. *see more details below.
7. Fishing nets were found in the stomachs of many dead whales. This pollution is seriously getting out of hand.
8. Fish, Pods of whales, dolphins, sense fear and they panic when their families are hunted by large shipping vessels. Their slaughter is inhumane and unnecessary. Dolphins, Whales, Fish, and all animals have nervous systems and they can feel pain.
9. Japanese fishermen are responsible for the killing of whales and dolphins in large numbers. The only reason why these dolphins are being killed is that they eat fish in large numbers. These fishermen want all the fish in the sea for themselves, so they keep getting rid of the gluttonous dolphins. (from their point of view).
10. The fishing industry fishes day and night without rest. They are constantly emptying the oceans of fish, without giving the oceans a chance to breathe or repopulate. If this keeps happening, soon the oceans will be empty of all life.
11. Fishing trawlers are dragging the ocean, destroying coral reefs, and making wastelands at the bottom of these oceans destroying all marine life in their path. This is irresponsible fishing and trashing of the oceans. None of the marine life conservation societies and non-profits seem to be concerned or do anything about it, because they are up against a powerful fishing industry with billions of dollars in their pockets.
12. The fishing industry won’t admit it, but the poorest of the poor are taken on these fishing ships and boats and forced to live in filthy conditions. They are sometimes kept on those boats for six to ten years without seeing land. They are not paid, they are given little food, clothes, or necessities. These human beings are put to forced labor, equivalent to modern-day slavery, with no governments regulating such illegal activities that violate human rights and dignity to the core.
13. Local Fishermen living in smaller nations often go hungry because the large fishing boats and trawlers have left nothing behind for them to catch and sell. So if there’s no fish to catch, these fishermen are out of a job. They resort to hunting wild animals, whatever they can find, including rats, to appease their hunger. In turn, the local population is vulnerable to catching strange diseases from such wild animals, which can then spread across the world in the form of a global pandemic.
14. Sharks are being de-finned and dropped into the sea. These handicapped sharks then die by drowning in the water because they cannot balance without fins, which are required to swim. The shark fins are prized for their potency and medicinal value. Sharks are scavengers of the sea, and they take care of all the dead waste in the sea, maintaining the ecological balance. If these sharks are hunted without limit in large numbers, day and night, soon we will have a festering, putrid sea, with dead animals rotting, and no sharks to feed on them. (It’s like not taking out trash from your home, twice a week, but letting it rot in your kitchen).

Sharks eat all kinds of waste. They keep the oceans clean. An absence of sharks will mean the increased pollution of marine life. Photo by Alex Rose on Unsplash

15. Mangroves are being displaced by the Shrimp and Crawfish Industry. Marshlands have a delicate ecosystem that can be easily upset by constant human activity.

Mangroves and Marshlands present a delicate ecosystem with living creatures, both marine life, and birds which depend on marine life. It’s not for us humans to intervene constantly and disrupt this delicate balance. Photo by Curioso Photography on Unsplash

16. “By-catch” is a term the fishing industry uses lightly to hide how many dolphins, whales, sea porpoises, seals, manatees, sharks, and other mammals, including birds get killed, in the process of netting fish. That number is in the tens of thousands, across the planet.

• The bluefin tuna story is just one topic that can be broached in detail. I am sure there are documentaries on this alone. “The Atlantic bluefin tuna is a species of tuna in the family Scombridae. It is variously known as the northern bluefin tuna, giant bluefin tuna [for individuals exceeding 150 kg ], and formerly as the tunny. Atlantic bluefins are native to both the western and eastern Atlantic Ocean, as well as the Mediterranean Sea.” (Source: Wikipedia) Weight: 550 Lbs / 250 Kgs.

I admit I have eaten Tuna, they are delicious fish to eat. But we need responsible fishing of this beautiful fish. Photo by Kate on Unsplash

• The grind, which was the most sickening of all, where people slaughter a whole pod of whales, mammals of the sea, akin to dolphins. I know these people must kill whales to live. I understand it’s their way of living. But they can choose to eat fish like the rest of us and leave the mammals alone. When Ali Tabrizi interviewed a fisherman, he justified it in terms of taking 1 life instead of taking the lives of 2000 chickens. His justification was 1 Whale = 2000 chickens being slaughtered daily. But what this fisherman did not understand was that Whales do more good for the oceans and marine life, than 2,000 chickens combined. The killing of whales is called “The Grind.”

Whales are mammals, they live together as a family. They are responsible for balancing the ecology of Ocean life. Melon-headed Whale (Peponocephala Electra) Photo by NOAA on Unsplash

• Here’s the definition of grind, “The grind”, (Link features a video by Pete Bethune on YouTube, 2:19 Minutes long) is the killing of pilot whales and some white-sided and bottle-nosed dolphins, that dates back 1,000 years on the “Faroe” islands. It can happen at any time. When someone spots a pod of mammals, none of which are on the endangered list, they alert the so-called “grind master” who then starts the hunt.” The Faroe Islands (link features a 12:15 minute video on the islands, by Allan Su) one of the most beautiful places on earth, with friendly people, called the Faroese, “is a self-governing archipelago, part of the Kingdom of Denmark. These islands comprise 18 rocky, volcanic islands between Iceland and Norway in the North Atlantic Ocean, connected by road tunnels, ferries, causeways, and bridges. Hikers and bird-watchers are drawn to the islands’ mountains, valleys and grassy heathland, and steep coastal cliffs that harbor thousands of seabirds.” (Wikipedia). But the people of these islands have a way of life that may seem barbaric to us, but it’s a way of life for them. They slaughter pods of whale families, in order to survive.
• Added 4/12/2021: If you have the stomach to see images of whale carnage, copy-paste “hvannasund whale” into Google Images. It’s swift and instant death for these panicked, terror-stricken whales. This horror that these whales experience beats a Stephen King novel.
• Added 4/13/2021: Over 100 Million Sharks are being de-finned each year — Source: Our Planet, Netflix. Narrated by David Attenborough.

The Faroe Islands is self-governed, situated between Scotland and Iceland, but belongs to Denmark. Source: Google Maps.

How Can We Save The Oceans:

We, as humans, have to realize that we are interdependent on ocean life. Depleting and wiping out marine life will make us extinct. We need to fish responsibly, not trash our oceans with plastic waste, re-educate our fishing industry, show them how important it is to think of keeping our oceans clean for the survival of our species and the planet itself. Emptying the oceans of marine life will cause our planet to shrivel up and die from the inside out. We need to stop poisoning our rivers, seas, and oceans with chemicals, and industrial pollutants. We are one collective living and breathing organism, whether you realize it or not.

Watch this documentary Seaspiracy now on NETFLIX. * Warning: Please don’t watch it with your kids.”

What you can do to save the Oceans and Marine Life:

1. Watch the Documentary.
2. Decide how you want to help. (write a blog, a short post, share the movie)
3. Decide to eat fish responsibly. Change your source to freshwater fish.
4. Share and raise awareness on social media outlets.
5. Join the movement.
6. Join Seashepherd, a Marine Conservation Organization, and keep updated.
7. Visit: www.seaspiracy.org to learn more, how you can do your part to save the oceans from certain death. PLEASE do your part, I urge you.
8. Research more on Ocean life and keep raising awareness on the importance of protecting marine life and the planet’s ecological system.
9. Seaspiracy just launched a petition to get world leaders to protect 30% of our ocean by 2030! Sign it here: http://change.org/seaspiracy Make your voice heard!

* More on Carotenoids: These naturally occurring chemicals are pigments found in plants, algae, and photosynthetic bacteria. These pigments produce bright yellow, red, and orange colors in the skin of plant leaves, vegetables, and fruits. Carotenoids act as a type of beneficial antioxidant for humans. There are more than 600 different types of carotenoids, identified so far.

-The End-