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Commercial Fishing: How Fish Get From the High Seas to
Your Supermarket
Cruelty to Animals
Commercial fishing is cruelty to animals on an almost unimaginable
scale. Fish look so unlike humans that many people don’t
realize that they feel pain, just
as we do and lead complex intellectual
lives that rival those of dogs and some other mammals.
The way that these animals are treated by the commercial fishing
industry should make animal lovers everywhere give up their
taste for fish flesh for good.
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, and the methods
used to catch and kill the animals are as cruel as those used
by factory farmers or slaughterhouse operators. In fact, the
methods used to kill fish indicate that commercial fishers
see their prey as no more sentient than rocks on a mountain—and
the horrible cruelty that they inflict on hundreds of billions
of fish is completely unregulated.
Yet commercial fishers kill hundreds of billions of animals every year—far more than any other industry—and they’ve decimated our ocean ecosystems. In fact, 90 percent of large fish populations have been exterminated in the past 50 years and a recent report published in the academic journal Science, estimates that by the year 2048 our oceans will have been completely over-fished.
Lifeless oceans may encourage growth in the fish-farming industry but the FAO is concerned that even fish farming will not be able to meet the demand for fish, since farmed fish need to be fed 5 pounds of commercially-caught fish for every 1 found of fish flesh they produce. Click here to learn more.
Fishing Hurts Fish … and Other Animals, Too
Commercial fishing boats leave their ports in pursuit of specific
species of fish, but their hooks and nets bring up thousands
of pounds of other marine animals as well. Sharks, sea turtles,
birds, seals, whales, and other nontarget fish who get tangled
in nets and hooked by long-lines are termed “bycatch”
and are thrown overboard. They fall victim to swarming birds
or slowly bleed to death in the water. Scientists recently found that nearly 1,000 marine mammals—dolphins, whales, and porpoises—die each day after they are caught in fishing nets. By some estimates,
shrimp trawlers discard as much as 85 percent of their catch,
making shrimp arguably the most environmentally destructive
fish flesh a person can consume.
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“Some were still thrashing; some were too tired;
many were vomiting up their guts, their eyes bulging
from the pressure change. Some of these fish may have
been struggling in the nets for up to 24 hours. After
a few minutes, their gill arches were slit and they
were thrown into the next bin, where they twitched and
gasped, slowly bleeding to death. … It was not
long before I was covered with fish blood, vomit, and
guts.” 
Fish Flakes Trading Cards
"Take a Closer Look at Fish " Leaflet
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