90% of fish are “fished out”

An environmentally focused documentary, ‘The End of the Line’, caused quite a stir before its release to the general public yesterday, which was World Ocean Day.

The documentary addresses the dwindling number of wild fish in the world’s oceans, by matching hard facts about the decrease in numbers of fish with brilliant scenes of fish travelling in the bright ocean depths.

According to the film’s statistics, since 1989 the world’s wild fish population has declined drastically, with 90% of fish reported to have been fished out.

In contrast, the fishing fleets are 250% more than is sustainable given the ocean’s actual size.

One fish addressed by the film, that is not sustainable, is the tuna fish, and in response Julian Metcalfe, who co-founded the Pret A Manger chain, has yanked tuna from his menu.

Metcalfe stated that his company will support the sustainable fish industry and efforts to help keep fish supply health by only using sustainable Alaskan salmon on their menu and completely taking all tuna off the menu including those found in sushi boxes.

With Pret having a heavy influence on the market, other major sandwich chains are expected to also drop tuna from their menu offerings as the public starts to openly view the film.

Metcalfe is not the only person taking the film’s content seriously, as Emilia Fox and Greta Scacchi have stripped naked to bring attention to the cause, in the same way that models stripped for the anti-fur movement.

Celebrity chef Gordon Ramsey has also decided to ban bluefin tuna at all of his restaurants and several celebrities such as Charlize Theron and Sting are boycotting a popular Michelin Japanese restaurant named Nobu in tinsel town until it quits serving tuna.