“What Netflix’s Seaspiracy gets wrong about fishing, explained by a marine biologist.” Daniel Pauly is a marine biologist, fisheries scientist, and professor at the University of British Columbia and a member of the board of directors of Oceana.

“I wanted to like Seaspiracy, the recent Netflix documentary that has lots of people talking about the damage that industrial fisheries inflict on the oceans and our souls. Since premiering on March 24, the movie has made its way onto (and off) Netflix’s Top 10 watch lists in a number of countries, and everyone from Tom Brady to Wells Fargo analysts have weighed in.”

“For decades, I have been writing and speaking about the damage Seaspiracy depicts …. While much progress has been made, far too many people still have no idea of the problems facing the oceans. So, the prospect of a popular film on Netflix that could make the threat of destructive fisheries meaningful for its 200 million subscribers is something I welcomed.”

Pauly notes that the film includes “all the damning evidence and dramatic footage required to make the important point that industrial fishing is — throughout the world — a too often out-of-control, sometimes criminal enterprise that needs to be reined in and regulated. In this, it reinforces and shares with a wide audience a knowledge that is widespread in the ocean conservation community, but not in the public at large.”

However, having considered the “avalanche of falsehoods … questionable interviewing techniques” and wrongly assigning blame, which all undermine the rest of the film he surmises that “overall Seaspiracy does more harm than good.”  Click here.

His views were quickly endorsed by other reputable marine scientists, with Boris Worm tweeting “Thank you Daniel Pauly for saying what many of us were thinking but could not articulate as clearly as you did: What Netflix’s Seaspiracy gets wrong about fishing”.

Nevertheless, Pauly goes on to conclude with the observation that “Governments make the decisions that shape the oceans. The problem we face, really, is that not enough people are involved and helping to push for better decisions and better policies.”  Well, love Seaspiracy or loathe it, errors or no, courtesy of this film, many more now are aware and involved, and those people who are so shocked by the film are voters.