5 things the “seafood” industry doesn’t want you to know.

To meet consumer demand for “seafood”, fish suffer by the trillions – and the suffering sadly goes far beyond the fish you see at the grocery store and in restaurants…

To empower people to make fully informed choices about what they eat, it’s crucial to understand the often-overlooked realities of the fishing and farmed fish industries. Here are five critical facts everyone deserves to know:

Sea animals taken from their ocean homes suffer painful deaths. For some, the change in pressure can cause their eyes and internal organs to burst. If they survive this, they may be crushed to death under the weight of other animals in the enormous nets. For most, death comes as they slowly suffocate on the decks of ships.

Caring consumers would never stand for this extreme suffering of animals on land – but out in the middle of the ocean, no one can see their suffering.

There is still much to be discovered about marine animals and how they experience their watery world. What is known however, is that fish are inquisitive and emotionally complex individuals – they even have friends! Sadly, their ability to think, feel, and suffer, is so often overlooked.

Fish aren’t the only animals who suffer due to commercial fishing practices. Huge fishing nets and longlines with thousands of hooks are indiscriminate, and millions of animals – including dolphins, sea birds, sharks, turtles, and rays – suffer every year as ‘collateral damage’.

After being trapped and pulled on deck, if these “non-target” animals are still alive, they can be thrown back into the ocean while injured, in shock, or slowly dying, making them extremely vulnerable to being preyed upon.

Ghost nets and other fishing-related plastics are polluting the sea. According to a Greenpeace report, fishing ‘ghost gear’ makes up the majority of large ocean plastics (by weight). A different study in 2018 analysing the contents of the world’s largest floating patch of garbage, ‘the great Pacific garbage patch’, discovered that nearly half of it was discarded or lost fishing nets.

This lost and discarded gear is life-threatening to marine animals – they can easily become entangled in floating plastic and die slow, painful deaths, or be predated upon when unable to escape. In June 2024, a humpback whale was discovered off the coast of Gippsland Victoria, tangled in 800kg of fishing equipment and rope.

As well as entangling fish, plastic is also being ingested. Large plastic in the ocean breaks down into microplastics, which is not only a threat to animals, but also to humans too. Scientists have found microparticles of plastic in the bodies of humans as a result of eating fish and other sea animals who commonly ingest plastic by accident.

Australia’s fishing industry has been called out for not allowing fish populations to recover, risking intricate ecosystems off Australia’s coast and throughout the high seas. Ultimately, consumer demand for “seafood” is the reason sea animals are being captured and killed at such a rate.

And it’s not only fishing practices for “wild-caught” that are the problem; the farmed fish industry uses commercially caught wild fish as feed. 

Just like pigs and chickens in factory farms, sea animals in farms are forced to endure lives of deprivation and painful procedures. Fish confined in farm pens have been found to suffer from depression and essentially “give up on life”. Female prawns farmed in Australia and across the globe have their eye stalks sliced off – usually without pain relief – just to make them breed faster.

Surrounding wildlife who gravitate to fish farms in search of food aren’t safe from harm either…

In an attempt to prevent these animals from eating penned fish, the industry uses ‘deterrents’ such as lead-filled projectiles, sedation darts, explosive charges or “crackers”. Even protected seals are being shot at, with incidences of them being blinded, deafened and even killed as a result.

The ability of sea animals to suffer is ignored by the industries that catch and farm them. The kindest and most sustainable choice we can make is to leave sea animals in their ocean homes where they belong.

By opting for ocean-inspired dishes that are friendlier to all, you can help protect marine life while enjoying classic dishes with a twist, from plant-based ‘fish and chips’ to ‘crabcakes’!