Sally Kneidel Ph.D.--
My husband, an ecologist, keeps a list of people whose professions match their names, such as peanut specialist Shelly Nutt, ornithologist Christopher Bird, editor Zachary Read. But the best is Dr. Boris Worm, a marine biologist at Canada's Dalhousie University. He's always been our favorite, because we loved the bizarre marine worms we learned about in grad school.
Abundance of marine fish has decreased 90%
So I was thrilled to finally see Dr. Worm, on screen. He is perhaps the "star" of the new and excellent documentary The End Of The Line: Where Have All The Fish Gone? Worm is much more charming than his name might suggest, but the news he delivered was bad. A dogmatic researcher, Also Available Through: itunes.com/movies/theendoftheline Worm analyzed Japanese fish-capture records gathered over several decades, looking for trends in numbers of marine fish. What he found was disturbing, to say the least. Since "large scale fishing" began in 1952, the abundance of large oceanic fish has decreased globally by 90%!
Worm said that when he first realized the magnitude of what we've lost, "it sent shivers down my spine."
The angels would weep
What exactly is "large scale fishing?" The documentary does a wonderful job of impressing upon the viewer the magnitude and power of today's modern fishing techniques. "High-tech industrial vessels are hunting down every known edible species of fish," said narrator Ted Danson. Too many boats with too much capacity are chasing too few fish. For example, the "long-lining industry" sets 1.4 billion hooks annually, on heavy-duty fishing …
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