Below, Rose George shares five key insights from her new book, Every Last Fish: A Deep Dive into Everything They Do for Us and We Do to Them.
Rose is a UK-based journalist and nonfiction author whose deeply reported books explore how overlooked global systems shape our lives.
What’s the big idea?
We’ve abused the oceans for centuries, but fish are sentient, ecosystems can recover, and the sea can heal—if we finally start protecting it.
1. Fish are not chips.
One of the most fascinating areas of research that has developed over the last 20 years has centered on the increasingly unavoidable truth that fish are not inanimate objects. They are creatures who laugh, sing, have mates, make art, and use tools. Some wrasses can pass the mirror mark test, which means they can recognize themselves in a mirror—proving that they are conscious of self and sentient.
As for the ongoing debate as to whether they feel pain, let me help: of course they can. When trout had acid injected into their lips, they exhibited clear distress behaviors (rubbing their heads against the wall of the tank). When those trout were given analgesics, they stopped.
One of the arguments for fishes not feeling pain is that they don’t have a central neocortex, as we do. But neither do birds, and no one is arguing that they can’t feel pain. I think the only reason this pain debate continues is because telling ourselves that they might not feel pain makes it easier to kill several trillion of them each year, thoughtlessly leaving them to suffocate to death on boat decks or stick hooks in their mouths.
2. Always question the label.
The seafood industry is expert at subterfuge. “Line-caught” does not mean the fish was caught by a cute fisherman on a small boat with a pole and rod, in bucolic waters. It means giant fishing vessels with lines that are fifty miles long which can catch sharks—who are highly endangered—and other bycatch such as turtles, seabirds, and anything that is lured by bait on a hook. This labeling trick works because consumers are willing to pay 22 percent more for “line-caught” fish.
“Fresh can mean anything.”
And what does “fresh” really mean? In UK law, there is no definition for what this means. Fresh can mean anything. Fresh fish would usually be more accurately described as “fishes that were caught five days ago and immediately frozen.” They may taste fine, but they are still five-days dead. Deceptive labeling, unfortunately, helps companies get away with charging higher prices.
3. Don’t assume it’s not happening close to home.
When you hear about “illegal fishing,” you probably assume it is carried out by foreign fleets who treat their workers horribly. But in 2016, the Associated Press did a devastating investigation into a fleet that did not allow its migrant employees to go ashore, ever. That fleet was in Hawai’i.
In 2022, I met three Ghanaian men who had been trafficked onto a scalloper and treated appallingly: they were given no bathroom breaks, if the captain was displeased with them, he cut off their Wi-Fi (but kept his working), and although the captain and the first mate had access to bottled water, the crew had to drink rusty water from a tank. This scalloper was operating off the English coast. Where did the fishing owner live? In a nice town in Scotland.
One in every five fish is illegally caught, and sometimes the workers doing that illegal catching are closer to home than you think.
4. Fishing is not a man’s industry.
You’ll rarely see a woman fishing on shows such as Deadliest Catch. There are women in the Alaskan fishing industry, but they are a minority. But just because women are not doing the fishing doesn’t mean they are not essential to the giant and growing seafood industry. They do the processing. They operate fishponds. At least half the workers in the seafood industry are women.
“Just because women are not doing the fishing doesn’t mean they are not essential to the giant and growing seafood industry.”
The Women in the Seafood Industry organization calls the seafood industry “male-dominated but female-intensive.” If women are put in charge of fishponds, the yield increases. What would happen if they were put in charge of fishing? Maybe the oceans’ creatures would be treated better. And maybe the word “fishwife” wouldn’t be a slur.
5. We are not helpless.
The facts about the state of ocean creatures are terrifying. For every 100 turtles that used to swim in the Caribbean, there is now only one. The glass eel population—once so numerous it was used as currency by medieval monks—has diminished by 95 percent. The UN organization UNCTAD thinks that “nearly 90 percent of the world’s fish stocks are now fully exploited, over exploited or depleted.” The ocean needs a break, and fishing needs some brakes.
This year, the oceans got one of the most important pieces of legislation in decades. The need for protection has been clear since the early 20th century, when fishing became, in the words of academic Chris Armstrong, “industrialized carnage.”
The Global Ocean Treaty could have sunk without a trace like so many other international agreements—but it’s different. Most importantly, it doesn’t require consensus, which is a hurdle that often stalls important treaties. Under the Global Ocean or High Seas Treaty, states can nominate parts of the high seas for protection. Only ten percent of global fishing happens in the high seas, but protecting ten percent of the ocean would still be a huge win.
“The ocean needs a break, and fishing needs some brakes.”
Another crucial change would be curbing the $35 billion in annual subsidies that nations give their fishing fleets. These subsidies let fleets fish farther and faster, putting unsustainable pressure on ocean life. Yet when even small areas of the ocean are protected from human activity, they rebound remarkably quickly. Fish populations recover, and juvenile fishes disperse beyond the protected zones, benefiting broader ecosystems.
The sea can heal itself if we just let it.
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