The Devastating Impact of Trawling Revealed in World-First Footage of Marine Animals Fleeing Nets
In a shocking revelation, a world-first documentary film has captured the devastating impact of bottom trawling on marine ecosystems. The footage, featured in Sir David Attenborough’s latest film OCEAN, shows fish, cephalopods, and rays fleeing in terror as a trawler’s net scrapes the seabed, causing widespread destruction.
According to Enric Sala, marine ecologist and Executive Producer and Scientific Advisor on OCEAN, this footage is a game-changer. "I’ve been working on marine conservation science for over 35 years, and we did the research that showed that bottom trawling, by churning the sediment on the sea floor, produces carbon dioxide emissions that are on the scale of global aviation every year," he told IFLScience. "I have seen the bycatch on the deck of trawlers, but like everybody else, I had never seen what the trawl does underwater."
The film’s director and producer, Toby Nowlan, agrees. "This hit me in the guts. Being at the level of the net and seeing all these poor creatures trying to escape the net," Sala said. "We had all this info, all this data that hits the brain, but this hit me in the guts. Being at the level of the net and seeing all these poor creatures trying to escape the net, that’s something that nobody else had seen. What the film does so powerfully is that now people can see for themselves, right? It’s not about believing one side or another. People can see by themselves, and they can make up their minds about this practice."
A 2017 study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that trawling the ocean floor can strip it of up to 41 percent of the seabed fauna, a loss in biodiversity that can take over six years to recover. Around a quarter of all wild-caught seafood is caught using trawlers each year, giving you an idea of the scale of this destruction.
The damage caused by trawling is not limited to the immediate area. In fact, the destruction is visible from space. Satellite imagery has captured trails of devastation, with sediment trails spanning tens of kilometers, each marking the destruction of an ecosystem that can take years to recover.
"It’s as destructive as bulldozing your local ancient woodland, or the Amazon rainforest," Nowlan said. "We’re talking about something that was invented off the south coast of the UK 700 years ago. Back then, it was done with little sailboats, but we knew it was a bad thing. There were letters of complaint to the king because of the bycatch that was brought up on deck."
The practice of trawling has been ongoing for centuries, with little change. However, Nowlan believes that it could end tomorrow if we choose it to. "That’s why this was such a big mission to bring this clearly on screen for the first time, because this is something that doesn’t have to happen in our marine protected areas. It could end tomorrow, if we choose it to, and it would be to the benefit of every living thing on the planet."
OCEAN, featuring Sir David Attenborough, airs Sunday 8 June at 8 pm on National Geographic and streams the same day on Disney+, and is available in select cinemas now. The film’s message is clear: it’s time for change. As Attenborough said, "After almost 100 years on the planet, I now understand the most important place on Earth is not on land, but at sea." Could now finally be the time for that change we’ve waited 700 years for?
The petition to end bottom trawling in Marine Protected Areas can be found online.
