What Is the Fishing Industry and Why Is It Bad? Facts and Statistics

Fish are unique animals with complex inner lives: they communicate with one another, recognize human faces, and even feel excitement when they see other fish. They also have the ability to suffer, just like land animals do. However, our broken food system forces billions (maybe even trillions) of these sentient individuals to suffer for human consumption every year.

And, sadly, the fishing industry doesn’t only harm the fish who are killed for the seafood market. Countless other marine animals die as “unintended” bycatch in reckless fishing operations, or they lose their lives to the fishing industry’s widespread ocean pollution and habitat destruction. The fishing industry is damaging our ocean beyond recovery—all for the pursuit of maximum profit.

What is the fishing industry?

For the past 40,000 years, humans have caught and eaten fish, with fishers gathering their equipment, taking to the water, and waiting hours to reel in the perfect catch. However, global demand for seafood products has turned fishing into a multi-billion dollar industry.

While the fishing industry traditionally relied on catching fish in their natural ocean habitats, in recent years, its practices have transformed completely. Industrial fishing operations breed thousands of fish specifically for human consumption and keep them in crowded tanks or pens. Now, this kind of factory fish farming dominates the seafood market, raising many ethical and environmental concerns.

What is aqua farming?

Aquaculture refers to the farming of fish and other marine species in barren, overcrowded tanks or pens—a far cry from the freedom of the sea. Aquaculture is highly industrialized, subjecting fish to the same intensive confinement as factory farms on land. Aquatic farms cram thousands of individual fish into small tanks or nets, making it so these fish can barely move. The overcrowding and filth make water a breeding ground for nasty parasites and pathogens. One particular parasite, sea lice, spreads rapidly and feasts on fish’s flesh and blood, causing painful lesions.

And though fish farms and wild-capture fishing operations may seem far removed from the factory farms on land, these profit-driven industries share a close connection. The fishing industry turns 20 million pounds of fish into fishmeal—ground-up fish bones and flesh commonly used for animal feed—each year. These “protein pellets” provide factory farmers a cheap way to feed chickens and pigs before they go to slaughter. And, in a grotesque and cruel cycle, 70% of fishmeal actually goes back into aquaculture. That’s right: wild-caught fish are killed, processed, and fed to other fish.

Although these abuses are shocking, the fishing industry overlooks the welfare of fish entirely in its pursuit of profit. It doesn’t even measure fish as individuals—they only refer to fish as “tons.” Farms raise and kill over 100 million tons of fish each year, generating over [271 billion](https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2021/01/13/2158043/0/en/Global-Fish-Farming-Market-to-Reach-376-48-billion-by-2025-AMR.html "Global Fish Farming Market to Reach 376.48 billion by 2025: AMR") in profits for the industry as a whole. Economists project that the industry’s profits will grow at least $100 billion more by 2025. The industry derives all of this profit from the pain and suffering of sentient beings, who it treats as mere raw material.

Why is the fishing industry bad?

Commercial fishing harms countless marine species and habitats. Although humans cannot see the extent of the fishing industry’s destruction, the entire planet will feel its effects as vital ocean ecosystems disappear.

Bottom trawling

Bottom trawling is the practice of dragging an open fishing net along the ocean floor. While trawling nets target species such as cod, shrimp, and prawns, these moving deathtraps catch any animal that crosses their path.

The indiscriminate practice of bottom trawling especially harms sea turtles, who forage at the bottom of the ocean floor for food. When they get entangled in a bottom trawling net, turtles can suffer from broken shells and bones from the sheer weight of fish bearing down on top of them. They become fearful and stressed as they try—unsuccessfully—to escape the net. Many sea turtles drown from being trapped underwater for so long, and those that make it to the surface risk injury as they’re dropped onto the hard deck of a ship.

Sea turtles are just one example of the harms of bottom trawling. If we consider how bottom trawling damages ocean floor ecosystems that animals rely on for survival, its impact becomes even more devastating.

Damage to the ocean floor

Much like the land above water, the ocean floor is anything but dull and flat—its topography varies from plains to mountains, providing home to underwater plants and sea life. And, just as humans irreversibly destroy land above water for agriculture and other industries, humans are leaving the ocean floor unrecognizable, too.

Bottom trawling erodes the ocean floor, removing sediments. These deep-sea sediments contain a diverse array of marine invertebrates, and they offer rich foraging grounds for larger fish to feed on. And, their benefits extend far beyond nourishing marine life. Like our planet’s forests, ocean floor habitats absorb and store carbon dioxide (CO₂) from the atmosphere, helping us combat climate change. When bottom trawlers damage these environments, the seabed releases this stored CO₂. Scientists estimate that bottom trawling unleashes the same amount of CO₂ into the atmosphere as air travel.

Scientists also rely on ocean floor sediments to understand climate change. They study samples from the seafloor to uncover how human activity impacts our oceans. Their research on seafloor composition informs decisions on environmental protection and policy. By leaving less and less of these marine sediments intact, the fishing industry doesn’t just accelerate climate change—it takes away our potential to do something about it.

In addition to damaging the seafloor itself, bottom trawling also damages the habitats on top of it. Coral reefs are especially vulnerable to the effects of bottom trawling, as the nets tangle in corals and sweep up the fish who live there. These vibrant habitats normally burst with biodiversity, providing home to everything from microscopic invertebrates to big, flowering anemones. However, as bottom trawlers plunder these ecosystems, their biodiversity disappears.

Longline fishing

Longline fishers stretch nets with baited hooks across miles of ocean. The nets typically target tuna fish, but, like bottom trawlers, longlines indiscriminately capture and kill. In 2018, longlining brought in $8.4 billion for the fishing industry, accounting for 20% of the global catch by end value. But the practice severely harms the endangered southern bluefin tuna, a species that is barely starting to recover from years of overfishing.

Longline fishing also captures loggerhead and leatherback turtles, and the hooks painfully penetrate their mouths, necks, or flippers. Sometimes, turtles swallow entire hooks, and the hooks become lodged in their digestive tracts. This hinders the turtles’ feeding and digestion, leaving them at risk of starving to death. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species already lists loggerhead and leatherback turtles as vulnerable, and longline fishing further decimates their populations.

Seabirds also suffer the consequences of longline fishing. As they dive beneath the surface for food, seabirds get caught in longline fishing hooks and drown. Each year, an estimated 100,000 birds die in this horrific way due to longline fishing, further endangering species like the remarkable albatross.

Bycatch

We know that practices like bottom trawling and longline fishing claim the lives of iconic marine animals like sea turtles. In addition to turtles, species like sharks and dolphins face the most danger of becoming “bycatch”—animals who are unintentionally captured by fishing equipment. Even though bycatch impacts millions of fish and marine animals, the fishing industry doesn’t report on it.

As apex predators, sharks are critically important to the balance of ocean ecosystems, but they are rapidly disappearing. A combination of bycatch and deliberate fishing kills up to 270 million sharks each year, permanently altering the underwater ecosystems they call home and endangering some shark species beyond recovery.

The fishing industry also devastates dolphins and whales, two species of beloved and charismatic marine mammals. Recent research estimated that commercial fishing killed over 80% of dolphins in the Indian Ocean, as they became tangled in nets meant to catch tuna. Although tragic, these examples only represent a small fraction of the fishing industry’s victims.

Toxic water conditions

Industrial fishing practices harm ocean ecosystems long after the catch is reeled in. Fishing operations abandon old nets and gear in the water, leaving them to ensnare marine life and contaminate the oceans with plastic for decades. This lost and discarded fishing gear—known as “ghost gear”—represents the largest source of plastic pollution in our oceans. In fact, fishing nets account for almost half of the contents of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a collection of floating ocean trash that is larger than the size of Texas.

Aquaculture farms keep fish away from their natural habitats, but their impacts extend far beyond their operations and into the ocean. Crowded and filthy fish farms create the perfect conditions for diseases to spread. A study found that disease-causing viruses and bacteria were twice as common in areas surrounding salmon farms. Parasites like sea lice escape from factory fish farms and impact wild fish populations. Sea lice infestations are painful and sometimes deadly, and they are growing more common as factory fish farms expand their operations.

Overfishing

Simply put, overfishing occurs when fish are caught and killed at a faster rate than their populations can replenish. Species that are slow to reproduce, like sharks, suffer the most from overfishing.

Overfishing happens at more than one-third of the world’s fisheries. Commercial fishers will decimate fish populations to profit in the short term, ignoring the fact that the practice destroys ocean ecosystems in the long term. This irresponsible fishing hurts marine life, habitats, and human communities that depend on the oceans for survival.

Illegal Fishing

Governments try to regulate the fishing industry to protect against overfishing, but this regulation has limitations. Commercial fishers continue to operate without licenses, kill populations in protected marine areas, and purposely leave catches unreported, despite regulations. Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated (IUU) fishing is rampant in the fishing industry: it accounts for over $23.5 billion worth of the seafood market every year. One study found in the US alone, an estimated 20-32% of seafood imports came from illegal catches.

Sadly, illegal fishing has a disproportionate impact on developing countries, as well as on those communities most dependent on the sea for food security and income.

Managing fishing

Overfishing and illegal fishing are plaguing our oceans. Fisheries continue to profit off of these reckless and dangerous practices because we lack the management and enforcement needed to stop them, especially in international waters.

When regulatory agencies and governments don’t have the resources to regulate ocean areas, these areas suffer from the negative impacts of overfishing and reduced biodiversity. In fact, a study by PEW Charitable Trusts found that “insufficient and ineffective management of industrial fishing” contributed to decreases in ocean biodiversity.

Illegal fishing has even taken a toll on marine protected areas (MPAs) critical marine habitats where fishing is prohibited due to lack of enforcement of protections. To prevent more damage to our ocean ecosystems, conservationists called on governments to expand MPAs to 30% of our world’s ocean area, as well as to dedicate more human and financial resources to meaningfully protect these areas from fishing.

Is the fishing industry cruel?

The fishing industry prioritizes profit above all else. Whether catching fish in the wild or raising them in a crowded factory fish farm, the industry operates with the same end goal: kill the maximum amount of fish in the shortest amount of time. Its reckless pursuit of profit leaves ocean environments damaged beyond recovery and inflicts massive amounts of suffering on marine life everywhere.

The industry tears 2.3 trillion wild fish from their ocean homes and kills them every year. These fish are not mindless creatures: each one is a unique individual. They have complex inner lives, social dynamics, and problem-solving skills. They will go to great lengths to care for and defend their babies, and they will even seek comfort from one another when they are stressed. As we learn more about fishes’ underwater lives, it becomes clear that they are not so different from the land animals we know and love.

And, like land animals, fish can feel pain. The commercial fishing industry inflicts pain on an unfathomable scale. When they are suddenly and violently pulled from their ocean homes, the rapid change in pressure their bodies experience causes decompression sickness—the same illness that scuba divers refer to as “the bends.” The resulting gas build-up can rupture fishes’ swim bladders, or cause blood clots and hemorrhaging.

After fish are reeled to the surface, they suffocate to death as they gasp for the oxygen they normally breathe as the ocean water passes over their gills. Their agonizing last moments can last anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours.

The pain extends far beyond the fish who the industry intends to catch. Many fish species need to move constantly so that they get a consistent flow of water over their gills. When they stop moving, they suffocate from lack of oxygen. Discarded fishing equipment like nets and longlines indiscriminately trap fish, leaving them to suffocate. Fish are not the only marine species that die in this way: sharks, dolphins, and turtles also fall victim to discarded fishing equipment. Entanglement kills an estimated 300,000 whales, dolphins, and porpoises each year.

The industry’s cruelty doesn’t stop at the pain it causes marine life. Investigations revealed slave labor in the fishing industry. Workers endure dangerous and filthy conditions aboard fishing vessels, spending long hours doing hard, manual labor without food or water. In interviews, workers shared that their bosses would dock their already extremely low wages, verbally threaten them, and sometimes physically assault them.

All of this exploitation and abuse goes on in order to bolster the multi-billion dollar global seafood market. When it comes to maximizing profits, there are no depths to which the fishing industry won’t sink.

Fishing industry facts and statistics

The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the global fishing industry, but it still generates massive amounts of profit year after year.

How much is the fishing industry worth worldwide?

Economists valued the global seafood market at over [159 billion](https://www.statista.com/statistics/821023/global-seafood-market-value/ "Global seafood market value") in 2019. They expect the industry’s profits to grow even larger, reaching an estimated 194 billion by 2027.

While commercial fishing still wreaks havoc on wild fish populations, aquaculture increasingly dominates the market. Fish farming, worth more than $285 million in 2019, now supplies the majority of the world’s fish supply.

What is the most farmed fish?

Aquaculture raises many different species of fish for human consumption, but tilapia and carp are the most commonly farmed.

Unlike other species, tilapia have the ability to stomach an unnatural diet of cheap corn and soy pellets, allowing them to gain weight quickly. Thus, fish farms can raise and kill tilapia at an exponential rate, keeping them in appalling, filthy, and overcrowded conditions throughout their short lives. In fact, The New York Times called tilapia “the perfect factory fish.” Today, China produces more farmed tilapia than any other country, and China accounts for the bulk of US tilapia imports.

The fishing industry in the United States

Economists valued the US fishing industry $9.62 billion in 2020. More than half of the 9.3 billion pounds of fish caught in the US in 2019 came from Alaska alone. As of 2020, the US is the world’s eighth-largest seafood exporter.

Shrimp is by far the most popular seafood in the US, with the average American consuming 4.6 pounds of shrimp each year. Both the wild fishing and farming of shrimp pose devastating ecological consequences, however, turning large pockets of the ocean into barren wasteland.

Fishing industry jobs

In 2018, over 59 million people worked in the world’s fisheries and aquaculture. Fish farming accounted for 20.5 million of those employees.

Like factory farms and slaughterhouses on land, the fishing industry subjects its workers to extremely dangerous working conditions. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) calls working in commercial fishing “one of the most dangerous occupations in the United States,” reporting an average of 42 deaths per year between 2000 and 2015. Almost half of these deaths were the result of a disaster involving a vessel, and 30% occurred when a worker fell overboard into the water.

Although big companies continue to rake in profits, small-town fishermen increasingly suffer from job instability and economic insecurity. As climate change and overfishing radically alters ocean ecosystems, entire stretches of ocean have become completely unviable for fishermen. Droughts in California have already driven some small fishing communities into economic distress.

What you can do

The fishing industry sees only the bottom line. It abuses workers and animals in the pursuit of billions of dollars of profit. It plunders ocean ecosystems, turning once-vibrant, diverse environments into barren wastelands, and weakening our planet’s defenses against climate change. However, we have the power to stand up to the fishing industry and put an end to its destruction.

When we leave fish off our plates, we take away the industry’s incentive to destroy ocean wildlife and our environments to meet global demand. Instead, we can opt for foods that are kinder to animals and the environment.

Innovations in plant-based seafood are challenging the fish industry, with companies offering fish-free, ocean-friendly versions of anything from sushi to fried shrimp. Some start-ups are even experimenting with “lab-grown” seafood, harvesting real fish cells to create authentic seafood without killing any fish.

Making the switch to compassionate, plant-based options doesn’t just benefit our oceans⸺it can make a huge difference for our whole planet, for animals, and for your health. Learn more and get started with our free plant-based starter guide.