Sailor's discovery: 'The ocean is dead'
Sailor's discovery: 'The ocean is dead'
Kate Seamons, Newser 11:08 a.m. EDT October 21, 2013
As far as first-person tales go, Ivan Macfadyen's story of sailing from Melbourne to San Francisco is more than a little ominous. The yachtsman's springtime voyage was broken into two legs, with a stop in Osaka in the middle; it's a trip he made 10 years ago, but one that seemed unrecognizable this time around.
A decade ago, seabirds and fish surrounded the boat; this time, the air was empty, and in the 28 days it took to get to Japan, he caught just two fish.
But he was not alone: A large fishing boat made contact, handing him "five big sugar-bags full of fish," he tells the Newscastle Herald. "They were good, big fish," but much more than Macfadyen could eat or store. The fishermen explained they wanted only tuna; all the other dead by-catch was returned to the sea.
"They just trawled that reef day and night and stripped it of every living thing."
And that isn't the low-point of his story. After departing from Osaka, "it felt as if the ocean itself was dead." What he didn't see: the birds, sharks, dolphins, and fish that typically studded his voyage.
More:
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2013/10/21/newser-ocean-pollution-overfishing/3143007/
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