If anyone's interested, the BBC showed an Attenborough documentary about the decline of the marlin tonight. I missed it, but it's available for download for free on BBCiPlayer
Sparkymark, any chance of you putting a link up to get this download thingy? Help a computer numpty week and all that? Please? Marlin is rubbish eating anyway, the reports of fishmeal over pillaging was disturbing too.
Managed to watch most of it. Very sad, but raises bigger issues than just the plight of a top of the food chain predator.
Same throughout the World and most ecosystems. The big predator is the showpiece and gets all the press, but the rest of the ecosystem needs to come first.
I've spent a lot of time studying similar issues in India, mainly to do with mahseer, but also involving tigers because of their iconic status. As far as the tigers go, there was a very famous paper written by Savyasaachi concluding that bees were the main indicator of the health of a tiger reserve. Unless the bees were protected, there was little that could be done to save tigers.
Similar with the billfish, more time needs to be spent protecting plankton, squid, anchovies etc.
It is very easy for us to sit in our comfortable Western homes and debate these issues, but basically there are too many people vying for too few resources on the planet. Even things like plastic useage have a huge effect on the ecosystem that the billfish inhabit.
For further revealing (depressing!) insight into the fate of the seas and oceans, try reading The End of the Line by Charles Clover. Although he does make out cases for successful sustainable fishing, shame the EU, Russia and China are not interested in supporting them.
alan, that was the bit I picked up on, powerful sport fishing lobbys do achieve this in the states, thats why the commercial fleets over here DONT want us to have one at any cost.
What a truly remarkable film and an amazing man. Please watch this documentary... it's one of the best I've ever seen.
My wife bought and we ate some marlin the other day. I'm deeply ashamed, and wish I'd known more. Not only will I never eat it again, I'll be telling my friends to boycott marlin, and give the supermarkets some grief.
Sport fishing comes out of this sad story very well, and we should now, as anglers, be doing what we did for salmon in Scotland; pointing out that these fish are worth far more to the locals for tourism income than as food.
I don't want to give too much of the film away, but just this, the final narrative from wildlife film maker Rick Rosenthal, talking about Hemingway's book, The Old Man and the Sea.
"What touches me most is that Santiago, the fisherman, knew he had exceeded his limits to bring that big fish in in one piece. At that point, he regretted even killing it.
"Now, nothing seems to humble us. We really have the power to strip away all the big fish from the ocean, but in doing this, we just diminish ourselves."
i would love to fish for them, can you imagine the fight. i really liked the fact that anglers where not the bad boys, but are infact helping the stocks recover in areas, something most wildlife shows ignore.
Mark, where did you buy it from? my local Asda no longer sell, skate, huss, marlin, and dont use tope for displays anymore. Tesco are starting to do the same, the only one that has ignored us is morrisons.
if you see a supermarket selling these fish, complain to the store manager, and get everyone you know to do the same. if it looks bad they will stop selling them.
