According to the filmmaker the truth is that unchecked commercial fishing fleets are already big enough to catch four times as many fish as the law allows. The film states that the laws are so big that even with the quota system, by the year 2048 the world’s fish population will effectively be gone. Daniel Pauly from the University of British Columbia, explained that these vessels are equipped with so much electronic equipment that the fish have absolutely no chance of escaping.
Auckland University marine biologist Steve O’Shea opined that the film is bang on. Steve said that by 2048 I can quite believe that we’re going to lose all commercial fisheries or all commercial fisheries will come to effective commercial extinction. The End of the Line author, Charles Clover said from about 1988 we now realized it was on the way down, and we only figured that out in 2002.
The film depicts that it is too late for the Canadian Cod – their numbers have never recovered despite a moratorium on fishing since 1992. Now it is the Bluefin Tuna’s turn. Ben Bradshaw, the UK fisheries minister from 2003 to 2007, said that this is a species which is as endangered as the white rhinoceros and yet it’s being hunted to extinction in the Mediterranean. In the UK, increased public pressure generated by The End of the Line forced the government to support an international agreement to ban trade in northern Bluefin Tuna.
