The Price of Fish – A Video Interview with Wildlife Pathologist Vic Simpson

Published 12 years agoon January 17, 2014

Intro by Jeff Goodman:

For me, one of the pleasures of diving is the journey to the dive site. Watching out for dolphins that may come to look at the boat, or the sea birds purposefully heading along the coast to some secret fishing ground. Watching gannets streamline their bodies as they plummet out of the sky into the water or the miniature auks duck-diving to safety as the boat approaches. The cormorants and shags that glide gracefully across the water with a small fish in the beak. Then, on very rare occasions, one of these magnificent birds will pass by you underwater ensuring the topic of your conversation when getting back to the surface.

Hundreds of thousands of sea birds die each year in fishing gear. These are staggering figures and are probably a huge under-estimation so it seems a marvel that any survive at all when you also consider the loss of breeding habitat and an increasing shortage of food. The issue of ‘accidental’ bird mortality is a global issue but happens throughout the world at local levels. A recent case was near my home in Cornwall where 26 cormorants, shags and guillemots, were washed up on the shore in Falmouth after what is now surmised as being caught and drowned in local fishing nets. For any air breathing animal, drowning and struggling for life while being held underwater must be a true horror. It is something we all fear and yet we willingly and constantly subject other species to this painful death in the name of our dietary desires.

The birds were taken for autopsy to Vic Simpson, one of the world’s leading wildlife pathologists. This short video clip shows Vic working with scientific rigour as he highlights some of the processes that will determine the cause of death. But even such an experienced scientist as Vic feels the frustration and despair of providing the information needed to help understand our wildlife and the inability of people to implement this into more wildlife friendly methods of fishing.

For further reading on marine by-catch, click here and here.

Jeff Goodman

Jeff is a multiple award winning, freelance TV cameraman/film maker and author. Having made both terrestrial and marine films, it is the world's oceans and their conservation that hold his passion with over 10.000 dives in his career. Having filmed for international television companies around the world and author of two books on underwater filming, Jeff is Author/Programme Specialist for the 'Underwater Action Camera' course for the RAID training agency. Jeff has experienced the rapid advances in technology for diving as well as camera equipment and has also experienced much of our planet’s marine life, witnessing, first hand, many of the changes that have occurred to the wildlife and environment during that time. Jeff runs bespoke underwater video and editing workshops for the complete beginner up to the budding professional.