Daniel Pauly on preventing the end of fish

Explore: A Canadian Geographic podcast

Today we’re talking to Dr. Daniel Pauly, professor of marine biology at the University of British Columbia, the leading expert on the declining state of the world's fisheries and something of a philosopher.

Fish is the last wild catch: the last animal food source we hunt and eat en masse from the wild. But Daniel Pauly warns that we are rapidly approaching the end of fish due to industrial fishing methods, government subsidization of corporate fishing operations, and climate change.

The French-born marine biologist has dedicated his long and award-winning career to improving the data that’s used to understand global marine stocks, especially in the developing world, where illegal fishing is rampant. This is the principal aim of the Sea Around Us initiative that he helped found at UBC. More accurate data helps better pinpoint where fisheries are collapsing and how best to protect them with ocean reserves, government regulation and a shift from industrial fishing operations back to smaller, traditional in-shore fishing. We discuss all that and what lessons have and have not been learned from the collapse of Atlantic Canada‘s once thriving cod fishery.