Our new film, An Ocean Mystery: The Missing Catch, follows the work of the world’s premier fisheries scientist, Dr. Daniel Pauly, as he investigates how close we are to a global crash in fish populations.

This film reveals a frightening truth about our oceans. It’s a detective story that ranges from the Atlantic coastline to the reefs of the Bahamas and the shores of Senegal. Along the way Dr. Pauly and his team make startling discoveries about the impact of black market fisheries, recreational fishing and wastage in the fishing industry. And with 3 billion people around the world dependent on fish for protein it’s one of the most important stories of our time.
As government and industry regulators track the quantity of fish we catch, and claim the oceans can handle the huge catches, fish numbers keep dropping. Dr. Pauly’s research shows that we have drastically underestimated the amount fish we catch globally and that we are running out of fish much faster than we thought. This film discovers the true quantity of fish we have caught and is a call to arms for governments around the world to take a better accounting of their fish stocks before we face a global food catastrophe.

We made the film in partnership with The Smithsonian Channel where it will broadcast on Earth Day, April 22nd at 8pm Eastern. There are also opportunities to see it before that. The film was recently nominated as a finalist at the BLUE ocean film festival and has now won Best Conservation Film at the International Ocean Film Festival in San Francisco. It will be playing there on March 12th.

An Ocean Mystery: The Missing Catch will also feature as part of the Smithsonian’s Earth Optimism series. It will play in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History (NMNH), Washington DC on Earth day, April 22nd at 6pm. It will be followed by a panel discussion that includes Dr. Daniel Pauly, Living Oceans Foundation’s Alison Barrat, Smithsonian Channel’s Charles Poe and Dr. Stephen Box of Smithsonian NMNH’s and Rare.