The Working Muscle

I finally watched Oceans with David Attenborough, and I’ll start by saying: it’s a great documentary. I honestly enjoyed it.

That said, I do think it leaned heavily into dramatizing and blaming fishing in a way that can skew public perception. It has the effect of energizing radicals and shocking viewers who may not know much about the industry. But even with that criticism, the film was still informative and, importantly, it offered hope for a future where commercial fishing and ocean conservation can coexist. That’s something I completely agree with.

At a worldwide scale there are absolutely issues that need to be addressed, and that’s clearly the point the documentary was trying to make.

But from my own experience working fisheries along the coasts of the United States—from the Atlantic to the Pacific and the Bering Sea—I also know that there are many sustainability measures already in place that the public rarely hears about. Regulations, quotas, monitoring programs, habitat protections—there’s a lot happening behind the scenes to protect fish populations and ocean health. I wish the documentary had spent a little more time exploring that side of the story.

Most fishermen I’ve worked with are deeply committed to sustainability and taking care of the ocean.

To me, the documentary didn’t attack commercial fishing the way some people might assume.

What it really highlighted was a specific style of fishing, targeting specific species, that can be destructive to certain seabed habitats. That’s a legitimate issue worth discussing.

But the people who take that message and use it to shame commercial fishing as a whole are simply missing the point.

Overall, it’s a decent film that raises important questions about the health of our oceans, even if it leaves out part of the story. 7/10. What did you think about it?