Trawling the Depths

All photos by Julia Ochs

It’s 4am sharp and I’m standing on the quayside of a quiet fishing village in Mallorca. My whole body shudders in the predawn cold. Out at sea, a distant thunderstorm is brewing. I hear a muffled shout. It’s the captain of one of the small trawlers tied up at the harbor edge. Aged in his seventies, he has an unmistakable, slightly intimidating authority to him. He is beckoning me over. Plucking up all my courage, I walk towards him and follow his invitation to step aboard.

On the boat, his three-man crew are busy preparing for the 14-hour shift ahead and pay me little attention. Soon, they are loosening the mooring lines and the boat is chugging out to sea. As the land recedes, I’m hit by an acute and unexpected anxiety. ‘Are you sure this is for you?’ It’s the question the captain put to me the previous day after I’d gingerly introduced myself and asked if I could join him. Suddenly I’m not so sure of the answer.

I’ve been wanting to document the practice of bottom trawling for ages. Now, the practicalities of that mission are staring me in the face; the long hours at sea, the choppy conditions, the unknown crew, the pervasive smell of dead fish. But it’s the uncertainty of what lies ahead that hits me hardest. It’s too late to back out now, I tell myself. So, gripping my camera tight, I take a deep, calming breath and steel myself for the journey ahead.

Once we’re out in open water, one of the fishermen – a tall, skinny man with a weary gaze called Karim – comes over and introduces himself. He shows me the tiny kitchen where the crew eats and indicates where to leave my bags, before leading me over to the control room. The captain, who is sitting at the helm, starts explaining the basics to me; how they will soon lower the net some 600 to 800 meters to the seafloor, and how, once it hits the bottom, they’ll leave it to drag along the ground. The catch gets hauled up twice per trip, he adds – once in the morning, once in the afternoon.

After a while, Pedro, the captain’s son and the vessel’s first mate, relieves his father at the wheel. Aged somewhere in his late-thirties or early-forties, Pedro tells me he’s been fishing ever since he was a child. Over the years, the boat has become both his life and his identity. He speaks with pride about his work as a fisherman, although he admits it’s far from easy. The hours are long, the conditions are harsh, and the pay is unpredictable. But the greatest toil, he says, is that it takes him away from his wife and kids. Yet fishing is the only life he knows, and he has no plans to change career paths now.

As we reach the fishing zone, the crew put on their bright yellow suits and prepare to winch down the net. I watch as the massive steel ropes unwind, vanishing into the depths. As the captain explained earlier, the net – 100 meters long and 25 meters wide – will drag along the seafloor for the next few hours. What he’d failed to mention is how it will scoop up whatever lies in its path. A period of relative calm follows. I get talking to Carlos. In his early thirties and with a sleek haircut, he doesn’t fit the typical image of a fisherman. He used to work as a chef, he tells me. As we sit there, sharing a meal and laughing despite the language barrier, the mood feels light. For a moment, I could almost forget the destruction playing out on the seafloor below.

Of all the fishing practices developed through human history, bottom trawling is one of the most harmful ever invented. It works by dragging heavy gear along the seabed to capture valuable species like cod and shrimp. The price of the catch is nothing compared to costs to the natural environment. Marine habitats left devastated. Millions of fish caught and killed as unintended bycatch. Tons and tons of carbon released into the atmosphere. Although the fishermen tell me their operation is “small-scale”, the devastation it wreaks is anything but. I try imagining the impacts of larger trawlers, many of which are equipped with automatic fish-processing systems. The damage is almost unimaginable.

When I ask the captain about the environmental effects of bottom trawling, he dismisses my question out of hand. Bottom trawling is, in his view, similar to “plowing a field.” And while he acknowledges that ocean temperatures are rising and marine litter around Mallorca is on the up, he insists the fishing industry is free from blame. The problem, he says, lies entirely with the rise in tourism.

Suddenly, an alarm goes off. The net is coming up. I rush to the deck. Karim, Pedro, and Carlos are on deck already. Their yellow suits shine bright. Waves crash against the stern. The steel cables holding the net stretch taut. On and on the winch turns, reminding me of the full depths to which this form of fishing goes.

After what feels like forever, the net breaks the surface. Water splashes everywhere. Muscles straining, the men haul their catch on board. Standing close, I lift my camera to my eye. Much as I dreaded the idea, I’d pictured the net heaving with fish. But what spills onto the deck is far less than I had expected. I step closer. I look at the catch through my camera lens, the catsharks, rays, and crabs all thrashing helplessly on the trawler’s wet floor. All those hours dragging across the seafloor, and this is all there is to show for it? Then the full meaning strikes me: the Mediterranean, once so teeming with life, is now almost empty, robbed of its abundance by years of overfishing.

Pedro, Karim, and Carlos seem oblivious to the animals’ plight. In unison, the three of them immediately jump into action. Picking up gardening claws, they start separating out the catch. Into large white cooler boxes go hake, squid, shrimp, langoustines, monkfish, rays, sharks. The rest – those animals too small or unprofitable to be worth keeping – are tossed back overboard, their dead bodies floating away on the tide. Only a handful are held back. “For lunch,” Karim explains.

Later, I ask Carlos about the bycatch. He assures me there’s no such thing. Everything they don’t keep becomes a meal for others in the sea, he reasons. To him, it’s all part of the natural food chain. I don’t have the heart to explain how far removed this practice is from any natural ecosystem. He’s already upset with me after I passed up the offer of his freshly cooked ray soup for lunch.

A few hours later, the crew is preparing to repeat the whole process again. I unpack my drone, deciding this time to try and catch the rising net from above. The violence of the boat’s constant rocking almost knocks me from my feet. The conditions make it one of the most challenging shoots I’ve ever done. The results unnerve me. Splaying out from the back of the boat, the unfurled net looks surprisingly graceful, like the silken train of wedding dress. That something so beautiful could cause so much pain is hard to compute.

The second catch is marginally larger than the first, but the suffering of the individual animals is just the same. Once again, the crew throw themselves into the task at hand; selecting, grabbing, throwing, boxing. They work hard, their motions swift and efficient, honed through years of repetition.

The work is evidently tough and exhausting, with death and danger all around. Later, as the boat turns homeward, I ask Karim why he sticks with it; getting up at 2:30am every day, working a 14-hour shift, encountering all the dangers of life at sea. What’s in it for him? He shrugs. His is the usual story. A family at home. Bills to pay. Little ones who need looking after. As he says, “I’ve no choice.” I feel for him. His exhaustion is visible.

The future for Karim and his colleagues strikes me as far from certain. They may have resigned to stick with fishing, but it’s unclear to me whether fishing has decided to stick with them. From all I’ve seen and read, the industry’s days look numbered. Every year, catches are shrinking. With so much overfishing and so much destruction of the seabed, none of this feels sustainable. These fishermen are trapped in a system that isn’t working, either for them or the oceans.

There’s no question that the fishermen are kind, hardworking men. Maybe it’s willful blindness, but for me, their apparent inability to grasp the larger picture of which they are part shows just how normalized bottom trawling has become. Ultimately, this immensely destructive way of fishing is an industry-wide practice, designed and perpetuated by the multinational fisheries that dominate the sector. Their fleets of industrial trawlers operate with complete impunity. Only when these big players are forced to stop will the industry as a whole change tack.

I remain as passionate now about our oceans and the animals who inhabit them as I did when first stepping aboard the trawler. But the experience taught me that ending these destructive practices isn’t just about saving fish and marine ecosystems; it’s also about improving the lives of the fishermen themselves – a compelling reason to get them on board. Our fragile ocean ecosystems are vital to sustaining life on Earth. Prioritizing their protection should, I hope, anchor us all in common cause.

Bottom trawling continues to threaten our ocean. Sign the petition so we can end this destructive practice together: eu.patagonia.com/oceans

* For reasons of privacy, the names that appear in this article have been changed.