Investigation: Mediterranean Fishing – Greece

Greek commercial fishing uses two methods: purse seine and trawler nets, with each vessel removing approximately three to seven tonnes of fish from the sea per day. Onboard the fishing vessels, nets are emptied on the deck where the fish are left to slowly suffocate. The trawling method is indiscriminate and commercial fisheries drop several tonnes of undesirable dead fish back into the sea as bycatch.

On fish farms, hundreds of thousands of fish are forced inside underwater cages where they can spend up to two years. Mortality rates are high. The overcrowded conditions cause chronic stress for fish and create the perfect breeding ground for disease that can spread to both farmed and wild fish populations.

Our photojournalists witnessed the cruel and painful slaughter of fish on farms. These visuals document sea bass and sea bream captured and crammed into nets, where they are exposed to air and crushed by the weight of other caught fish. Once out of the water, they are thrown, still alive and fully conscious, into containers filled with water and ice. They do not lose consciousness immediately and can suffer for many dozens of minutes before suffocating to death. Although this method of slaughter violates the World Organisation for Animal Health’s (OIE) international standards, it is still the method most commonly used to kill farmed sea bass and sea bream in Greece, Italy and Spain, as stated by the European Commission.

Intensive aquaculture production also threatens marine health. These systems damage coastal sea and bay ecosystems by discharging significant pollutants, leading to algal blooms and dead zones and contaminating the surrounding marine environment. Moreover, aquaculture is putting increased pressure on wild fish populations, which are caught by the millions only to feed farmed fish.