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Ray Hilborn is a Volvo Environmental Prize Winner; author of six books on sustainable fisheries and is one of the principle scientists operating the Alaska Salmon Program for the University of Washington in Bristol Bay. Ray and Mark break down the new Seaspiracy Netflix documentary, challenging the idea that there is no such thing as a sustainable fishery.
Check out Ray's work:
Check out Ray's work:
Other topics discussed:
Other topics discussed:
Save What You Love with Mark Titus:
Produced: Tyler White
Edited: Patrick Troll
Music: Whiskey Class
Instagram: @savewhatyoulovepodcast
Save What You Love with Mark Titus:
Produced: Tyler White
Edited: Patrick Troll
Music: Whiskey Class
Instagram: @savewhatyoulovepodcast
Website: savewhatyoulove.evaswild.com
Support wild salmon at evaswild.com
Creators and Guests
Host
Mark Titus
Mark Titus is the creator of Eva’s Wild and director of the award winning films, The Breach and The Wild. He’s currently working on a third film in his salmon trilogy, The Turn. In early 2021, Mark launched his podcast, Save What You Love, interviewing exceptional people devoting their lives in ways big and small to the protection of things they love. Through his storytelling, Mark Titus carries the message that humanity has an inherent need for wilderness and to fulfill that need we have a calling to protect wild places and wild things.
What is Save What You Love with Mark Titus?
Wild salmon give their very lives so that life itself can continue. They are the inspiration for each episode asking change-makers in this world what they are doing to save the things they love most. Join filmmaker, Mark Titus as we connect with extraordinary humans saving what they love through radical compassion and meaningful action. Visit evaswild.com for more information.
00:00:00:20 - 00:00:26:09
Mark Titus
Welcome to Say what You love. I'm Mark Titus. Today we take a deep dive with Professor Ray Hilborn from the University of Washington School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences. We're taking a look at the new Netflix documentary Seaspiracy. You've probably heard of it. It is making a pretty big claim about fisheries worldwide and how they are being depleted at an unbelievable, unthinkable pace.
00:00:26:11 - 00:00:50:12
Mark Titus
Rate has spent his entire career breaking apart data to show that fisheries are in fact sustainable and manageable. And he takes a deep dive with us here today on that subject. Ray is also one of the principal scientists at the University of Washington, Alaska Fisheries Program in Bristol Bay. He's one of the folks that has taken care of me and introduced me to Bristol Bay while I've been up filming the breach in the Wild.
00:00:50:14 - 00:01:21:01
Mark Titus
And he knows that place inside and out and gives us an example of why Bristol Bay is such a sustainable and regenerative fishery. Also, take note that we have a brand new special ray trawl Save what You Love T-shirts in the merch store. $5 from every one of these T-shirts goes back to the Bristol Bay Heritage Land Trust, managed by Rachel's brother Tim, and it is used to procure land in Bristol Bay to preserve it in perpetuity.
00:01:21:03 - 00:01:40:03
Mark Titus
You can find those T-shirts at evaswild.com. That's the word save spelled backwards wild dot com. And if you're liking the show so far, please consider going to Apple Podcasts and writing a review and giving us a rating. It really helps lift us up and get us out into the world so we can keep this coming at you.
00:01:40:05 - 00:01:44:07
Mark Titus
Thanks so much. Take care. Enjoy the show.
00:01:44:09 - 00:02:19:20
Music
How do you save what you love?
When the world is burning down?
How do you save what you love?
When pushes come to shove.
How do you say what you love?
When things are upside down.
How do you say what you love?
When times are getting tough.
00:02:19:22 - 00:02:22:05
Mark Titus
Dr. Rey Hilborn, welcome.
00:02:22:07 - 00:02:24:12
Ray Hilborn
Well, thank you for having me.
00:02:24:14 - 00:02:50:10
Mark Titus
Yeah, it's been a while. I'm so glad to see you missed visiting up in Bristol Bay last summer. Obviously, we are dealing with a pandemic, but fate has brought us together here again. I'm so glad you reached out. And I have since watched the film. You asked me to watch that. Now, apparently half the world is watched and it's a it's a Netflix documentary called Seaspiracy.
00:02:50:12 - 00:03:11:13
Mark Titus
We're going to get into all kinds of things today. We're going to talk about Bristol Bay. We're going to talk about how you got where you are right now. But let's just dive right into this film. I would just love your general take on this film and what it is claiming and your general view on how they presented their material.
00:03:11:15 - 00:03:54:19
Ray Hilborn
Well, I mean, it's not really a documentary. It's a propaganda film. It's you know, the bottom line is it's arguing for a vegan diet that says and saying that we should not eat fish at all because no fisheries in the world are sustainable. It it's it is totally distorts the real science that's out there. It does a disservice to to the whole world, whether you're talking native cultures, where we're fishing is is part of their identity to the hundreds of millions of people who depend upon fish for for their food security and nutrition.
00:03:54:21 - 00:04:03:23
Ray Hilborn
It's just outrageous how badly done it is, But it's very effective. It's attracted an enormous amount of attention.
00:04:04:01 - 00:04:20:05
Mark Titus
Yeah, we were talking about this a little bit before the show and you were telling me that, you know, clearly you guys at the University of Washington get a fair amount of traffic on your fisheries website anyways. But you said you've had a little bit of a spike recently.
00:04:20:06 - 00:04:49:10
Ray Hilborn
Yes, we have. We have a website that's designed to provide information on sustainable fisheries and has been following almost every issue that comes up from, you know, seafood mislabeling to how many fish stocks are sustainably managed. And and our number of visits we've had we've had ten times as many visits in the first eight days of April as the average month for the last year.
00:04:49:10 - 00:04:54:06
Ray Hilborn
And it's just astounding how much interest there is.
00:04:54:08 - 00:05:18:21
Mark Titus
Well, you know what? We're going to dive into each of the segments that you and I have found. Well, flagrant, if not objectionable in the Seaspiracy documentary, but I would love to know and I'd love for you to share for our audience. Tell us your story. Tell us how you got to be in this field and how you ended up in Bristol Bay each summer.
00:05:18:23 - 00:05:45:15
Ray Hilborn
depends on how long you want to go. I mean, I, I started out life as a terrestrial ecologist. Did my Ph.D. on on rodents and then started working for the Canadian government on a range of issues in what was then called fisheries and environment. My specialty was population dynamics, and it proved to be that the fisheries problems were the most interesting.
00:05:45:17 - 00:06:25:03
Ray Hilborn
Because fisheries managers, this would be at the time largely salmon managers in Canada were making decisions every day on managing the fisheries. And the kinds of tools I had in my toolkit were useful to them. So I gradually switched to working on fisheries dominantly over time. And then when I came to the University of Washington in in 1987, there was an ongoing research program in Bristol Bay, and I got invited to go up there and I was just blown away by what a beautiful place it was.
00:06:25:03 - 00:06:50:02
Ray Hilborn
And and it was one of the most interesting fisheries in the world. And I you know, I said, I have to just stay involved in this. And except for pandemic year, last year, I've been going up and doing field work and teaching courses there every year since, since I guess 1995 is my first year. I went up with University of Washington and actually went to Bristol Bay first in 1983.
00:06:50:04 - 00:06:55:07
Mark Titus
And as far as I know, that program's been around for 70 odd years now. Is that right?
00:06:55:09 - 00:07:22:10
Ray Hilborn
Yeah, it started in 1946 and and there's now three faculty at the University of Washington, Tom Quinn, Daniel Schindler and myself, who have major research programs there. And then Cary Cunningham, who was a former student of ours, but is now a professor at University of Alaska who also spends much most of the summer up there and our field camps.
00:07:22:12 - 00:07:46:02
Mark Titus
It's a spectacular place and one that I know is super special to you and to all the faculty that are there. You mentioned the work that you cut your teeth on. Why did the work that you grew up accumulating transfer so well into what you do with fisheries in Bristol Bay in particular?
00:07:46:04 - 00:08:18:17
Ray Hilborn
Well, fisheries and fisheries management is at one level at the biological end is population dynamics. It's the study of births and deaths and survival. What causes those things to change? And so I started out studying it in field mice, and then it was just the time that really computers were coming online. And that proved to be something that I had particular aptitude with.
00:08:18:18 - 00:08:52:00
Ray Hilborn
And so that and that's proved proved, you know, I can really deal with all all sorts of things. I mean, the same kind of work I do is what is being used in the COVID pandemic. It's the instead, instead of births and deaths of people, it's births and deaths of infected people and and transmission of the virus. I've been lucky enough in that behind Bristol Bay, my other great fortunate life has been to work in the Serengeti, in East Africa on the wildebeest populations.
00:08:52:00 - 00:09:10:14
Ray Hilborn
And I've done some work on other things. But again, just transfer of the same toolkits, studying of populations and their ecosystems. So I got really lucky and sort of the the both what I've been able to work on and the tools that I acquired.
00:09:10:16 - 00:09:45:16
Mark Titus
All right, This seems like a good time to start diving into based with that bedrock, diving into some of the claims that this film Seaspiracy makes. I've got some of my own. I know you flagged certain things as well, but the one thing that stood out to me immediately was just the barrage of wildly inflated data that it was designed to shock and awe and bludgeon, and it remained on screen for such a short period of time.
00:09:45:16 - 00:10:13:17
Mark Titus
You barely had any time to actually ingest what you're looking at before they barrage you with another thing, which of course, just lends to being dazed and confused, which I think is the is the intent. There. But I mean, certain things I saw was like there was a graphic popped up for maybe 2 seconds that 99% of the halibut population is gone from the earth, 99%.
00:10:13:19 - 00:10:29:12
Mark Titus
I know you probably saw a dozen of these things. Let's dig into a few of the focus items that you found to be kind of unbelievable in this production from Netflix.
00:10:29:14 - 00:11:25:04
Ray Hilborn
wow. How shall I count the ways? I mean, I think the the most the most flagrant was that no fisheries are sustainable and that is just so contrary to anyone who knows anything about fisheries, that there are many fisheries that have been maintained for thousands of years and, and, and, and lots of fisheries that are have been sustained for 400 hundreds of years that we've been able to document, that we've been doing studies for the last 15 years showing, for instance, that within the much of the world, North America, Europe, much of South America, some other places, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, the abundance of fish is increasing, not decreasing.
00:11:25:04 - 00:11:54:11
Ray Hilborn
And yet, you know, they repeated this old, tired, highly refuted argument that all fish stocks will be collapsed by 2048. You know, we know how to sustainably manage fisheries and and it is being done and and Bristol Bay stands out as you know as really one of the shining examples of how a fishery can be sustainably managed. And it now has for thousands of years the native peoples were there for a thousand years.
00:11:54:13 - 00:12:14:00
Ray Hilborn
Industrial fishing started 130 years ago. This stock is at record abundance. It's doing very well. The ecosystem is doing very well. So that's you know, that's just one of the many the many things that they put up there was just outrageous and totally not factual.
00:12:14:02 - 00:12:46:16
Mark Titus
Well, yeah, I think when you're starting to assess a production, you you kind of try to find their their baseline. And the baseline is, as you say, eating a fish means you are raping the seas. You are somehow advocating for slave labor, you are polluting beyond comprehension and you are taking every last fish out of the seas. But it's all predicated on this thing that they keep pumping over and over again.
00:12:46:18 - 00:13:12:05
Mark Titus
Don't eat fish. And of course, the line up that they have of folks is very one sided. It's pretty much entirely represented by Sea Shepherd. Paul Watson is the gentleman who makes the claim that a sustainable fishery is a lie. I know from being on the ground in Bristol Bay and from spending a lot of time with you and your faculty, that how erroneous that is.
00:13:12:07 - 00:13:56:14
Mark Titus
But they keep kind of going from, you know, firing from different angles. And yet the baseline of no fishery is sustainable. Knowing that that's false, it's kind of hard to latch onto anything and and feel like there's any veracity to it. So, you know, moving on from that point, what about this idea that, you know, the United States is complicit in in this and that, you know, all coastal communities are in fact, contributing to the demise of the fisheries in general and as a global population.
00:13:56:16 - 00:14:26:15
Ray Hilborn
Well, it's it's it's you know, I mean, a very interesting thing about it is they you know, they have they portray some of the most critical NGOs in the in the world that have been most critical about fishing, particularly in this case, Oceana. And they they they they project them. They put everybody in the same basket and say, you're all part of this, this conspiracy to empty, empty the oceans.
00:14:26:17 - 00:15:04:08
Ray Hilborn
And it's actually been the most unifying thing. I mean, everybody in the fisheries world who knows anything about fisheries is is is is saying that this is all totally bogus. And it's made some strange bedfellows at the moment having people that we've been arguing with for years. And, you know, it's very you can let let's you can take if you if you want to say that, okay, fisheries are in decline, I guarantee you you can find dozens and dozens of fishery stocks that have been going down or are that are low abundance.
00:15:04:10 - 00:15:30:06
Ray Hilborn
And and essentially what they did is they and I don't have any idea what halibut they're talking about. It's certainly not true for Pacific halibut. And I'm sure that Atlantic halibut are not I don't know that much about Atlantic halibut, but they're not 99% gone. But they may be in some place largely gone, but, you know, you can go and you can cherry pick an example.
00:15:30:06 - 00:15:53:03
Ray Hilborn
So, for instance, they they I remember that I think they took a Pacific bluefin tuna and just referred to it as tuna. Now, Pacific bluefin tuna is the one tuna stock in the world that is quite depleted and it needs better management, no question about that. But it is in no sense representative of tuna stocks. It's very small.
00:15:53:03 - 00:16:19:16
Ray Hilborn
It's probably less than 1% of all the potential tuna in the world, you know. And so, you know, it's it's very easy for for people who have no respect for good science to just go and cherry pick and a couple examples and same thing, you know, with the with the slave labor. Yes, there is slave labor and fisheries, but it's not a broad spread problem.
00:16:19:18 - 00:16:47:13
Ray Hilborn
You know, it's it's it's seems to be confined to a relatively small number of fisheries. It's never been considered a thought to be a problem in American fisheries. So, you know, it's just it as I say, it's a it's a it's a propaganda film. And, you know, my my, essentially there are more lies per minute in that film than there is in a Donald Trump press conference.
00:16:47:14 - 00:16:51:17
Ray Hilborn
There's just lie after lie after lie.
00:16:51:19 - 00:17:19:05
Mark Titus
Well, yeah, it was difficult to get through. I got I got to say, the I think the problem really that I have with this is that I feel like it's dangerous. You know, you get people so riled up. And I think that the comparison to a Donald Trump press conference is kind of accurate. I mean, that the former president was really good at boiling things down into very simple, digestible terms.
00:17:19:05 - 00:17:42:00
Mark Titus
And that's exactly what this film tries to do. Eat fish equals bad killing the ocean. You know, so many people have glommed onto that. I mean, the Twittersphere is blown up about it. Social media is all blown up about it. I've gotten tons of messages. I know you've gotten thousands more. Why do you think it's such a dangerous message?
00:17:42:00 - 00:17:48:17
Mark Titus
To oversimplify a complex issue like fisheries and global fisheries?
00:17:48:19 - 00:18:15:06
Ray Hilborn
Well, there's okay, I see. I see two dangers. One is sort of an existential danger, and it's contributing to this lack of faith in science in the same way that Donald Trump contributed to the lack of faith in science over the over the COVID crisis, that, you know, that if if if all of these people who see this and say, well, look, all these all these scientists are, you know, who are saying these fisheries are sustainable.
00:18:15:06 - 00:18:52:14
Ray Hilborn
But but this movie showed us they're not, then we're just seeing a general decline in the faith, in science, in public policy, which is a very, very serious concern. And the other which is I think sort of the specific environmental problem is these people like Sylvia Earle, who featured very prominently, who has long advocated not eating fish, they never consider where's the food going to come from if you don't eat fish?
00:18:52:16 - 00:19:19:19
Ray Hilborn
And what's the environmental impact of that? And this was brought home to me one time and actually I remember exactly was January 2010. I was working in Serengeti National Park, the wildebeest population. And one of my colleagues there who was the head of conservation programs for Africa named Marcus Barner, he said he said, look, I'm a conservationist. Should I stop eating fish?
00:19:19:21 - 00:20:01:15
Ray Hilborn
And I said, Well, Marcus, if you don't eat fish, what are you going to eat? And he he said, Well, I'm not a vegetarian. I would eat more beef, chicken and pork. And I started I really changed my career to a great extent because I started really looking at the environmental impacts of foods. And we've done the calculation that if you were to take all the ocean capture fisheries and replace them with beef, chicken and pork in the same proportions as the as a current diets, you would need additional area to grow the to graze the beef and to grow the crops to feed the chicken and pork.
00:20:01:17 - 00:20:28:19
Ray Hilborn
And that would require all of the Amazonian rainforest all of it. And and so the question is, which would be more of a global loss in biodiversity, eliminating the Amazonian rainforest, because that's where most of the increase in crop production has come from, from tropical rainforests, some up in Southeast Asia. But that's the area we're talking about or what would you know, or eliminating all fishing.
00:20:28:19 - 00:20:45:12
Ray Hilborn
And certainly to eliminate all fishing, there would be there wouldn't necessarily be more fish in the sea. There would be more big fish in the sea and there would be you know, there is and there's no question there's environmental impacts of fishing, but the environmental impacts of not eating fish would be far worse.
00:20:45:14 - 00:21:20:09
Mark Titus
I see that truth in that. And further, you know, we have maintained we being the collective of folks that have worked on my films and the folks that have advocated for Bristol Bay's fishery, that supporting that industry is in fact a form of activism. Eating wild saves wild because we know it's a regenerative fishery, it's a fact and if you are supporting the jobs there, that's a that is a sustainable way of making a living.
00:21:20:11 - 00:21:57:10
Mark Titus
And you are going to demand that if you want that fish on your plate, you're going to need the habitat sufficient for it to keep coming back to your plate. So it is a form of pro activism for the environment, for really maintaining the last fully intact wild salmon system in North America, if not the world. And so, yeah, I think that the idea that you are somehow contributing only to a deleterious cause by eating one particular food source, in this case, fish is, you know, bogus, like you say.
00:21:57:12 - 00:22:26:02
Mark Titus
So going further, could you speak a little bit more to I think just the the bigger sense of what this movie portrays about the industry as it there's a global conspiracy that, you know, if you're eating fish, you're in on it, you're somehow contributing to these nefarious causes. You know, people in the industry, you know, 80 to bite.
00:22:26:08 - 00:22:38:08
Mark Titus
By your experiences working with the industry, do you see some sort of global conspiracy here? And can you speak just a little bit more to their massive message of, you know, denigration to the world?
00:22:38:10 - 00:23:05:11
Ray Hilborn
Well, I mean, the main problem is it is not global. Everything is local. There are, you know, as we know, Bristol Bay and in fact, most land in most Alaskan fisheries and in fact, most American fisheries are managed in a in a sustainable way. You know, there's an enormous number of laws that are enforced. And you have to, you know, the Endangered Species Act, the the Marine Mammal Protection Act, the Environmental Quality Act.
00:23:05:13 - 00:23:28:17
Ray Hilborn
And and it's they're heavily regulated. Now. There are places in the world where fisheries are largely unregulated and that, you know, and to the great extent, that's where the problems are. And so, you know, they go to a fishery somewhere in Southeast Asia and where there is basically been documented slave labor, slave labor. And and the implication is this is a global problem.
00:23:28:17 - 00:23:58:22
Ray Hilborn
It is not a global problem. It's a particular problem in some places. And the same thing is true of IUU fishing. It is not a global problem. It's it is a problem in some places. And there are there's been enormous amounts of effort, successful effort at solving overfishing, at solving IOU, fishing at you know, at solving, discarding all all of those things we have made great progress on.
00:23:58:22 - 00:24:11:16
Ray Hilborn
And we've done it by governments working with industry, with science, with the academics. And, you know, we know how to solve those problems and we are solving those problems.
00:24:11:18 - 00:24:47:01
Mark Titus
The images are powerful. And, you know, I know a little bit about that. And they show image after image of bycatch being just sharks, dolphins, porpoises, turtles being discarded and again, painting the picture that all fisheries are doing this and that all fisheries are bad in this way. Those images are hard to forget. And they they do a I think, you know, a fair job of imprinting your brain with these images.
00:24:47:02 - 00:25:14:21
Mark Titus
Can you speak a little bit to what's being done to try to combat unintended bycatch, certainly in American fisheries? And you know what? Can a person at home, an average citizen, besides just completely stopping eating fish from their diet, what are things that we can do to make our voices heard or be a better advocate for a better way of fishing?
00:25:14:22 - 00:25:43:08
Ray Hilborn
Well, to to a great extent, individual action on things like that isn't going to make any difference. We really this is where governments or organized groups like NGOs have had have had more, more impact. And I mean, you know, in terms of individual choice in what you eat, you know, in the in the U.S., you can you know, there are rating agencies.
00:25:43:08 - 00:26:22:19
Ray Hilborn
The Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch program gives advice in Marine Stewardship Council, gives a rating. And you you know, the things that are highly rated by those organizations are definitely among the best managed fisheries in the world. So and they have quite strict criteria about how much bycatch is permitted. And and all of those issues. So, I mean, my my advice is, a, if you have the option, which certainly you and I do buy fish from someone, you know, you know, there are there are fishermen who will sell you fish directly to you.
00:26:22:19 - 00:26:56:20
Ray Hilborn
You can talk to them, find out how their fishery works and or, you know, use the rate the rating systems that that are out there. And most retailers in the U.S. now are getting pretty fussy about how, you know, what what fish they will sell and and and and increasingly so and again this is the irony is so you if you're concerned about the environmental impact of the fish you eat you can get a lot of advice on that.
00:26:57:00 - 00:27:26:07
Ray Hilborn
Okay. If you go to the Safeway or to the Q UFC, you're not going to be able to get advice on any of their other food products. You know, you're not going to be able to determine how many animals died to produce the soybeans or how many farm workers were poisoned in the process of growing the lettuce or how much how many, you know, how much slave labor was employed in the processing of some food.
00:27:26:07 - 00:27:32:03
Ray Hilborn
Its fisheries has been subjected to much, much more scrutiny than any other food group.
00:27:32:05 - 00:28:08:17
Mark Titus
Never really thought about that. But that's really true. You will get every piece of information you possibly can at seafood counter, not necessarily so anywhere else in the grocery store. And I would make a plug for. I think that's excellent advice. You know, you're fishermen wherever you are in the U.S. but if you are interested in Bristol Bay sockeye, which is a fully regenerative food source and is done sustainably, you could go to Bristol Bay sockeye dot org and they have a really handy little find your fish feature there to find in your area where you can support Bristol Bay sockeye.
00:28:08:19 - 00:28:33:15
Mark Titus
So just to kind of put a wrap on that idea about, you know, things that are sort of out of our control in the rest of the world, what given that we need on a bigger scale with NGOs and governments to really address these things like bycatch and overharvesting, where do you think we are with that in terms of US policy toward that?
00:28:33:15 - 00:28:50:07
Mark Titus
And is there anything we can do to, you know, help our politician and our leaders and our NGO folks know where we stand on that and, you know, do better as well?
00:28:50:07 - 00:29:20:01
Ray Hilborn
I mean, the U.S. is pretty proactive. You know, it's they're now getting pretty strict about a law that prohibits importing of fish that are caught in a way that doesn't meet the standards of the Marine Mammal Protection Act. So a country that is not protecting marine mammals is not able to import fish to the U.S.. I mean, I'm not not really on top of of of how you know, of that.
00:29:20:01 - 00:29:55:04
Ray Hilborn
But there you know that's it's it's it's all on ongoing. Gosh I don't know what to say. I did want one more thing to say about Bristol Bay and have to do with the theme of fish. Yeah. You know as I say, the Seaspiracy was a vegan activist propaganda film. And one of the illusions, I mean, I first I simply mean it's a no question that a vegan diet generally has a has certainly has a lower impact on the global environment than a meat eating diet.
00:29:55:06 - 00:30:26:09
Ray Hilborn
So but the vegans are mostly under the illusion that animals do not die to produce their food, right. Because their vegetables. But anyone who's ever harvested a field and when I was going to college, I spent two summer harvest summers harvesting peas in eastern Washington, and we'd go through and chop a field of peas. And in the process of chopping the peas, we would chop up rabbits.
00:30:26:09 - 00:31:07:13
Ray Hilborn
My eyes. A fair, fair number of of of of, you know, of mammals. My son is a farmer. He farms 500 acres on Whidbey Island and he is, you know, in the process of combining fields to produce vegetables. He has killed baby deer. A baby, you know, hawks nests. And there are there's there's some work that suggests if you want to minimize the number of animals that die, you instead of a vegetarian diet, you would eat a few large animals like a cow because you get the number.
00:31:07:13 - 00:31:44:07
Ray Hilborn
You know, there's never been really deep research on this. But there's no question that enormous numbers of animals die in order to produce a vegetarian diet. And if you then take Bristol Bay in particular, you know, yes, in Bristol Bay, they kill sockeye salmon, right. And we eat them. But every one of those would have been dead within a month that they're all going to die and they're going to die a very gruesome death when I mean, I've got we got photos of having their eyes pecked out by gulls.
00:31:44:07 - 00:32:08:21
Ray Hilborn
I've got pictures of a fish swimming around for days who half their head has been bitten off by bears. I think you'd have a hard case making that killing fish in the fishery is any more painful or less or more cruel than what is going to happen to those fish a month later if we don't catch them Now, that's not true for most fisheries, but for Bristol Bay, it is definitely true.
00:32:08:23 - 00:32:39:19
Mark Titus
That that's true. That's an excellent point. That is a terminal fishery. They're coming to the end of their life and they're going to be they're going to be passing on one way or another. And I think it's really important to reinforce that Bristol Bay fishery is super unique. It's learned from the mistakes that the rest of the world, the Lower 48, has made with their fisheries and salmon in particular, and it allows fish to get into the river system before it allows fishermen to harvest the numbers that they're supposed to get.
00:32:39:19 - 00:32:51:00
Mark Titus
So in other words, for my understanding, Bristol Bay always has an escapement goal that they must meet in order in order to allow fishing to happen in a commercial way. Is that right? Yeah.
00:32:51:02 - 00:32:59:08
Ray Hilborn
That's that's that's the best the the essential part of the management system is always make sure enough fish get to spawn.
00:32:59:10 - 00:33:34:11
Mark Titus
Right. There's, there's another really big environmental factor that was something that you taught me and that I'm grateful for is most folks kind of automatically assume that if they're eating vegetarian only or vegan only, that they are somehow across the board making an environmental statement for the better, including carbon emissions. What do we know about Bristol Bay sockeye in terms of the carbon emissions needed to bring a sockeye to your plate versus the rest of the food chain?
00:33:34:11 - 00:33:41:00
Mark Titus
Other food products out there in the world at.
00:33:41:02 - 00:34:22:02
Ray Hilborn
Sea, I'm sure don't have those numbers right offhand, but Bristol Bay sockeye are pretty efficient because the fish swim to Bristol Bay. You don't have to go out in the ocean, chase or mugs basically set your net out and they swim. They swim into it. I know that it takes about each kilogram of processed fish in Bristol Bay, takes about two kg, produces about two kilograms of carbon, which is certainly lower than many vegetarian items in the vegetable diet.
00:34:22:04 - 00:35:02:15
Ray Hilborn
So it's pretty good. There are there are some more efficient fisheries, sardine fisheries, herring, mackerel, fisheries that catch fish very efficiently have lower carbon footprints much lower than most vegetables. So but again, the Bristol Bay fishery doesn't use compared to the growing crops, doesn't use any fertilizer, it doesn't cause any soil erosion, it doesn't generate any significant acidifying compounds.
00:35:02:17 - 00:35:39:22
Ray Hilborn
You know, it's across the many dimensions of environmental impact. It's definitely better than a plant based diet. And just for in comparison, the what's it called the impossible burger, you know, which is a plant based hamburger imitation, has about twice the carbon footprint of a Bristol Bay sockeye for the same amount of of of product. So you know they don't get me going on plant based plant based fish and meat substitutes.
00:35:39:22 - 00:35:52:22
Ray Hilborn
You know, if you want to you know there's one fell I know says if you want to eat a salad eat a salad not the product of a chemistry set which is spread all these fake meats and fake fish. Fake fish are.
00:35:53:00 - 00:36:21:08
Mark Titus
Well, you know, I think that's another discussion for another day. I heard a pretty, pretty compelling argument on Sam Harris's podcast yesterday about getting people excited about alternatives to terrestrial industrial farms. And I think this is super exciting. They didn't mention fish much at all. Not at all really, in terms of being deleterious. So we'll we'll tackle that one another day.
00:36:21:08 - 00:36:42:15
Mark Titus
But I want to come back to Bristol Bay and again, with your fascination with this place, why is it so special to you? Number one? Number two, why is it so unique for wild salmon to thrive there? And how did that how does that translate into an imperative to protect a place like this?
00:36:42:17 - 00:37:23:17
Ray Hilborn
Well, in the American context, it's it's its first element of uniqueness is the intact habitat. You know, you have a habitat that is just designed to produce sockeye salmon and it has not been really impacted by by any human use, You know, weather roads. It's really essentially intact the other thing that's not quite so unique, is it? As you as you mentioned earlier, it has a really good fisheries management system that profited by lessons learned in the lower 48.
00:37:23:19 - 00:37:54:00
Ray Hilborn
So and the other is that it has been, if anything, a beneficiary of climate change so far rather than a victim. So the warming that has taken place has generally increased the production of Bristol Bay, whereas it's definitely been deleterious for, say, Lower 48 salmon and right now.
00:37:54:00 - 00:37:56:14
Mark Titus
Go ahead. Go on, please.
00:37:56:16 - 00:38:25:06
Ray Hilborn
I was just going to say, I mean, in their fascinations, is it for me is it is just such a beautiful place and and the people you know there's this diversity of people who some of whom have lived there for families who live there for thousands of years. And and they are you know, they are so tied to the place that it's just you know, it's a it's a it's a wonderful experience.
00:38:25:08 - 00:38:54:05
Ray Hilborn
And, you know, and being a fishing community, it is it is really it's just completely integrated with the ecosystem and with the with with the government agencies. I mean, you know, you talk about a place that has a good relationship between fishermen and manager. You can't you know, you can't find a place that's better than than Bristol Bay.
00:38:54:05 - 00:39:03:20
Ray Hilborn
And it's it's much nicer to work there in the fish world than to work in a place where the government and the fishermen hate each other, which is true in some places.
00:39:03:22 - 00:39:26:07
Mark Titus
Well, there's also, you know, down here we are iconic. We have several iconic species, salmon being one of them, but another is orcas. And they're our local resident workers are struggling here. And I've had lots of folks say I won't eat salmon because it's harming all workers. And clearly that that's not the case in Bristol Bay.
00:39:26:08 - 00:40:12:04
Ray Hilborn
Well, it's not really the case down here either, that the evidence that the the the fishery for for Chinook salmon is impacting the orcas is is not at all strong It's pretty weak. The best the the most and best most recent work suggests there really isn't much relationship because the fishery is a very, very small part of the of the losses the biggest loss of Chinook salmon for that would be destined to southern resident killer whales is northern resident killer whales.
00:40:12:06 - 00:40:47:23
Ray Hilborn
They have been doing very well. They've been increasing from, I think from up to 300 now, and they eat a very high proportion of the Chinook salmon that would get down to here. So I mean, I eat Chinook salmon that are caught in Washington State without thinking that I'm having an impact on Southern resident killer whales. And if you're really worried about it, there's plenty of Chinook salmon from Bristol Bay and elsewhere that that would never have the chance of getting to Southern resident killer whales.
00:40:48:04 - 00:41:08:08
Ray Hilborn
Or if you buy get fish from in river fisheries, from the from the Indians. Those fish have already swum past the killer whales. They're not going any farther. And those fisheries are again, they're allowing sufficient escapement. So there's no evidence that eating those Chinook salmon would be impacting killer whales.
00:41:08:10 - 00:41:54:02
Mark Titus
Well, so at the time we've got left, I'd love to go back clear out toward outer space here on the big impact picture that Seaspiracy makes that, you know, all fishing is bad and that by eating fish, you are destroying the fisheries. And also, like you said, that fisheries are doomed to collapse in 2048. Can you give us your Ray Hilborn maximum, you know, maximum view here of what the fishery, the global fisheries looks like in your perspective at this point and where we are currently and where we need to be or where we're heading in the next decades to come.
00:41:54:04 - 00:42:24:02
Ray Hilborn
Okay. And in the most the much of the developed world fish stocks are improving. They are on average about the level that we were, the management targets which are typically designed around sustainable food production. They're the concern and almost all the problems. I mean, there are certainly some problem stocks within the U.S. We've got some stocks that are are overfished.
00:42:24:04 - 00:42:52:13
Ray Hilborn
But it's it's a very small fraction, but they are the half of the world where we don't have good data, which is essentially the tropical world, South and Southeast Asia. Some Central America places as far as places like Brazil are of concern where they basically don't have effective fisheries management systems. The real challenge is to bring good fisheries management to those places.
00:42:52:15 - 00:43:25:23
Ray Hilborn
Now, those places don't provide very much of the fish that we eat in the U.S. And so but so I think consumer choice isn't going to have a big impact there. This is where the bigger global community from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations to their governments and those countries typically realize they need to up their game, but they've got a long way to go before they really have an effective fisheries management system in place.
00:43:25:23 - 00:43:34:00
Ray Hilborn
But I don't think there's really anything a individual person can do to promote that.
00:43:34:02 - 00:43:46:13
Mark Titus
So as a general rule, Alaskan cod, American cod seafood is doing a pretty good job of taking care of the the resource and bring it to your plate in a responsible way. Is that a fair statement? Yes.
00:43:46:15 - 00:43:47:17
Ray Hilborn
There's no question.
00:43:47:17 - 00:44:19:03
Mark Titus
Okay, cool. And I would be remiss. We're going to start winding down here and getting into our bonus round here in a moment. But I know that in the past there has been questions about the relationship with the fishing industry and the work that you do, and that has been soundly refuted. I think that for folks that are close followers of Sea Shepherd or Greenpeace, they may have heard your name in the context that somehow you are on the dole of the fishing industry.
00:44:19:05 - 00:44:32:14
Mark Titus
Can you just clear that up for folks out there who may have heard that contextually and what it actually means, knowing this this industry intimately and how that actually can be a benefit to your work?
00:44:32:16 - 00:45:04:10
Ray Hilborn
Sure. Yeah. So I have a research program with half a dozen students and a half a dozen, maybe even more, eight, nine staff, and we get funding. That program is funded by a range of sources, roughly equally split between foundation funds, universities, private private donors and the seafood industry. So we do receive a lot of money from the seafood industry, and that money doesn't come to Ray Hilborn goes to the University of Washington.
00:45:04:10 - 00:45:37:20
Ray Hilborn
It's used to pay the salaries of our database manager. In the case of the industry funding from Bristol Bay to pay for our field work. And and I would argue that no one has a bigger stake in the sustainability of fisheries than the seafood industry, and they should be paying but to to that that the claims that my that that this research I talk about is biased that the key thing they're missing is these are not papers by Ray Hilborn they are papers by typically 20 authors.
00:45:37:22 - 00:46:03:18
Ray Hilborn
Some of those authors work for Environmental Defense or the Nature Conservancy. Two of my most frequent collaborators are on the board of directors of those environmental groups. And so this isn't, you know, the fact that all fish will be gone by 2048 is totally bogus. Was not a Ray Hilborn result. It was a result of 21 people, including the first author of the paper that first argued they would be gone.
00:46:03:20 - 00:46:33:21
Ray Hilborn
So don't look at it. Look at who the authors are. You know, if everybody there was an employee of the fishing industry. Yeah, I'd be a little I'd be a little more suspicious. But but, you know, I mean, I, I get funding from environmental groups. I get funding from, you know, anyone who will pay for it. And when I discovered that the fishing industry would support research, well, actually, I didn't discover it.
00:46:33:22 - 00:47:05:17
Ray Hilborn
It has been they had been supporting the program in Alaska since 1946. In fact, they initiated that program by saying to up then the dean of the College of Fisheries that, you know, we don't think the government is doing a very good job of this fisheries where you go up and look at it. And and since 1946, the Bristol Bay processing industry and now the Bristol Bay fishermen have been supporting the research program which has developed and helped develop this very sustainable fishing system.
00:47:05:19 - 00:47:31:01
Mark Titus
Dollars to science what a concept. I thank you for taking the time to to share that. And I think that that kind of hearkens back to the one size fits all eight second sound bite that everyone has become accustomed to in their cable news that, you know, gosh, if there is some sort of funding tied to some sort of research, then it's somehow discredited and that that's just not the case.
00:47:31:01 - 00:47:51:21
Mark Titus
So thanks for taking the time with that. All right. So we've made it to our bonus round, everybody. Nobody escapes that going through these three questions. It's a little bit of fun using your imagination, all based on the Save what you love theme. Let's just imagine, if you will, that you, your house is burning down. You could get one thing out of the house, one physical thing.
00:47:51:21 - 00:47:55:12
Mark Titus
What would that be? To rebuild one.
00:47:55:14 - 00:47:58:10
Ray Hilborn
I will be my computer.
00:47:58:12 - 00:48:11:16
Mark Titus
God. That man is a slave to do that. Yes, obviously. Meaning getting the loved ones out. But that's that's fair enough. And I think that that registers.
00:48:11:17 - 00:48:37:05
Ray Hilborn
Yes. Yes. I don't have any I don't have any pets. And, you know, I mean, it's just stuff, right? I mean, you know, you can't I mean. Yeah, but, you know, I mean, since I do essentially all of my work on my computer and that's where I have all my photographs. And, you know, rather than grabbing these photo albums over there, most of it's already on the computer, although I have to say I have it backed up elsewhere.
00:48:37:05 - 00:48:44:06
Ray Hilborn
So even if the house if I did lose it here, I would only lose a matter of weeks work. I wouldn't lose a lifetime's work.
00:48:44:08 - 00:48:57:19
Mark Titus
Well, it's a one stop shop. And yes, that makes perfect sense to me. How about, let's call it kind of more of your metaphysical house? Like, what are the two attributes about yourself, your life, about you that make you that you would take with you?
00:48:57:20 - 00:49:25:17
Ray Hilborn
Well, I would say one of my themes is if it's not fun, don't do it. You know? And the day that I am not having fun doing my work, I'm going to find something else to do. And and that's why one of the great things about getting in fisheries is it just it has almost always been fun and met great people and been to great places.
00:49:25:17 - 00:49:36:03
Ray Hilborn
And I hope that we've been helping, you know, helping the world preserve its environment and improve the nutrition of people.
00:49:36:05 - 00:50:02:05
Mark Titus
Well, I've been to a few barbecues on the back porch of at a fisheries center there in Lake Electric, and it is fun. There's no doubt about it. It's not all you're not a glum lot, that is for sure. Cool. And is there anything that you would get rid of in your life that that's superfluous, that you would let burn in the fire?
00:50:02:07 - 00:50:04:15
Ray Hilborn
faculty meetings, No.
00:50:04:17 - 00:50:08:11
Mark Titus
Yeah.
00:50:08:13 - 00:50:37:02
Ray Hilborn
I have to say that if I never had to do another zoom call in my life, I would be really happy. I mean, it's been great. You know, I've been really the transition during the pandemic for me has been really easy because I can do almost everything, including teaching online. But I will say that I it's it's, it's it's just not the same as as being there with real people.
00:50:37:02 - 00:50:59:05
Ray Hilborn
And I find a, you know, an eight hour zoom meeting or even a six hour. I don't think I've done eight six hour zoom meetings. I am totally exhausted at the end of that. Whereas, you know, face to face meetings I've done much of my life in and six hour face to face meetings, and that's not the same.
00:50:59:07 - 00:51:21:09
Mark Titus
You would not be alone in that assessment of letting that burn in the fire. And for that, I am so grateful for you taking the time out for an hour with us, so to speak, today about this and can't wait to see you again in person. Ray Hilborn Can you tell us where folks can dig into a little bit more about your work and follow along with your job?
00:51:21:11 - 00:51:41:04
Ray Hilborn
I'd say the main thing is to go to our website. It's called Sustainable Fisheries. One word dash UW dot org. Right, Right. Now all the Seaspiracy stuff is front and center, but it's it's really a go to resource on sustainability around fishing.
00:51:41:06 - 00:51:45:14
Mark Titus
Thank you, Ray. That is it. Happy trails will see you see in the summer, I hope.
00:51:45:16 - 00:51:55:18
Ray Hilborn
Okay. Yeah. Well, let me know when you're vaccinated. And on Whidbey, we can. We can cook a fish or Bernadette Animal.
00:51:55:20 - 00:52:10:17
Music
How do you save what you love?
How do you save what you love?
00:52:10:18 - 00:52:36:18
Mark Titus
Thank you for listening to say what you love. If you like what you're hearing, you can help keep these conversations coming your way by giving us a rating on Apple Podcasts. You can check out photos and links from this episode at Eva's Wild dot com. While there, you can join our growing community by subscribing to our newsletter. You'll get exclusive offers on wild salmon shipped to your door and notifications about upcoming guests and more great content on the way.
00:52:36:19 - 00:53:15:19
Mark Titus
That's it. Ava's Wired.com. That's the word save spelled backwards Wild dot com. This episode was produced by Tyler White and edited by Patrick Troll. Original music was created by Whiskey Class. This podcast is a collaboration between Ava's Wild Stories and Salmon Nation and was recorded on the homelands of the duo Amish people. We'd like to recognize these lands and waters and their significance for the peoples who've lived and continued to live in this region whose practices and spiritualities were and tied to the land in the water, and whose lives continue to enrich and develop in relationship to the land waters and other inhabitants today.