Seafood is simply a socially acceptable form of bush meat. We condemn Africans for hunting monkeys and mammalian and bird species from the jungle yet the developed world thinks nothing of hauling in magnificent wild creatures like swordfish, tuna, halibut, shark, and salmon for our meals. The fact is that the global slaughter of marine wildlife is simply the largest massacre of wildlife on the planet.
Interpretation
The quote critiques the double standards in how societies view wildlife consumption.
Paul Watson's quote confronts the hypocrisy around the consumption of wildlife, emphasizing that while certain acts of hunting are condemned—especially in developing regions—similar or greater acts of killing marine life are normalized in developed nations. It highlights an ethical inconsistency in how different forms of wildlife are perceived and the environmental impact these practices have, underscoring the point that the killing of marine species is a significant and often ignored issue in wildlife conservation.
In practice
During a documentary discussion about marine conservation, this quote can be used to highlight the issue of overfishing.
I have never suffered under any delusion that saving the whales in the Antarctic sanctuary would be easy, but the one thing I am certain of is that I and my passionate crew of international volunteers will never quit defending life in the seas from poachers, no matter what consequences we must endure to do so.
Unless we stop the degradation of our oceans, marine ecological systems will begin collapsing and when enough of them fail, the oceans will die. And if the oceans die, then civilization collapses and we all die
Nobody can legitimately claim to be a marine ecologist and conservationist while continuing to eat fish. It is the ultimate form of hypocrisy.
Sustainable fishing is a fraud. It's a marketing term that really means 'business as usual.'
To slaughter grand and beautiful creatures like these tuskers, whether terrestrial or marine, solely to obtain a few teeth indicates that we have not evolved very much since the days our forebears lived in caves and saught to prove their superiority by adorning themselves with teeth and claws
People are beginning to realize that we need to live in accordance with the law of ecology, the law of finite resources, and if we don't, we're going to go extinct.
Our Children no longer learn how to read the great book of Nature from their own direct experience, or how to interact creatively with the seasonal transformations of the planet. They seldom learn where their water come from or where it goes. We no longer coordinate our human celebration with the great liturgy of the heavens.
Nature has given women so much power that the law has very wisely given them little.
We cannot interfere in one area of the ecosystem without paying due attention to both the consequences of such interference in other areas and to the well-being of future generations.
A mockingbird has moved into our neighborhood. It perches atop a telephone pole behind our backyard. Every morning it is the first thing I hear. It is impossible to be unhappy when listening to a mockingbird. So stuffed with songs it is, it can't seem to make up it's mind which to sing first, so it sings them all, a dozen different songs at once, in a dozen different voices. On and on it sings without a pause, so peppy, even frantic, as if its voice alone is keeping the world awake.
I go to books and to nature as a bee goes to the flower, for a nectar that I can make into my own honey.
I will arise and go now, for always night and day I hear lake water lapping...I hear it in the deep heart's core.
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