Shepherding the Sea: Dr. Reese Halter

In his newest book, Shepherding the Sea: The Race to Save Our Oceans, the Dr. Halter has gone past wonder to take the offensive, arguing vociferously that a collapse of ocean ecology threatens all life on Earth.

The problems are hard to see. We stand on the beach (since much of the world’s population lives on the shore) and the oceans that cover 70 percent of our planet look the same as they ever have: So vast as to be incomprehensible, so full of sun-dappled life and mystery. But Halter begs us to look under the surface and see that those waters are in turmoil.

Halter’s fast-moving book is a kind of compilation of ocean emergencies and the overall effect leaves one a little breathless, but it outlines an agenda for critical issues that must be addressed.

Sharks, for instance, are being slaughtered at mind-boggling rates worldwide, mostly to supply the market for shark-fin soup (the fins are removed and the still-living shark is then usually tossed back into the water to die). Halter calculates that 660 million sharks have been killed in just the last 8 years, a number so large as to be almost unbelievable. But alas, likely true. I’m the kind of guy who likes to read the science, and Halter is not great about citing his sources; but when I researched the question I found that his numbers are right in the range estimated by the two most commonly cited peer-reviewed studies. A 2006 study by Shelly Clark et al estimated the shark kill at 26-73 million per year and a widely cited 2013 study by Boris Worm et al put the averaged estimate between 2000 and 2010 at 100 million per year.

I exchanged a few emails with Mr. Worm and, if anything, Halter’s numbers might be a little low. The NRDC’s Seth Atkinson also confirms that some common shark species are facing extinction, with negative effects on ocean ecology.

Other indicators of ocean health are similarly alarming: Fisheries in largely unregulated areas of the Pacific, Indian Ocean and Southern Atlantic have been hammered to the point of exhaustion; a global fleet of over 44,000 factory ships is raking fish out of the ocean at ever-increasing rates; many coral reef ecosystems have already died; bottom-trawling is having unknown effects on sea life; and plastics are flooding the oceans at a steadily increasing rate currently at 20 million tons every year, laced with methylmercury, PCBs, phthalates, and other toxins.

How does this affect human life? Consider this one fact: the floating phytoplankton that supply the oxygen for half the breaths you breathe have diminished by 40 percent since 1950, and scientists believe their numbers are still shrinking due to increasing water temperatures brought about by climate change.

One by one, we fish out the species that humans most like to eat. Bluefin tuna, for instance, have now joined cod, swordfish, so-called “Chilean sea bass” and other species hard to find in the water. Halter reports that Mitsubishi currently has hundreds of thousands of tons of bluefin tuna in cryo storage in order to profit off the species’ imminent demise. “Soon all that will be left is jellyfish and plankton,” Halter writes. “Japan, incidentally, is already buying over 30,000 kilograms (66,139 pounds) of jellyfish a week, turning it into slender wafers.”

In the oceans, we never sow; we only harvest, and in ever-larger amounts. And yet we expect the sea to go on providing a large percentage of the world’s protein, regulating the world’s temperature, providing our oxygen, and nourishing our dreams.

It’s not easy to keep writing in the face of what looks like an apocalypse. But Halter, bless him, is an optimist! What choice does he – or any of us – really have? Like his last book, Life, the Wonder of It All (with Chris Maser), this one addresses a desperately serious subject but appeals to human empathy and general biophilia as a source of hope.

“It is exhilarating to know that as hunters and gatherers, the human brain is hard-wired for wonder and awe,” he writes. “That one fact may be humanity’s saving grace when it comes to protecting the seas for our children.”

These two lines sort of come out of nowhere in Halter’s pell-mell narrative, but he’s right on target. After years of reading on this hunter-gatherer brain and the evolution of the mind, I believe that reestablishing the psyche as a function of nature is the only long-term solution. But in the meantime, someone needs to look after the sea life. Those few who have actually tried to defend marine life from the current mass extinction, like Captains Paul Watson and Dr. Bob Brown of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, are the heroes of Halter’s book (and the source of its somewhat clunky title).

In between withering sections of biological bad news, Halter recounts some of the exploits of Watson and the Sea Shepherd as they sink outlaw whaling boats in the 1970s and ‘80s, police the Galapagos Islands for poachers, and keep Japanese whalers from illegally killing cetaceans as seen on their hit TV show, “Whale Wars.”

The Earth Doctor’s prescription for healing the oceans won’t be easy. He recommends putting 80 percent of the world’s oceans under protection as sanctuaries. But dreaming big is a defense: the few sanctuaries that exist now are such anomalies that poachers and outlaw nations disregard them. In the end section titled “What Can You Do to Make a Difference?” Halter replies “Lots!” and lists specific products to avoid – “Don’t eat Bluefin tuna, ever!” – suggests not eating seafood at all or even going vegan, and helping to ban single-use plastic bags and contribute to beach cleanups, among other practical actions.

“Don’t you think,” ends Halter, “that it’s time to end the ‘War Against Nature’…and grant amnesty to glorious creatures that are helping us to survive on our blue planet?”

Shepherding the Sea is available at ellabirdbooks.org