Sea Shepherd Global | Operation Dolphin Bycatch
Promo Video
France, 2020
Director | Camera | Editor
Sea Shepherd is a non-profit organisation founded in 1977 and committed to ocean conservation and the protection of marine wildlife. Their campaigns focus on direct action to defend oceanic ecosystems from illegal exploitation and environmental destruction. Their intention is also to expose and communicate the crimes happening out at sea through the use of media in order to raise awareness and provide information and knowledge about the topic.
An average of 6,000 dolphins are killed each year on France’s west coast by large industrial trawlers and fishing vessels. That number could be as high as 10,000 according to the Pelagis Observatory, based in La Rochelle. This is much more than the dolphin massacres of the Danish Faroe Islands and Japan's Taiji Cove combined. These vessels target sea bass spawning grounds during the breeding season, but also catch dolphins that typically live alongside them. Most of the dolphins die in the nets or from wounds inflicted by fishermen onboard the vessels. This practice not only threatens sea bass populations, but is also deadly to dolphins trapped and drowned in the nets as bycatch.