THE PERFECT CATCH
The guard let our local tuk-tuk (local transport on three wheels) enter through the iron gates into the port area. Stinky smell of fish spread all over and immediately hit my nose. There was a central fish market in this region of Sri Lanka, near the former capital - the city of Colombo.
It was already dawning. About 100 boats have returned from the Indian Ocean full of fish. Everyone was smiling and joking. Today we’ve got a perfect catch - one of the captains said, pointing to a meter long shark fins that we cut them off from the body in the ocean. There was no sense to drag the whole body the size of a bus, because no one buys the meat.
Fishermen unload several dozens of young sharks, various species of tuna, stingrays, hammerheads, moon-fishes, sea basses, shrimps and other types of fish that I saw for the first time in my life. The amount of these fish was incredible. Sellers put all the fish out on the wet concrete pier in front of the fishing boats. They started shouting loudly, advertising the fresh fish to the buyers. Most of the shoppers were locals. All the restaurants and hotels in this part of the country buy fish from here. Also, a lot of fish is exported to other countries. The buyers haggle, choose, weigh, and then come to the butchers. The butchers, deftly wielding rounded knives, cut the fish according to the customer's wishes. There were scales, bones and fins mixed with guts. Blood splashed from under the rounded knives everywhere and streamed into the sewers. In three hours, people grab almost all of the fishermen's catch. They loaded the fish into their cars and scooters and drove away. Everything happened so fast it was like a giant anthill.
But how long will the ocean be able to serve the planet's growing consumption? Scientists are warning us of a coming crisis in fisheries. Recently, a group of scientists from the US, Canada and the EU published a report predicting a complete collapse of the world's fisheries in as little as 25 years. Analyzing the latest trends in fisheries, we can say that fish will simply disappear in the oceans after 2038 or even earlier.