A trillion ways to die
An interactive story-telling experiment
The following number is so big that you will read it without flinching. Without hesitating. And without understanding. Here it is: every year, between 1.1 and 2.2 trillion fish and other aquatic animals are killed for human consumption.
These numbers are so vast they become abstract - practically impossible to grasp. Combined with a prevalent though scientifically disproven belief that fish and other aquatic animals don't suffer, it is no wonder that we continue to cause suffering and slaughter on a scale that constitutes by several orders of magnitude the most grievous crime our species (and probably any other) has ever committed. The very fact that such a statement may seem exaggerated or dramatic speaks to the incredible normalisation of animal exploitation and to the incredible power of our minds to silence cognitive dissonance that such a realisation has before we even perceive it.
But the truth is, any one of is able to feel emotional attachment and amazement at the beauty of fish and other aquatic animals. The popularity of aquariums is evidence to this. As is the wide appeal of films such as Finding Nemo and my Octopus Teacher, or the fact many of us 'looked after' goldfish in tiny glass bowls as kids.
Yet each one of these trillion lives has a story. Each one experiences their own suffering and their own inevitable death.
I have created this prototype interactive experience based on the website Fishcount. I wanted to explore a way of presenting these numbers in a more individualised and hopefully more impactful way. Its purpose is unabashedly to make you reflect. It does so by inviting you to follow four of these individual stories from the inside. You'll live as an anchoveta caught in a purse seine net off the coast of Peru; a whiteleg shrimp raised in intensive aquaculture; an Atlantic salmon in a sea cage; or a blue mussel whose capacity for suffering we still don't understand, but take a huge moral risk by assuming it may not when the jury is still out.
Each journey is based on peer-reviewed research into aquatic animal welfare. The deaths you'll experience are not exaggerated for effect - they reflect standard industry practices affecting hundreds of billions of animals annually. Some stories offer choices. Others don't. Just like the animals themselves, your agency is limited. But your awareness - and the decisions you will take today to put your pleasure over and above the incredible suffering and death of another life - doesn't have to be.