‘I Went for a Dive in the Gulf of Maine and I Saw One Fish’

Underwater Images Information’s Editor-in-Chief Nirupam Nigam is a devoted underwater photographer and fishery scientist, who not too long ago ventured beneath the waves within the Gulf of Maine and solely to discover a hauntingly empty habitat.

Nigam says that the Gulf of Maine has traditionally been one of many “breadbaskets” of North America, however a latest dive into its waters revealed that the waters that have been as soon as brimming with sea life at the moment are barren and quiet.

“As a baby, I used to be fortunate sufficient to spend my summers with my grandparents in Maine,” Nigam recollects. “This meant sizzling, humid days exploring lighthouses alongside a rugged coast, the occasional thunderstorm, and loads of lobster rolls. Pungent fish markets with equally pungent individuals have been all the time stocked stuffed with crabs, monkfish, haddock, and, in fact, lobster.”

However overfishing has led to a severe decline in native wildlife, and Nigam says that now in his grownup life, he returns to that very same space and has seen an fascinating development: those self same fish markets are more and more stuffed with international catches.

“For those who stroll right into a Maine fish market now, you’ll see much more international species in addition to fish that you’d by no means anticipate could be edible,” he says. “Take the ocean robin as an illustration. Final month, I visited a market crammed to the brim with these reasonably odd-looking, bony creatures. Just a little chalkboard perched up subsequent to their icy our bodies merely said ‘for stews.’ Clearly the selection fish have all since ‘swam away.’”

After listening to that experimental fisheries have been taking a look at begin fishing within the twighlight zone, the realm of the ocean at a depth between 200 and 1,000 meters under the floor, he realized how dire the state of affairs had gotten. Fish from the twilight zone are small, “gooey,” and few and much between. If fisheries have been experimenting with the thought of attempting to reap from that depth, points have been worse than he feared.

Nigam determined he wanted to take his digicam under the waters of the Gulf of Maine himself to see what remained earlier than, as he says, the realm was absolutely exploited. When he did descend under the chilly and murky water, what awaited him was a close to lifeless expanse.

“We swam and swam…and swam. Often, we’d see a small crab amongst beds of seaweed or a jellyfish floating by means of the water. Invasive vase tunicates (Ciona intestinalis) coated the ocean flooring. However the seascape was in any other case barren, and an eerie calm percolated by means of the ocean,” he says.

“Most disturbingly, in our full 70-minute dive — lengthy by most individuals’s requirements — I solely noticed one fish. It was a small, unassuming sculpin, effectively camouflaged among the many seaweed,” he recollects.

“In my 12 years of diving expertise world wide, I’ve by no means been on a dive with only one fish. It’s the equal of strolling by means of a forest however solely seeing one tree. Or witnessing the final bison standing solitary within the Nice Plains. The North Atlantic is witnessing the organic finish of an period.”

Nigam says that whereas there may be some seasonality with regards to fish and lobster populations, he has by no means dived and seen so little life.

“I’ve dived in different areas of the North Atlantic and the Arctic Ocean. Even in conventional Norwegian fishing ports, I’ve seen 1000’s extra pollock, cod, and haddock than I noticed that day within the Gulf of Maine. It’s the ocean. There must be loads of different fish within the sea,” he says.

“In my days spent accumulating fisheries information for the Nationwide Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), it was simple to get misplaced within the numbers. The catches I noticed landed would flip into information sheets to be filed away in authorities workplace. It’s simple to neglect these hundreds of thousands of kilos of fish on our information sheets are actual occasions, in the true world,” he continues.

“They translate to empty oceans. And as an underwater photographer, it interprets to an absence of photograph topics. North Atlantic cod shares is perhaps a misplaced trigger. In spite of everything, they’re a case examine for what scientists name the ‘vortex of extinction.’ However maybe these photographs can remind us of what’s at stake in the remainder of the world if we don’t take a tough have a look at our industrial fishing practices. So check out these empty photographs. They’re a reminder of what was, and what will be.”

Nigam’s full account will be learn on Underwater Images Information.

Picture credit: Pictures by Nirupam Nigam