VOICE: Warning cries echo unheard from the fish tanks of Hong Kong’s restaurants. Warnings of a looming global tragedy…

Ghost Waters

Dr. Guillermo Moreno - Head of the Marine Program; WWF Hong Kong:
“Ghost Waters” is a term used to describe areas of the ocean that have been overfished, and this is resulting in the death of our oceans.

VOICE: These waters tell a haunting tale of marine disaster.

Professor Yvonne Sadovy – Marine Biologist; Hong Kong University:
In Victoria Harbor, with overfishing, we deeply disturbed the ecosystem. We lose first of all the largest fish, we lose the biggest animals in the sea. We lose whales, we lose sharks, we lose the big groupers, we lose the big croakers, but these are all part of an ecosystem, a system which works together. And if you remove one part of an ecosystem you’re going to lose other parts of that ecosystem.

VOICE: Unbeknownst to the public is a chilling fact: there are more fish in the tanks than in the harbor waters.

Professor Yvonne Sadovy – Marine Biologist; Hong Kong University:
The fish you see in the tanks swimming outside the restaurants, for example, they don’t come from Hong Kong, mostly they come from other places around the world.  They’re coming from further and further away, and in the end we’re going to run out of waters.

VOICE: Scientists warn that the same fate might befall all the Earth’s oceans.

Dr. Guillermo Moreno - Head of the Marine Program; WWF Hong Kong:
This story is repeating itself over and over. It is currently happening all over the world:  in Antarctic waters, in the Indian, Atlantic, Pacific, Arctic, in every ocean in the world right now, we have an epidemic of over-exploitation.

Professor Yvonne Sadovy – Marine Biologist; Hong Kong University:
I’m scared that we are emptying the seas… I am concerned that if nothing is done soon…we really will have “ghost waters.”