Stop this rape of the world’s oceans

LIKE polished silver, gold, blue-green, iridescent, they lie, headless on a platter, the wonderful bounty of the sea.

The shorn-off heads are in the sink, eyes round and bright. Fresh mackerel, caught an hour before off the rocks on the Seven Heads, fresher than any one sees on a fishmonger’s slab. God bless the harvest of the sea! Yet I’m saddened to see these lovely creatures, so streamlined and perfect, supple and strong, lying there dead on the platter. I always feel this regret; still, my son and his friends, who caught them on a single silver spinner, tell me that when they’d caught enough to feed the various households, they began to throw those they hooked back, alive and squirming, into the sea.

My conscience is easier as I applaud their efforts. They have learned this respect; they know the planet is finite; they know the bounty must be sustained. They count what they take, and take only enough. But even enough may soon be too much.