For the first time, high-resolution cameras have captured the destructive process of bottom trawling as it unfolds beneath the waves — revealing environmental damage that has largely remained hidden from public view.
The footage from Ocean with David Attenborough, an upcoming National Geographic documentary, shows iron chains and heavy nets being dragged across the seafloor, flattening marine habitats and stirring up sediment in their path. “Very few places are safe,” Attenborough says in the film, which marks his 99th birthday and is released globally on Disney+, Hulu, and National Geographic on June 7.
Bottom trawling is a commercial fishing method in which large nets with weighted beams or rollers scrape the ocean floor to catch target species like cod, haddock, or halibut. In the process, a vast range of marine life is caught indiscriminately — much of it later discarded. “It’s hard to imagine a more wasteful way to catch fish,” Attenborough remarks.
To capture the rarely seen practice, filmmakers mounted cameras directly onto the nets of a commercial trawler. “We didn’t really want to film it,” Keith Scholey, co-director of the documentary, tells Nat Geo.. “But we knew people had to see what actually happens.”
The resulting footage provides a detailed look at the aftermath: sea creatures flailing on the deck, habitats reduced to barren mud, and plumes of carbon-rich silt rising from the ocean floor.
Enric Sala, founder of National Geographic’s Pristine Seas and an executive producer of the film, says even he was stunned by the visuals.
“For the first time, people can see the destruction of bottom trawling unfold in front of their eyes,” he says. “The heavy nets dragging across the ocean’s precious floor and killing everything in their wake.”
Trawling affects an area nearly the size of the Amazon rainforest every year and is estimated to release up to 370 million metric tons of carbon dioxide annually, contributing to global warming. Despite these impacts, the practice remains legal in many marine protected areas.
Max Valentine, a senior scientist at Oceana, tells Nat Geo that bottom trawling “bulldozes the homes of other marine life” and is akin to “using a lawnmower to chop down everything in sight.”
The filmmakers have shared the footage with scientists to help support further research and public awareness. “So that no one ever has to [film] it again,” adds Scholey. “It’s one of the most important things I’ve ever done in my career.”
Ocean with David Attenborough is currently playing in selected theaters around the world and will be released globally on Disney+, Hulu, and National Geographic on June 7.
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