Author Rose George dives into the dark depths of the fishing industry

The global fishing industry is plagued by problems. Overfishing remains a severe threat, while production and consumption have increased to record levels. Illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing continues to thrive , thereby disrupting marine ecosystems and attempts to manage our oceans sustainably. All the while, climate change is warming the seas, shifting marine populations and shrinking fish body size .

It's amid this background that journalist and author Rose George wrote " Every Last Fish: A Deep Dive into the World of Fishes and Fishing " (Granta Books, 2025). George had previously written an award-winning book on the shipping industry, " Deep Sea and Foreign Going: Inside Shipping, the Invisible Industry that Brings You 90% of Everything ," (Granta Books, 2013) and had become more aware of the significant issues facing the fishing industry.

For the book, she traveled across continents, joining trawlers, fishers and aquaculturists (fish farmers) to learn more about the problems they face, while delving into fish intelligence and welfare with scientists. Finally, George also reveals some of the atrocities that take place at sea, including slavery and murder, as she tells Live Science in this interview about the book. "You can't police the sea; it's too big," she said.

"Every Last Fish" has been short-listed for the 2026 Royal Society Trivedi Science Book Prize .

Rose George is a British journalist and author. She has been a postwar correspondent, a writer of reportage, and a regular book reviewer. She has written four non-fiction books. "A Life Removed, The Big Necessity: The Unmentionable World of Human Waste and Why it Matters"; "Deep Sea and Foreign Going: Inside Shipping, the Invisible Industry the Brings you 90% of Everything"; "Nine Pints: A Journey Through the Money, Medicine, and Mysteries of Blood" and "Every Last Fish: A Deep Dive into the World of Fishes and Fishing."

Hannah Osborne: You're a vegetarian who gets bad motion sickness. What made you want to write a book about the fishing industry?

Rose George: When I wrote my shipping book, I had a lot of skepticism about how the shipping industry works. But whenever I spoke to shipping people, they would say, "Well, if you think we're bad, you should look at fishing." And they were right. Fishing is way more complicated, and baffling, and a difficult industry in many ways.

One of the other big triggers was that when I was doing my initial research, two things struck me. One was that for the first time in history, we're going to be eating more farmed fish than hunted fish. We have switched from hunter-gatherers to settled farmers, even though in this case, it's fish. There are all the horrible statistics about how many fish stocks are overfished and depleted and under pressure. People kind of know that, and I think they kind of switch off from it — it's quite hard to enthuse them about the fact that the ocean is in such a terrible state.