Rose George has spent years writing about industries most people ignore. Her new book, “Every Last Fish: A Deep Dive into the World of Fishes and Fishing” (Granta Books, 2025), turns her attention to the ocean itself — and finds a world as complicated and troubled as shipping ever was.
George is a British journalist and author whose previous work includes “Deep Sea and Foreign Going: Inside Shipping, the Invisible Industry that Brings You 90% of Everything” (Granta Books, 2013). That book won awards and built her reputation as a chronicler of hidden systems. For “Every Last Fish,” she left the docks and boarded trawlers, joined fishers and aquaculturists across continents, and worked with scientists studying fish intelligence and welfare.
The result is a book that asks readers to see fish not as commodities but as animals with complex lives — and to grapple with the brutal reality of how humans harvest them.
Industry Numbers
The global fishing industry faces severe threats. Overfishing remains a major problem, while production and consumption have reached record highs. Illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing continues to thrive, disrupting marine ecosystems and making sustainable management nearly impossible. Climate change is warming the seas, shifting where marine species live and shrinking the bodies of the fish themselves.
Against that backdrop, George set out to understand an industry she calls “way more complicated, and baffling, and a difficult industry in many ways.”
From Shipping to Fishing
George’s entry point came from her own work. When she wrote her shipping book, she heard from shipping people that fishing was even worse.
“I had a lot of skepticism about how the shipping industry works,” she told Live Science. “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.”
That comparison stuck with her. She also noticed a shift in how humans eat seafood. For the first time in history, we are eating more farmed fish than wild-caught ones.
“We have switched from hunter-gatherers to settled farmers, even though in this case, it’s fish,” she said.
The Case Against Fish
The public knows the statistics about overfished and depleted stocks, George argues, but they often switch off from the message. She wants to change that by focusing on the animals themselves.
“One of the things that really fascinated me was the research into fish abilities and fish sentience,” she said. “Most people think of animals as kind of furry, cute things that they can empathize with or sympathize with, whereas sympathizing with fish, I mean, Samuel Coleridge called them ‘slimy things in the water.'”
She points to recent scientific research showing that fish live in complex environments and need complex abilities to survive. In one study, scientists had goldfish steering around an aquarium. George describes the research as “nuts but fascinating.”
“I definitely wanted this book to be not just about fishing but about fishes, the creatures, the animals,” she said. “Because I don’t think we think of them as animals.”
A Dangerous Profession
Fishing is a dangerous job, and George found that danger echoed across the boats she visited. Every vessel can sink, no matter its size. Accidents happen with heavy machinery like winches and chains under tension. People die, and people get injured.
The industry has gotten safer in some parts of the world, but it remains dangerous overall. Small-boat fishermen in England and Senegalese fishers share a sense of pride in their work and a sense of being beleaguered.
In Senegal, the problem is theft. European and other nations have taken Senegal’s fish, turning them into fish meal for European countries. Sardinella, a variety of sardine that is a staple in Senegal, is gone.
West Africa’s Sad Case
West Africa is a particular case study for how the fishing industry operates. George describes it as “a very sad case of how the fishing industry works.” The problem is not illegal activity. It is legal exploitation.
“The more you fish, the more you tend to fish the smaller fish,” George explained. “So you’ll fish down. You’ll end up fishing juvenile fish. And then, of course, you’ve got no fish to grow up.”
Senegal’s government sold all its licenses, and the result is a country that once fed itself on sardines now watching them disappear.
The Prize Shortlist
“Every Last Fish” has been short-listed for the 2026 Royal Society Trivedi Science Book Prize. George’s book joins a field of science writing.
Her career spans 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.”
The Limits of Regulation
George acknowledges the difficulty of policing the ocean. The sea is too big, and enforcement is nearly impossible.
“You can’t police the sea; it’s too big,” she said.
That limit shapes the whole book. The problems George documents — overfishing, illegal fishing, climate impacts — exist in a system that resists control. Her reporting shows people working within that system, from small-boat fishermen to fish farmers, each dealing with their own version of the same pressures.
What the Book Achieves
George’s goal was to make fish feel more alive to readers. She wanted to move beyond seeing them as dead things on plates. Whether she succeeded is a question for readers, but her approach is clear.
She traveled to salmon farms and fishing communities across continents. She worked with scientists studying fish abilities. She documented atrocities at sea, including slavery and murder. She compared the work of small-boat fishermen in England with Senegalese fishers.
| Comparison | Small-boat fishermen in England | Senegalese fishers |
|---|---|---|
| Shared trait | Pride in their work | Pride in their work |
| Shared hardship | Beleaguered by regulation | Beleaguered by theft |
| Specific challenge | None stated | Sardinella depleted by foreign fishing |
The table shows the common thread: both groups are proud of their work and feel beleaguered by forces beyond their control. The English fishermen face regulation; the Senegalese face theft.
The Bottom Line
George’s book is a call to see fish differently. She wants readers to stop thinking of them as slimy things in the water and start thinking of them as animals with complex abilities living in complex environments.
She also wants readers to care about the ocean’s state. The statistics about overfished stocks are familiar, but people switch off from them. Her reporting aims to re-enthuse readers about the terrible state of the ocean.
Whether readers respond to her argument depends on whether they engage with her stories. The book’s shortlisting for the Royal Society Trivedi Science Book Prize suggests it is reaching a wide audience. That matters for a book about an industry most people ignore.
George’s reporting crosses trawlers, fish farms and fisheries worldwide. She presses hard against the idea that fish are mere commodities. Her book asks readers to sit with the contradiction between what they eat and what they know — and to keep asking questions about how the ocean is managed.
The sea is too big to police. That is the limit of regulation, and it is also the starting point for understanding what George has done in “Every Last Fish.”
Source material: “Author Rose George dives into the dark depths of the fishing industry,” Live Science.
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