Racing Extinction is an amazing documentary that highlights issues facing our oceans. The issues discussed include ocean acidification, multiple species extinctions, overfishing, fishing bycatch, and coral bleaching. Arguably, the most impactful scenes were those of fishing. The majority of the documentary focused on fishing and included the harvesting of manta rays, farmed salmon, whales, dolphins, and sharks. This documentary made me feel awfully sad due to my passion for these specific issues. The graphic images added to this feeling. However, I’m glad they included those visuals to truly showcase these gruesome events that occur on a daily basis around the world. I hope the documentary, especially that imagery, becomes engrained in people’s minds and promotes them to some sort of action.

I think the documentary did an effective job of balancing the gore with positivity. There was a chapter that showed a village in Indonesia (if I’m not mistaken) that had built a community and economy around catching manta rays for many years. However, the mantas hadn’t been caught sustainably and the local population significantly decreased, making it much more difficult for the fishermen to catch any. According to the film, after the film leader and crew engaged and spoke with the community leaders, the crew was able to set up an educational screening of film of the gorgeous beauty and grace of manta rays for the entire community. They also explained the booming business of eco-tourism, which requires the maintenance of ideal population levels of mantas, to the village leaders. Although changing a community’s economy is probably very difficult, I am very glad that the crew was able to at least show that fishing manta rays wasn’t their only option to feed their families and that there was actually a more prosperous option. I think the main way to begin to combat all of these problems that the oceans are facing is through education. Most people are unaware of what is happening and I’m sure a great majority would take action if they knew. I hope this documentary reaches as many pairs of eyes as possible all over the world so that we can finally put an end to the degradation of our oceans.