Brian Skerry Quotes

We are already perilously close to killing off the top of the oceanic food chain - with catastrophic consequences that we can't begin to imagine. Let us not, in the heat of anger, reduce the already devastated population of great white sharks by one more member.

Ships are expendable; the whales are not.

Bluefin tuna is sort of like the cheetah of the ocean. It's the fastest fish. It's a warm-blooded fish. But it's got a $100,000 price tag on its head.

Sharks have swum the oceans for over 400 million years, but we're threatening this critically important species for the purpose of making soup - it's sad and wasteful.

There is this sweet spot in time when we have an opportunity to stop killing sharks and tunas and swordfish and other wildlife in the sea before it's too late.

They are a fairly aggressive conservation organization that was started to protect the great whales particularly, but in general all marine life around the world. So those are the people I'm trying to attach my name to.

The Oceanic White Tip is considered one of the most dangerous sharks in the sea along with the Great White and Tiger. It is responsible for some of the most famous episodes of man-eating in history, such as when the U.S.S. Indianapolis sank in 1945.

Sharks are in real trouble, and they need all the help they can get.

I get a bit depressed if I walk into a restaurant and see shark-fin soup on the menu.

A healthy ocean is vital to our economy and well-being. We need clean and healthy oceans to sustain tourism and fisheries.

Why is it that scuba divers and surfers are some of the strongest advocates of ocean conservation? Because they've spent time in and around the ocean, and they've personally seen the beauty, the fragility, and even the degradation of our planet's blue heart.

I don't want to live in a world where I could say to my daughter, 'There used to be turtles that swam in the ocean.'

As an explorer, I know firsthand there are many places in the ocean so full of life that they should be protected. Coral reefs and mangrove coastlines are stressed already by climate change and ocean acidification, and poor planning will just make their plight worse.

Anybody who spends time off of Louisiana's shores can recognize that these oysters are not endangered. To classify them as such risks great harm to not only fishermen who make their living collecting oysters in the Gulf, but also to Louisiana's economy in total.

There are so many issues in our oceans - like the near extinction of blue fin tuna - that should be taken more seriously worldwide.

Most people don't know that humans kill 100 million sharks every year, mostly for a really expensive soup in Asia.

I'm concerned about the ocean and the environment. And I love whales.

If we wipe out the fish, the oceans are going to die. If the oceans die, we die. We can't live on this planet with a dead ocean.

The Polynesians used to have a system where they proclaimed a fishing area as 'taboo.' If any fisherman was caught fishing in a taboo area, they would be killed. The Polynesians understand that the fish had to be given a chance to recover.

As long as there is a Southern Ocean whale sanctuary, Sea Shepherd crew will continue to patrol and defend it.

It’s all in there. We have harpooned every whale in the ocean.

By 1760, the Nantucketers had virtually exterminated the local whale population.

It's harder to kill off fish than mammals. But after 1,000 years of hunting the Atlantic cod, we know that it can be done.

We must protect our ocean as if our lives depend upon it, because they do.

Pigs eat more tuna than all the planet's sharks combined.