Fourth of July is considered the United States of America’s birthday, and for Americans it’s one long holiday. Here in the USA, a lot of people are still partying, as we speak, but Chelsea star Christian Pulisic is one American who’s having a drama filled holiday weekend.
He posted a strange video on his Instagram account which showed him sitting on the edge of a boat, playing keepy ups over a large fish which was caught and being held at the surface of the water. Pulisic then loses his balance and falls into the sea, landing on the fish, which was a Goliath Grouper, a species that is classified as vulnerable.
Abusing a threatened goliath grouper for a social media video is a new low. https://t.co/Km1qUi1tmp
— Blue Planet Society (@Seasaver) July 4, 2021
It’s difficult to ascertain what the point of Pulisic’s stunt was, and we don’t see what happens to the grouper after Pulisic gets back in the boat, but the face of the USMNT is facing a public backlash over the incident. Blue Planet Society, which describe themselves as a “Volunteer pressure group campaigning to end the overexploitation of the world’s ocean,” accuse Pulisic of abusing the fish.
The video itself doesn’t really convey that, neither does the caption (‘Life flashed in front of my eyes?What a day on the water with @blacktiph and @emadgg_’) written by the 22-year-old on his original post. However, the grouper, which struggles when the Chelsea star falls on top of it, is a species whose population is threatened.
That’s because they have a tendency to be over-fished, and are slow to reproduce en masse. Thus a harvesting ban is currently in place of the goliath grouper. While Pulisic may have seen the point of this video being his accidental tumble into the sea, commenters online see the interaction with the fish as the main plot.
Opinions differ greatly on the severity of this situation, but no matter what you or I happen to think of it, don’t be surprised if Pulisic ends up making a public apology due to the outcry.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank, partnered with News Now. Banks, the author of “Transatlantic Passage: How the English Premier League Redefined Soccer in America” and “No, I Can’t Get You Free Tickets: Lessons Learned From a Life in the Sports Media Industry,” has regularly appeared in WGN, Sports Illustrated and the Chicago Tribune.
Follow him on Twitter and Instagram.