sober reading

[mark]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6992938.stm

8000 tons thrown back dead FFS!

[davem2005]

Mark,
The issue of discards is a major problem, when almost half of the quota is put back dead it makes a mockery of any conservation measures.

The fisheries management in this country has been in favour of the commercial for many years...its only now things are slowly starting to change with the sacn and nfsa pushing for the introduction of a golden mile.

One annual issue about to start is the herring spawning fishery of this coast. Its a herring bonanza but with a massive bycatch of undersize cod. Its being going on for years and tons of undersize cod get thrown back as the nets get blinded by the pure mass of spawn. I have emailed greenpeace, wwf and nesfc regarding this and hopefully one of them will pick up on it and bring it to the publics attention so something can be done to stop this slaughter.

These are our next years cod getting slaughtered en masse for a tradition comercial fishery...time we did something about it ...if we can.

Cheers
Dave

[mark]

its this line that caught my eye the most

"Fish which are undersize or exceed the permitted quota for particular species has to be thrown back into the sea but less than 1% of discarded fish survive so most is wasted."

[johnf]

Depressing reading. It seems that everyone (including the commercial anglers) know that a ban from landing certain fish still means they are caught & killed in nets. Yet still nothing gets done. What will it take to stop this folly?, I'm guessing it'll be when there are so few fish it becomes unprofitable to put to sea to catch them.