Cod Stocks

[loopy]

EU calls for 50 per cent cut in cod fishing - Telegraph

European hammer blow to Scotland


Interesting, will it happen, this may also bring on an increase in mls and that will affect us, will it be a good thing if we get more and bigger fish as a result ?
55cm has been banded about.
Have a look at the CV of the Greek woman in charge.
Maria Damanaki - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[The Great Wallsendo]

40-45mm perhaps but 55mm

that said I'm a fan of larger MLS - just hope a bit of common sense can be applied in implementation

[northeast1]

I agree i think what is considered size is is just too small.

Also i would be all for 3-5 years of no keeping cod boat or shore if it will improve the fish long term, i fish for fun not the dinner table...sure a lot would just stop fishing thou if they could not take the catch home.

[KeithB]

Surely raising the MLS would just mean commercials would have to chuck more fish that they would normally keep back dead, therefore fish longer and chuck even more dead fish back in the sea.

[tonyfromalnwick]

Surely raising the MLS would just mean commercials would have to chuck more fish that they would normally keep back dead, therefore fish longer and chuck even more dead fish back in the sea.

Pretty much sums it up.

[super-MAGuire]

Pretty much sums it up.

i agree fully, there should be larged no take zones and marine protected areas in my opinion, rather than quotas on amounts. The nets dont distiguish what it scoops up to a large degree. Locations of spawing sites are currently protected during the window of time which it occurs, howver theere are many factors which make it variable i.e. locations and timeing, also the issue of taking only larger fish is the reduction of spaw, as the larger idividuals have a significantly higher fecundity, so more efforts would be wisely made to protect the areas harbouring the larger fish.

[Stewart 1971]

Keith is pretty much spot on. Anyone remember the big fuss a couple of years ago when they showed the footage of that trawler chucking tonnes of fish over the side because although they were in size and in quota they weren't as valuable as bigger fish they were catching?

A solution put forward then was to do away with species quotas and size limits and just make boats land EVERYTHING they catch up to a specific qouta weight. No more bycatch, no more discards everything in the net is landed and counts towards the quota. The technology is easily available to monitor this and prevent boats dumping fish overboard. It was even suggested that this would save skippers money as they would spend less days at sea to fulfill their quota compensating for potential losses through not being able to solely target the high commercial value fish.

Got to be better than the current system where discards from a single trawler probably amounts to more cod than all the anglers (yes including Sean) in the North East can catch in a year.

[loopy]

Not much has come out of the EU but her quote is meaningful and thought provoking.
Anybody from the old NE Herring industry about.

"Past experience has shown that those who think they can negotiate with nature will not have a long future in fishing,"

I hope they have the sense to change fishing gear and methods and include bye- catch in the Total Allowable Catch along with suggested sealed video tags on board.

[Stewart 1971]

Video

Here's the footage. I find it impossible to watch this without being both sickened and getting extremely angry.

Video: UK trawler filmed dumping tonnes of fish | Environment | guardian.co.uk

I've got nothing against commercial fisherman, people need to eat and they need to make a living. But behaviour like this (and the statistics in the film suggest it is widespread) is simply disgusting.

[super-MAGuire]

every single box of fish is around 50kg/110lb which is dumbed, thats as much as some anglers will catch all winter, nevermind kill to take home. PER BOX!

[The Great Wallsendo]

until the consumer is educated otherwise the demand will always be there and thus the problem perpetuates itself

We've all been brought up on Cod this and Cod that throughout our lives that if ever an alternative is offered we turn our noses up ("we" being a generalism)

How many people say "ooh I like Cod"...but if you offered them Ling or Pollack (same but different in a lot of ways) they go "whaaaa?"

I only think increased MLS would work in "theory" but not necessarily in practice

[lingking]

cod ? or

aye tgw,blindfold someone,put a cooked ling or pollock in front of em and a lot of people would struggle to taste the difference

[dizzydaz]

Here's the footage. I find it impossible to watch this without being both sickened and getting extremely angry.

Video: UK trawler filmed dumping tonnes of fish | Environment | guardian.co.uk

I've got nothing against commercial fisherman, people need to eat and they need to make a living. But behaviour like this (and the statistics in the film suggest it is widespread) is simply disgusting.

ive just watched that vidio clip too and it is depressing watching those fish all going to waste

[smartmp]

I would go with increasing the mesh size and having the trawlers land all they catch up to a total quota weight
Seems to work in some other fisheries

[paulthespark]

can somebody tell me why the Norwegians are doing the right thing to conserve their fish stocks, and the rest of Europe including us, just don't get it.