Let’s get to the lie regarding cod being wasted as by-catch because of its capture during prawn fishing and that cod being dumped because the British fleet is over quota.
The BBC correspondent, aboard the vessel concerned, missed the point; those cod are caught because the prawn fishing industry refuses to invest in gear which could select prawn, almost to the exclusion of other species. Prawn trawlers currently use fine-mesh nets with "escape hatches" of much larger mesh size in the top, which allows some species of white fish to escape.
Scientists at the Fisheries Research Service in Aberdeen found that increasing the mesh size in the top could allow a majority of cod to escape. They have also created nets that will catch haddock and whiting, but not cod.
"We found this out 25 years ago," said Dick Ferro, until recently head of the agency's fishing technology and fish behaviour group. "As the net approaches, we observed that haddock, whiting and saithe swim upwards, while cod, flatfish and prawns stay low."
The FRS design separates fish as they swim in, haddock heading to a higher enclosure and cod escaping lower down. However, some of these technologies lead to fishermen losing a small portion of their target catch as well.
"If all designs for bycatch reduction that are now gathering dust in various research laboratories were put to use, the world's fisheries would be in a better shape," commented Professor Roberts. "There are lots of good intentions out there, but there's been a lack of political will to implement them. If you want people to use these approaches, you have to force them through legislation, and you probably also have to supply some kind of transitional payment."
The Fisheries Minister has again bought the story as presented by the commercial fishing industry without fully understanding the drivers and the impacts of various gear types. For too long Fisheries Ministers throughout Europe have pandered to the economic demands of commercial fleets whilst disregarding the scientific evidence of declining stocks. We need a Fisheries Minister who stands up for the fishery and protects it from over-exploitation, not one who bends over backwards to satisfy the few who seek employment by destroying one of nature’s great larders.
In the 1970s the estimated adult stock of cod in the North Sea was 250,000 tonnes, it is now 35,000 tonnes and the fishing industry still wants to take more fish each year from the water, much of it never having had the chance to spawn, not even once!!
The prawn fishing fleet has by-catch as much as 85% of its’ total catch, yet appears to do nothing to reduce its’ impact on other fisheries. Until the fleet modernises its’ gear there should be no increase in quota to accommodate the white fish by-catch and we should be considering stopping the fishery entirely, since the stocks are being destroyed by an industry which wears blinkers when it comes to long term sustainability.
Discarding should be a criminal act. All fish landed should be taken to market and count against a national quota. If the skippers who “suffer” by-catch had to sell that fish at market they would rapidly invest in modern gear or go out of business. Both ways the fish win, they would either get large enough to breed and replenish the sea before being caught or they could swim freely forever and with a much reduced fleet the seas around Britain would again blossom with fish of all species.
If that were to happen sea angling would again approach its level of popularity in the sixties and seventies when many coastal communities supported large numbers of sea angling vessels, fishing six or seven days a week with a full complement of anglers. Go to the coast these days and you may see one or two boats going to sea with perhaps four anglers each, two or three days a week. Jobs have disappeared on the boats, in the harbours, in the tackle shops, for bait diggers, in hotels and overnight accommodation, in cafes and restaurants and in tackle manufacturing because the commercial fleet has consistently taken more than the sea could sustain.
12,000 jobs at sea commercially fishing could become 30,000 jobs at sea supporting sea anglers. Support industries would grow, onshore jobs would be delivered and the social benefits of healthy exercise for anglers would expand exponentially. This is what Jonathan Shaw denies when he backs the commercial fleet in its’ claims. This is what Jonathan Shaw fails to understand of his brief as Fisheries Minister.
SAA has only one thing to say to Jonathan, “Wake up and smell the ozone.”
