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| Hugh's discard campaign |
CELEBRITIES are storming into the world of seafood and bringing with them an uprising against various topics and issues, the most prominent being good ole Hugh with his fish fight against discards. The fact that they are using their famous faces for this cause is fantastic as it gets them to the public's attention. The problem with this is that they pick their fights and run with it, which can sometimes obscure other pressing issues by the media frenzy that takes place on said topic.
The fish fight has not only created national outrage at the presence of discarding and outlined one of the issues with the current quota system, but also suggested that to help rectify this, we should be more open with our repertoire of seafood we eat. In principle, great! This is one of my major talking points - eat a variety to take pressure off the current popular choices. But now everyone is focussed on this, the other issues are being compromised as the media and politicians scramble to deal with the quota system as a priority, over everything else it seems. So, we either need to convince more famous faces to take up the reigns on some of the other critical issues, or we need to make sure a more rounded awareness of fisheries problems are available and accessible in the public domain. And in the light of this, I think fishing methods are a good place to start...
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| Perfect hiding spot |
Loss or destruction of habitat is one of the major causes of species loss and many of the species currently under threat of extinction are so because we have changed, degraded or removed their homes, natural food sources and security. It's not just because we have gone out with guns and nets and continued our usual selfish behaviour of taking more than can be given. Pandas need bamboo forest, bees need flowers, birds need trees, and marine species need the right habitat to function, eat, sleep, hunt and hide. Therefore I aim to talk about fishing methods from this perspective...and mull over the most destructive methods that not only result in the bycatch (things caught that were not the target) and discarding everyone hates so much, but also habitat destruction to boot.
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| A fun day out fishing! |
Question. Do you have any knowledge of how fish is caught, other than people sat under enormous brollies looking fairly downbeat by the side of a canal...? If you think it is all done by a wee wooden boat with a pond dipping net in the calm coastal waters, you are mistaken! Not all fish are nice enough to mosey on up to your baited line and obligingly grab hold. In fact, in the UK, we have lots of lazy fish that like to hang out on or close to the sea bed rather than at the ready to leap out onto the boat at a moments notice. And because of this, the dredge and the trawl were invented.
The trawl can either be mid water or a bottom fishing method, where nets are trawled across the sea bed or in the water column in order to fish out pelagic (free swimming) or bottom dwellers. Slightly less destructive than the dredge as they aim not to disturb the substrate as much (sediments and sea floor) by skimming over it.
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| Chinese Trawl Scars |
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| Bottom Trawl Net |
Dredges on the other hand are beasty things that actively seek to pull up the seabed in order to dislodge creatures that like to snuggle down in the sediments, such as langoustine (scampi) and scallops. This disrupts everything in the first few centimetres of the seabed, creates a great cloud of sediment that will either dissipate with the currents to be relocated or hang suspended until it can settle again, upsetting anything that likes sunlight and uninterrupted sea beds. Obviously anything sat on top of the sediment is also destroyed, which can involve species such as ancient, slow growing sea fans, delicate sea pens, anemones, valuable sponges and the likes. In one single swoop. Even if we think on an individual basis these things are not that important (which, incidentally, I don’t!) the marine world is JUST like the land, where there is a balance of species working together to create the systems and processes that we all see and as much as you may not like some species, they all have a role to play. If you have been watching the lovely Chris Packham on the Secrets of our Living Planet, you will grasp this concept very quickly after he has explored the relationships between Snails and Tigers, and Brazil nuts and Agoutis and various other random connections that make the world go round.
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| Scallop Dredge Net - imagine a net made of metal rings attached to this frame... |
Now, to save you having to read paragraph after paragraph of facts and figures, I am going to use the wonder of bullet points to help illustrate why dredging and trawling need to be regulated, managed and improved.
- some use nets made from rope, some from metal. Yes, metal nets. Imagine that rolling over a field of orchids and hedgehogs.
- some dredges have metal teeth that dig into the seabed
- some trawls use two boats to pull the nets as they are too big for one to manage...the mouths of the nets can be THOUSANDS of metres square, and the analogy of how many football fields you can fit inside one is often used to illustrate the size they can reach. That is big!
- trawl nets can be dragged for hours - imagine how much of the bycatch is alive after that (hint: none?!) and imagine the ride the catch gets before it is finally hauled out
- the length of time the nets are dragged also reduces the value of the catch as the more damaged it becomes after collecting at the cod end (end of the net) and builds up
- duration of bottom trawls also affects how much of the seabed is damaged
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| A Prawn Trawl Haul - Spot the prawns... |
Fact. Prawn trawls are notoriously the worst for destruction and bycatch, with over 70% of each trawl consisting of (mainly dead) non target species
Fact. smaller boats with smaller gear cause less damage (now that’s just common sense) so we need to support our LOCAL SMALL FLEETS
Fact. Smaller gear can be more selective and therefore reduce bycatch
So I am hoping that from this, you will gather that trawling and dredging for seafood are highly destructive for both vital habitat and species sustainability.
However, I am not totally naive. To produce the sheer volume of seafood required to feed the world, a ban on these methods is not going to happen overnight, if at all. Ever. But consumers have a strong voice, so if we encourage the use of less destructive methods and no go zones (*MCZs!!!) it could be one huge step forward for a more sustainable fishing industry. Trouble is, fishing is often a way of life and trying to take away something that has been the lifeblood of generation after generation, is not an easy task.
Here are a few more bullet points for you;
- small potting boats, boats that deploy lobster and crab pots along the coasts, account for the majority of our catch of those species. Pots have low bycatch and a high rate of live return of bycatch, good management practices, almost zero habitat destruction and provide jobs for hundreds around our coasts
- longlines, although they may consist of thousands of hooks deployed from a single vessel and can result in bycatch of sharks, birds, turtles etc. have measures that can be taken to greatly reduce bycatch but DON'T CAUSE HABITAT DAMAGE AS WELL
- Purse seine nets are mid water and DON'T CAUSE HABITAT DAMAGE (although again, are associated with emotive bycatch such as dolphins and sharks)
- Static fishing gear such as gill nets DON'T CAUSE HABITAT DAMAGE, well, barely any.
...can you see where I am going with this?
It's worth taking some time to think about.
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