Throwing fish back dead

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Throwing fish back dead
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sean
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 42219
Location: North Devon

Posted: Wed Nov 17, 10 2:31 pm Post subject:

crofter wrote:

Despite what most people believe, cod are not endangered, in a year or two even the fisheries scientists will agree with that.

What do you base that on? It may well be true for all I know, but I'd quite like to see some sort of evidence.

crofter

Joined: 11 Feb 2007
Posts: 2252

Posted: Wed Nov 17, 10 2:50 pm Post subject:

sean wrote:

crofter wrote:

Despite what most people believe, cod are not endangered, in a year or two even the fisheries scientists will agree with that.

What do you base that on? It may well be true for all I know, but I'd quite like to see some sort of evidence.

Ask a fisherman.

sean
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 42219
Location: North Devon

Posted: Wed Nov 17, 10 2:53 pm Post subject:
Brilliant. Which bit of the word 'evidence' don't you understand? Edit: Sorry if that seems rude but it is substantively ignoring the question completely. And stuff that 'everybody knows' is usually rubbish I'm afraid.

milkmaid

Joined: 04 Jan 2007
Posts: 551
Location: western isles

Posted: Wed Nov 17, 10 3:11 pm Post subject:

i'm not sure about cod ,most people seem to think they have headed up north a bit
i do work with 3 exfishermen and my daughter works at a place that buys straight off the boats so talks to people who make their living off fishing a lot of them are leaving the sea ,not though lack of fish but though lack of work ,when you are only allowed 2 days at sea ,
and as i said huge boats pull into the harbour and it does grate on them ,lots of small 3 to 4 man boats here well ,there were

although the fish caught on a line here now are generally smaller as i said they are setting up a marine park where no fishing is allowed
so that they have a place to breed
not evidence but i will ask about cod if i get a chance next week ,

crofter

Joined: 11 Feb 2007
Posts: 2252

Posted: Wed Nov 17, 10 4:03 pm Post subject:

sean wrote:

Brilliant. Which bit of the word 'evidence' don't you understand?

Edit: Sorry if that seems rude but it is substantively ignoring the question completely. And stuff that 'everybody knows' is usually rubbish I'm afraid.

Not rude at all, sorry for the flippant answer. "Everybody" doesn't know, but I can assure you that the people who do know are the men who are out there in all weathers lifting shot after shot and throwing countless tonnes of cod back into the sea dead because they are not allowed to land it.

As I said, the "evidence" will not be available until next year, when the fisheries scientists will confirm what the fishermen already know.

crofter

Joined: 11 Feb 2007
Posts: 2252

Posted: Wed Nov 17, 10 7:24 pm Post subject:

sean wrote:

Brilliant. Which bit of the word 'evidence' don't you understand?

If you do not accept credible eye-witness reports, here is the same story summarised in writing

Quote:

Cod stocks in the North Sea are recovering.

Quote:

There is no argument over the setting of a stringent target for fishing mortality. The
real issue is discarding.

Quote:

The lack of quota appears to be a particular problem with cod – where the quota has not kept pace with the expansion in the stock.

https://www.nsrac.org/category/meetings/

(^From 2010 reports)

Quote:

Greenpeace opposed a slight rise in the North Sea cod quotas last year, despite evidence from the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (Ices) that stocks are beginning to recover.

Quote:

“Immediately I am going to put monkfish, cod and haddock on the menu,” he says. “We are told, especially in England, that cod is very much overfished and we shouldn’t take it at all. But today I saw a multitude of large cod. Of course, every fisherman is keen to tell me that’s a nonsense, the fisheries are healthy, that we are underfishing rather than overfishing. But this morning I could see that: tonnes of good quality fish. That is fantastic for me as a chef to see, because we are being told so much negative news.”

https://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/food_and_drink/article5113666.ece

This article is from 2 years ago....

carlseawolf

Joined: 30 Mar 2009
Posts: 98
Location: Ilfracombe , North Devon

Posted: Wed Nov 17, 10 9:47 pm Post subject:

As a ex -fisherman what you see on the video has been happening for many years and it has been the fishermen who have been complaining about the waste of fish to the goverment .
To understand the quota system you have got to go back to 1971 when this mess was made up by the EU. When the goverment of the perposed new EU asked their fishermen about their catch rates from previous years the british fisherman feared it was another way of getting more tax out of them so gave smaller figuers than they had caught, so when the time to share out the EU fish quota britian got about 16% and france around 60%.
This 16% is then split between sector and non sector fishermen with the sector getting the lions share. A sector fisherman would have had a boat before the EU was formed so had a track record of there catch and was awarded quota to what he had caught the previous years. The non sector was made up of people with no track record so where given a small quota to fish on , this was on a monthy basis and was over a vast area in little sea areas so you was on the move to forfill your quota which was lost the end off each month.

.

carlseawolf

Joined: 30 Mar 2009
Posts: 98
Location: Ilfracombe , North Devon

Posted: Wed Nov 17, 10 10:04 pm Post subject: The goverment,fisherman, scientist

The quota system is a complete nightmare as it doesn't show the state of fish stock as it goes on the basis of what fisherman put in their logbooks.
To understand the fishermans point of view this is how fish weight is calculated when coming aboard a fishing boat at sea . The fish get caught on the boat that is called LIVE WEIGHT then it is prossesed that is BOX WEIGHT ,and then landed on the quay as QUOTA WEIGHT.
Between these three weights the goverment allows a 10% diffrence between each weight with the quota weight having to match what is put in the logbook on the vessel each 24hr day, and this is done on the vessel with no scales to weight the fish.
The maximum fine for a logbook error is £50,000.
With taking in mind a logbook error could cost you that amount of money ,the skipper naturally under estimate in there logbooks to make sure they don't go over quota.

Lets say

carlseawolf

Joined: 30 Mar 2009
Posts: 98
Location: Ilfracombe , North Devon

Posted: Wed Nov 17, 10 10:21 pm Post subject:

Lets say a skipper under estimates a box of fish for each species he has quota for and it came to a total of 10 boxes.
Thes 10 boxes are then short on his yearly quota and if the whole fleet is doing the same the scientist look at the logbooks and make the conclusion that there must be less fish avalible than they first thought so cut the quota the following year to save the stocks, and then the cycle starts again. (this has been going on since 1971).
This what i recon is the answer ; they shoul;d do away with certain species quota and give the boat a quota for all fish to be caught for a year and all fish will be kept aboard againt the quota so there will be no disguards.
Norway uses this system and all fish not for human consumtion will be put into fishmeal for fertilizer or animal feed , this could be given a minimum price by the goverment to aid the fishermen.
The positive side of this idea is the ease in which it can be implemented as days at sea would be abolished , fishernen could work better weather so making life safer.
tt

milkmaid

Joined: 04 Jan 2007
Posts: 551
Location: western isles

Posted: Wed Nov 17, 10 10:25 pm Post subject:
talking to a fisherman today he was saying roughly what carlseawolf was saying the 2 days a week was because the boat i was talking about uses their quota that way cliff bay in uig has a no trawler policy , and fishing is improving big time ,in the bay at the font hoddock is returning i've been told ,the bay used to be trawled by spanish trawlers 2 of them twin trawling

carlseawolf

Joined: 30 Mar 2009
Posts: 98
Location: Ilfracombe , North Devon

Posted: Wed Nov 17, 10 10:35 pm Post subject:

To finish this of there would only have to be one fine for anyone dumping at sea and that would be to take the estimated amount dumped and reduce there quota by the amount for that year.
By doing this fishermen will take the action to reduce small fish been caught as the value would be low against the quota they can catch , against the value of bigger fish for the same amount of quota.

May i just add this point about closed fishing areas , in the north sea they closed an area called the plaice box to protect the plaice and the dutch fishermen fish around this closed of area and have had record catches.
Ever scientist thought the box had worked and the plaice had been given the space to spawn , but infact when they survaid the seabed the plaice where no where to be seen, they had infact gone outside the box where the trawlers where working because they reilide on the trawlers to dig up the worms on the seabed to feed.

sean
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 42219
Location: North Devon

Posted: Wed Nov 17, 10 10:42 pm Post subject:
Thanks Carl, that's a really interesting set of posts. I think that we can probably all agree that the system as it stands is a mess. The tricky bit is working out how to put a better system in place.

crofter

Joined: 11 Feb 2007
Posts: 2252

Posted: Wed Nov 17, 10 11:31 pm Post subject:

sean wrote:

The tricky bit is working out how to put a better system in place.

There is a good example not too far away...

Quote:

Discarding is prohibited in Norwegian waters ... Norway has for more than 20 years advocated internationally, and especially in its relations with the EU, for the prohibitions of discards of fish.

In that time, more than 20 million tonnes of fish dumped as a result of EU reulations!

Hairyloon

Joined: 20 Nov 2008
Posts: 15425
Location: Today I are mostly being in Yorkshire.

Posted: Thu Nov 18, 10 12:53 am Post subject:

crofter wrote:

sean wrote:

crofter wrote:

Despite what most people believe, cod are not endangered, in a year or two even the fisheries scientists will agree with that.

What do you base that on? It may well be true for all I know, but I'd quite like to see some sort of evidence.

Ask a fisherman.

It depends what you mean by "endangered".
If you mean "in danger of extinction", then no, I do not think they are endangered.

But anyone who does not believe they are overfished is living in cloud cuckoo land.

Here is a study showing that fish stocks are less than one thousandth of what they were 100 years back.

crofter

Joined: 11 Feb 2007
Posts: 2252

Posted: Thu Nov 18, 10 1:35 am Post subject:

Hairyloon wrote:

But anyone who does not believe they are overfished is living in cloud cuckoo land.

What is your definition of "overfished"?

All indications are that the cod recovery plan is working. Yes, there were more fish 100 years ago, but you could say the same about forests, buffalo, oil....

Believe it or not, fishermen are not greedy pirates who are bent on catching the last fish out of the sea.

Quote:

The Fishermen know what is happening out in the seas better than any scientist or eco-activist will ever know. When I was a scientist it took me 4-5 years to convince the senior guys to really listen to the Fishermen which they have been doing for 10-12 years now. I used to get accurate catch rates , where the fish were caught , told when they had come across large hauls of smaller fish , etc ,etc and that information was given freely because the Fishermen knew that I had been a fisherman myself

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