Throwing fish back dead

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Throwing fish back dead
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carlseawolf

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

Posted: Thu Nov 18, 10 6:49 am Post subject: What has to be done

To control conservation in UK waters we must first take back the seas around britian and reinstate the 200 mile limit on fishing for UK registered boats only.

Second the goverment needs to find out the true state of the fish stocks from the people who catch the fish not the logbooks they fill in , as they only tell them what the goverment wants to hear.

Third , a conservation based on scientific fact that will be seen to work by all parties not just a means of making the goverment look good on there green credentials.

Fourth , all uk caught fish to be landed into the UK, as this will make a demand on fish by are EU partners as spanish flag ships would have to land in the UK instead of taking back to spain where we see no financial benifit in the fish been caught by our neighbours.

And the last thing is to ditch the species quota for a total tonnage quota with no disguards , we no there is a market on the continent for small fish so lets use this to make money from the millions of tons of dead fish thrown over the side each year

carlseawolf

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

Posted: Thu Nov 18, 10 7:11 am Post subject:

What is your definition of "overfished"?

The definition of a species been over fished is when more fish are killed than the estimated fish population can breed in each year.

This is based on the amount of fish been killed been inaccurate (logbook entries) and scientific studies taken aboard fishing vessels afew times of the year.

It's a bit like trying to set a quota of the amount of bunnies in a field , ask the shooter and he will give a small figure , send in a scientist to study them and depending what time of day will give diffrent results.( just like fishing the full picture can never be know as it will also depend on male to female ratio)

paul1963

Joined: 15 Nov 2010
Posts: 2161
Location: No longer active on the forum

Posted: Thu Nov 18, 10 8:11 am Post subject:

Really interesting to read your views on this subject Carlseawolf. I have been watching a channel 5 series on maritime matters recently and am now able to understand the background issues that are in place when fishing boats are boarded and catches checked.

What is coming across to me from this whole thread is that fishing, rather than being an honest form of providing food from times immemorial has become a largely political issue, with a bit of environmentalsim chucked into the pot and is a right muddle.

Sad times for our fishermen.

carlseawolf

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

Posted: Thu Nov 18, 10 9:43 am Post subject:

The politics started back in 1971 the EU was first formed and the common fisheries policy was dreamt up.

In 1971 it was post codwar in britian and the fishing fleet was at it's lowest with very few boats at sea and no offical body speaking for the fishermen, This is when the goverment body now know as DEFRA went to the EU to talk fishing and farming quotas.

This meeting is why we are such a state as the fishing fleet was a small player in british industary so the goverment used the fishing groundas a lever to get a better deal for there farmers .( after all there are more farms owned by members of goverment than fishing boats) and so did the rest of the big players.

This proccess of sorting out the common fisheries policy only took 2 weeks to complete , where as the for mentioned logbook has 5 diffrent coloured pages to be handed in to certain goverment bodies depending on where you land took them about 2 years to decide the 5 colours.
To put it simply the fishing industary was sold out to save the farmers as they where deamed more important.

carlseawolf

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

Posted: Thu Nov 18, 10 10:05 am Post subject:

Policing the seas around britian!

As with any police force they can only prosercute you if they catch you do something wrong.
You may have seen the tv programmes where the fisheries are boarding boats form rubber inflatables and looking like they are saving the seas around britian , but it's all a show to make the general public feel good that something is been done.

This is how it realy is , it's not a stealth boat that sneaks up on the fleet and catches them doing bad , instead it's about 150' long built like a block of flats and pours smoke out of it's stack that can be seen for 12 miles on a good day.

To counter this the fisherman has radar that can see up to 60 mile that is smart enough to tell him the course and speed of a vessel long before you can visually see it, they talk on radio and phones to update the movement of the vessel so they know where they are at all times.

carlseawolf

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

Posted: Thu Nov 18, 10 10:20 am Post subject:

The main thorn in the side is the planes as you don't see them ,and because you have to put your position in your log book each day there is a chance of been caught out if you say your somewhere you never went to.

The fisheries police are like any other police in the fact if your get boarded to many times you can claim harasement if they find nothing wrong , this intern allow you to do what you like for a small amount of time as they don't want to be in court on an harasement charge as it doesn't look good on the public image.

Every local seafish area out to the 6 mile limit has it's own rules as well as the ones made by DEFRA so quite often the two will be diffrent on the same subject.
Many of these small seafish areas run what we call an inshore boat to check up on the smaller fishing craft , but only run them for a few days a month due to budget cuts..

crofter

Joined: 11 Feb 2007
Posts: 2252

Posted: Thu Nov 18, 10 10:14 pm Post subject:

Quote:

THE SCOTTISH Fishermen's Federation has welcomed the new 'FishFight' campaign launched by food campaigner and celebrity chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall to end the practice of the discarding of fish.

Responding to the launch of the campaign, SFF chief executive Bertie Armstrong described the discarding of fish as a 'madness' that highlighted the need for urgent reform of regulations in the Common Fisheries Policy, which are at the root of the problem.

He said the difference between this campaign and a plethora of previous initiatives is that this one recognises the real underlying problem of unfit regulation. The problem does not lie in the behaviour of fishermen but rather with the detail of the regulations - which must be complied with to stay within the law.

"We wholeheartedly agree that the discarding of fish is madness and we welcome this exposure to the public of the problems embedded in the present CFP rules, which completely fail to take an ecosystem approach to a mixed environment such as the North Sea," he said.

Bodger

Joined: 23 May 2006
Posts: 13524

Posted: Fri Nov 19, 10 7:51 am Post subject:

There could well be a mixture of motivations at work here.

First from Hugh, as he seeks more publicity in his attempt to become the official UK saviour of all things foody. Secondly from the fishermen as they basically look for ways of landing more fish than they are currently allowed to.
If we believe in quotas as a way of helping to save our fisheries, why not allow the fisherman to land and sell the under sized fish but then take that weight away from their total quota ?

The CFP is obviously not working. Its a great shame that the UK is not allowed to police its own fishing policy.

carlseawolf

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

Posted: Fri Nov 19, 10 11:46 am Post subject:

I agree hugh will feather his own nest during the publicity of this cause , but without food champions like him who has the ability to turn heads and start asking questions the cause would never come to light .

I agree that no more tonnage of fish should be landed than at present but the type of fish landed should be changed to all disguards , and where possible find a market for small fish and anything else put to fish meal backed by a goverment minimum price.

This fish challenge if hugh does it right will save what is left of the british fishing industary for the future , but if done wrong and he gets no public support it will just make the fishermen lawless pirates in the eyes of the general public.

crofter

Joined: 11 Feb 2007
Posts: 2252

Posted: Fri Nov 19, 10 10:59 pm Post subject:

https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/news/north-sea-fisheries-madness-2137103.html

Quote:

Feel compelled to write something on this as I know a bit about it. Discards occur for two reasons -the fish are either undersized or over quota. The known targeting of undersized fish is unforgivable but with red diesel at 45 pence per litre i can assure everyone that fishermen do not target fish they cannot retain if they can avoid it. Large mesh nets (130+mm) are now the norm as not only does it let small fish escape it reduces drag in the net and therefore reduces fuel costs. Over quota discarding is an entirely EU made catastrophe that basically affects fishermen depending on where they come from within the EU. Interestingly enough around the same time as cod became an issue for the EU it was considered hake was also in trouble. The cod recovery plan has been ongoing for almost 7 years whilst the hake recovery plan lasted one until hake made a supposed recovery. Everyone within the industry would sign a sworn affidavit that cod recovered at almost the same time but funnily enough the EU's scientists didn't agree with those that caught cod but did with those that caught hake. Who catches the bulk of the hake - Spain, cod - UK. Go ask a Spaniard how much hake they discarded before they landed home in Vigo. If this sounds far fetched also consider the deep water species blue ling which is one of the totem species of the green team and a species of great importance to France. Go check out the quota recommendation for this species next year as opposed to the species caught by the vast majority of UK fishermen. The industry is being taken to the cleaners for no more reason than it is of no great economic importance to the UK and is expendable in negotiations with our European partners. This becomes a much easier sell to the general public when those who work within the industry are portrayed as rabid lunatics who will not be content until they have plundered the sea of all life. Think about it no fish, no livelihood. We're maybe out in the styx but we're not that thick!

crofter

Joined: 11 Feb 2007
Posts: 2252

Posted: Tue Jul 03, 12 1:26 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.

Quote:

Cod stocks in the North sea have increased significantly in the past six years, according to a new report.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-18646660

Hairyloon

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

Posted: Tue Jul 03, 12 1:50 pm Post subject:

Bodger wrote:

First from Hugh, as he seeks more publicity in his attempt to become the official UK saviour of all things foody.

How could he attempt such a task without publicity?
Is he doing it just for the publicity? Does it matter why he is doing it if he gets results?

Quote:

Secondly from the fishermen as they basically look for ways of landing more fish than they are currently allowed to.

Are they?
I understood the idea was that they aim to catch less fish and land the same amount.

Quote:

If we believe in quotas as a way of helping to save our fisheries, why not allow the fisherman to land and sell the under sized fish but then take that weight away from their total quota ?

Flipping big "if" for a start.
Secondly, the best way to kill a fishery is to start catching immature fish.

Shane

Joined: 31 Oct 2005
Posts: 3467
Location: Doha. Is hot.

Posted: Wed Jul 04, 12 3:29 am Post subject:

Hairyloon wrote:

Secondly, the best way to kill a fishery is to start catching immature fish.

I think the point is that the under-sized fish are being caught anyway, but under the current regulations they get thrown back dead.

Out this way, it appears that the fisherman get to land whatever is caught. I've seen sharks, manta rays and all sorts in the wholesale fish market. It's a bit shocking at first, but I guess if they've caught the fish anyway, especially one as big as a manta ray, they're probably not going to survive if thrown back into the water. Not a lot goes to waste, by the looks of it, as they're normally pretty much sold out if you leave your visit too late.

crofter

Joined: 11 Feb 2007
Posts: 2252

Posted: Wed Jul 04, 12 12:33 pm Post subject:

Hairyloon wrote:

Secondly, the best way to kill a fishery is to start catching immature fish.

Yes, that is correct, although this is not the issue in the north sea because of restrictions on net mesh size, the use of square mesh escape panels for juvenile fish and the introduction of real time closures when large numbers of cod are found in an area, also juvenile real time closures when juvenile cod, haddock, whiting and saithe are more than 10% of the catch (or 7.5% if the catch is more than 75% cod) The problem in a mixed fishery occurs when a boat uses all their quota for one species but still have quota for another - they cannot avoid catching valuable mature fish (eg cod) but they are not allowed to land them (no quota) so they must be dumped back into the sea dead.

crofter

Joined: 11 Feb 2007
Posts: 2252

Posted: Fri Jul 25, 14 3:04 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.

Some scientific evidence for you here Sean...

https://www.fishnewseu.com/scottish-news/12741-skippers-prove-their-scientific-abilities.html

Quote:

FISHERMEN are just as good as scientists at predicting the level of commercial fish stocks, according to startling new research.

Quote:

The study concludes that "fishers' perceptions of changes in distribution and abundance of megrim in the northern North Sea are consistent with [scientific] survey data".

Dr Macdonald and his colleagues urge fisheries regulators to make use of the skippers' knowledge when determining quota levels for relevant species.

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