When science and sense prevail - CEFAS and Brixham fishermen work togther

Continuing to build a strong working partnership with the fishing fraternity - CEFAS have just published a paper on the '50%" discards trial. Working closely with beam trawlers from the Brixham fleet, CEFAS scientists and the fishermen have exceeded the 50% target and reduced discards in their trial by 62%!
The full report is available her as a pdf file, and makes fascinating reading; a chance to see just what can be achieved when scientists and fisherman get to work as a team in determining the nature of the fishing research.
CEFAS staff can often be found on the market at Newlyn, here Sam samples otoliths from plaice last year.

Of interest to the sardine boys perhaps?

The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) has just given notice of a 30 day consultation period for the Southern Brittany Sarine purse seine fishery. For all the details check out the page on the MSC web site.

New on the web site - AIS goes live - track Newlyn fishing boats

As of today, using the new ship plotter tracking page, you can track those fishing vessels fitted with AIS who work around the Land's End area - or anywhere around the UK.

Relatively inexpensive and simple to install, AIS has greatly increased awareness of traffic at sea - even small yachts fitted with AIS can accurately track and identify any vessels in their vicinity - whether they have them in sight or not - potentially very useful in poor visibility or fog.

Locally, boats like the netter Silver Dawn and Responsible Fishing Scheme crabber, Emma Louise are some of a growing number of local vessels fitted with AIS.

Access to the new AIS page is from a link on the Newlyn Harbour home page.

Follow that boat!

With the advent of AIS tracking it is easy to follow live the progress of individual ships as they ply their trade off Land's End. This also includes those fishing vessels fitted with the AIS system, like the French trawler above. On this tracking site it is possible to click on each arrow which shows the speed of the vessel at the time. In this instance the boat concerned was making 10 knots untill she shot and altered course to tow up past the Wolf and off towards Pendeen.

Further up the channel the Dutch freezer trawler Oceaan VII has weaved an interesting course today.

Finally, fish from four fine fishermen and their crew

A little Christmas spirit by way of illumination in Pete Tonkin's fine fish emporium brighten's up an overcast morning opposite the market.....
where Iceberg's fish wagon reverses to a loading bay.....
pile 'em high! - the first run of mackerel for weeks hits the market floor......
young Roger Nowell on the Imogen managed to get a few good hauls in and has provided the market with a welcome selction of whitefish from the Bay......
Marisco just couldn't resist the macs.....
still pretty devoid of fish but at least the buyers had something to bid for.....
including a landing from the Sardia Louise.

Newlyn starrs in short documentary film competetion

Newlyn Harbour documentary:

A Newlyn harbour, a short documentary film made by Saeed Taji Farouky

The film Synopsis:

Newlyn Harbour is a short experimental documentary exploring the southern village of Newlyn, the UK's largest fishing harbour. With the fishing industry in a crisis, Newlyn is struggling to survive in its current state. Local organisations have responded with plans for major commercialisation and modernisation. But what if the project to save Newlyn ends up killing the very thing it set out to protect? Newlyn Harbour reflects director Saeed Taji Farouky's outsider impressions of the experiences.

The competition for young film makers is sponsored by the CoOperative - closing date for entires was November 30th 2009. We wish Saeed luck!

Does discarding fish conserve stocks?

Coming up to the annual quota carve up in Brussels - perhaps representatives from each country should watch this clip of a Lerwick registered boat forced to dump tons of fish in the name of 'conservation' - fish quotas do not take into account the inability of fish to decide for themselves in which nets they should or should not get caught.