The Breton fishermen have their own website, Association des igneurs de la pointe de Bretagne website similar to our own Line Caught website that allows you to track individual fish back to the boat and fisherman who caught it!
So, to the letter:
President of the association des ligneurs
To the attention of :
Serge Papin, System U
Michel-Édouard Leclerc, E. Leclerc
Thierry Cotillard, Intermarché
Distributors, the survival of the bar is in your hands!
February 23, 2017
Gentlemen,
My name is Gwen Pennarun, I am a professional fisherman in Brittany, a bass handliner for more than thirty years. My activity rests entirely on this species, and with it, my family and my future. I am writing this letter to you as President of the Pointe de Bretagne Pointe Association and on behalf of all the fishermen who recognize themselves in the values of a small-scale fishery.
Our job is to capture the bar at the line, exclusively . It is the most gentle and ecological fishing technique. It does not damage the funds. It makes it possible to specifically target the desired fish. It is also the only technique that allows to reject with water all fish too small, alive! We fish little but our fish is of exceptional quality, and it sells well. Our motto is not to make volume but to fish little to sell better .
The Pointe de Bretagne association has imposed a biological rest for its members for many years between February and March. In addition to reducing fishing pressure over the year, this rest allows fish to reproduce during the critical breeding season .
Unfortunately, it is during this period that the bar is particularly vulnerable because it regroups to spawn and is allowed to capture in astronomical quantities by large trawlers or gillnets . The latter literally ransacked the bar populations in the Channel, pushing the trollers out of the fishery or outright leaving the fishery. In addition to being an intolerable fishing practice, disrupting the spawning of fish, over-exploiting a fragile species, the fish they put on the market is disastrous and sold at a ridiculously low price, less than 40% Price that we get from it .
Further south, in the Bay of Biscay, we have seen for several years a very worrying decrease in bar resources. Our catches in 2016 have reached their lowest level in history, and we are very concerned that the bar resource in this area will collapse as it did in the English Channel.
As every year at the same time, we see the avalanche of promotions of your banners on this bar of poor quality, resulting from fishing techniques not respectful of the environment and the resource. By realizing this, you become complicit in the over-exploitation of this precious species, which made us live, and hence our own disappearance.
That is why we appeal to your responsibility and ask you to stop selling wild bar during this period.
Please accept our cordial greetings.
Gwen Pennarun
PS: For those who would like to support this request, you can sign the petition here:
Https://www.change.org/p/leclerc-system-supply-for-intermarchitecture-buy-of-bar-from-the-Of-reproduction?
Thank you!