Peterhead fish market - only two boats today.
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Green are cod - seed are haddocks. |
Wednesday, 6 March 2013
All this for one shark
Somewhere along the line I think we are slowly losing the plot.
From the video:
Shark Diaries is a compilation of videos that show exactly how we are freeing the hooked sharks in our project "The Call of the Shark". This video shows the extraordinary effort and practical results of our project. We would like to thank Rocio Barbachano, who's donation helped save this shark.
If you are interested in our project or would like to make a donation to save more hooked sharks so we can conclude are multi phased project please visit this link:pelagiclife.com/About%201%20Al%20Llamado%20del%20Tiburon/Al%20Llamado%20del%20Tiburon.html
Video production done by Calypso Films
Now it's Richard Branson's turn to wade in on the fish fight!
Sir Richard Branson’s letter to UK Minister Richard Benyon regarding bottom trawling
November 27, 2012
Dear Minister Benyon,
As you know, the European Commission has issued a proposal for a new regulation to manage deep sea fisheries in European waters and in the high seas of the Northeast Atlantic. The Commission is proposing legislation that would place much stricter controls on fishing for vulnerable deep sea species and phase out deep sea bottom trawling and bottom gill net fishing. Both methods of fishing, and in particular deep sea bottom trawling, are widely recognized by deep sea biologists to be non-selective and highly destructive to cold water corals, sponges, and other habitat forming deep sea species.
The deep sea is one of the last unexplored ecosystems on the planet. It is an area rich with new discoveries,but also highly vulnerable to anthropogenic disturbance. The damage caused by these fishing methods in the deep sea is severe, long lasting, and may very well be irreversible. I strongly urge you to take up the challenge and the opportunity afforded by the proposal from the European Commission to lead the effort of the European Council to protect one of the greatest and most bio-diverse ecosystems of the UK and Europe and in turn, ensure sustainable fisheries. The UK government should support the proposal to phase out bottom trawling and bottom gillnet fishing in the deep sea and work with the fellow Ministers from other EU Member States to ensure that the European Council of Ministers ultimately adopts this proposal.
Kind regards,
Richard
Here's a few comments from fishing folk around the virtual fishing world:
Richard branson would like to stop us deep sea fishing as we damage the seabed or marine life, hmmmm sory Richard but go and calculate the emissions of all of your planes, lorrys, trains etc and tell me what effect this has on the environment, look forward to your reply :)
(some mechanical translations!)
Apparently Virgin also has interests in marine cables, very high-tech, etc. It would not be an interest on marine REE of the ocean? http://www.KIS-Orca.EU/operators/subsea-cable/Virgin#.UTaDvTcx1wQ
Fish Fight also exists in France. In his first campaign, they made the promotion of the total ban on discards. Fish Fight France directly is the child of Fish Fight England.
This jostling before the cameras. Richard Branson of the Virgin Group boss "called the United Kingdom to take a major role in the prohibition of deep-sea fisheries". French fishermen are furious and the Treaty of opportunistic research advertising. French fishermen are very mobilized against Fish Fight England who wants to impose 127 areas without sin, while the Government wants to retain as a 30 elder. Many of these areas without sin are used also by French, Dutch, Belgian and Irish fishermen. Other European fishermen have practically not been associated.
On another tack, but still fishing related Richard Branson asks people to sign a petition to end the practice of blast fishing in Indonesia - which might seem a reasonable request However, closer inspection of his blog post reveals that the area concerned was badly affected by the Boxing Day tsunami - since when the local people have suffered economically - perhaps the petition should be directed at encouraging the local government to intervene and help these people who are probably blast fishing in desperation! - remember the bottom levels in Maslow's heirachy of needs Sir Richard!
Fishing News Bugaled Breizh petition
Better days: The Bugaled Breizh just come in through the gaps in Newlyn only days before she was lost.
There are now calls for the UK parliament to open an inquiry into the possible involvement of a submarine in the loss.
To coincide with the showing of the film, Silent Killer, yesterday, morning the Bugaled Breizh returned to the port of Newlyn, the 'second home' of the boat according to skipper Michelle Douce. This time however, the boat was an exact replica built by Dominique Launay, who spent 18 months making the 1.6 metre model of the Bugaled Breizh to help illustrate the sinking.
On Thursday, a memorial will be unveiled at The Lizard to remember the victims of a French fishing vessel that sank off Lizard Point. Family members from the loss including skipper and owner Michelle Douce will be in attendance.
Tuesday, 5 March 2013
New Fishery Management Program on West Coast Gives Fishermen Greater Flexibility and Gives Overfished Species a Break
Update news from NOAA Fisheries:
Ralph Brown runs a 75-foot trawler, Little Joe, out of Brookings, Oregon. He fishes for pink shrimp, Dungeness crab, and groundfish, moving between the Oregon and Alaskan coastlines at different times of year. In 2011, the West Coast groundish fishery, which typically accounts for more than half of Brown’s gross, converted to a catch shares system of management. As a result, for both Ralph Brown’s business and for the groundfish he depends on, things are looking up.
Flexibility Is Up
Before the change, fishing for groundfish on the West Coast took place in two-month bouts. During each mini-season, fishermen would race to catch their limit before time ran out. This led to unsafe conditions on the water and to periodic gluts as boats all brought their catch to market at once.
Today, each fisherman or company is allocated a percentage of the year’s total allowable catch for a species. That share of the catch—the catch share—translates into the fisherman’s individual quota for the year, and they can fish it whenever they like.
“The main thing is, it allows us to plan better,” Ralph Brown said. “We’re spreading out the supply with the other boats, so the processor gets an even flow, while we can go out shrimping or crabbing in between. Plus we do bigger trips, fewer of them, and more pounds.”
Brent Paine, executive director of the United Catcher Boats Association, said his members benefit from the flexibility. “If the fishing’s really bad and we’re burning up a lot of fuel,” he said, “we can hold off for a while until the fishing’s better. In the old system, you would fish until your quota was over, no matter what.”
The West Coast Groundfish Fishery includes Pacific whiting, Pacific cod, sablefish, and many species of flatfish and rockfish. In 2011, the first year of the catch share program, revenues came in at $54 million, up from a previous-five-year annual average of $38 million.
Bycatch Is Down
In the old system, fishermen were racing against the clock, so they didn’t have the time to target fish carefully. As a result, they took on a lot of bycatch, which are fish that are caught unintentionally. To avoid fines at the dock, fishermen often discarded the bycatch, already dead, at sea.
Bycatch is a particularly tricky problem for groundfish trawlers because so many different species mingle on the bottom. There are more than 90 species in this fishery, and a fisherman never really knows what’s in his net until it comes out of the water.
In the new system, fishermen are given an individual quota for all species. That includes both the ones they’re targeting and the ones, because of low population numbers, that they need to avoid. But for those species, they get a very low quota—in some cases, so low that a single unlucky tow can put them over.
Today, they cannot toss those fish overboard. Instead, the fisherman must lease unused quota from someone else to cover the difference, or pay it back out of the next year’s allotment. Until they do, they’re locked out of the fishery. This gives fishermen a strong incentive to avoid certain species of fish. It also insures that, even when an individual fisherman exceeds his target—which is bound to happen sometimes in a complex groundfish fishery—the total catch for the fleet stays within the limit.
This system is effective because every boat now has an observer on board. The observer identifies and weighs everything that comes up in the net, and makes sure that every pound is accounted for.
According to Paine, all members of the United Catcher Boats Association get together to strategize before the season starts. “If one area is really hot for canary rockfish,” Paine says, naming a rare species with a very low catch limit, “we’ll draw lines around that hotspot and agree not to fish there. So we have closure zones that are generated by the boat captains themselves.”
Also, fishermen have an incentive to innovate. If they manage to avoid species with very low catch limits, they can lease their unused quota pounds to someone else. “People have been experimenting with different net styles in order to become more selective in their catch, because we know that individually we can benefit” Ralph Brown says.
Since the catch share system was put in place in 2011, the whiting fleet has reduced bycatch of canary rockfish by 79 percent. Overall discards for the entire groundfish fishery in 2011 were a very low 4.8 percent. Because of this, overfished populations are getting a chance to rebuild.
Looking Forward
Catch shares provides a combination of flexibility and accountability that leads to a more efficient and sustainable fishery. The West Coast Groundfish Trawl Catch Share Program is proving to be a model system of management. The program was created through a collaboration of the Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission, the Pacific Fishery Management Council, the West Coast states, and NOAA Fisheries.
These partners will continue to fine-tune the program. But already, things are looking up. “From my perspective, it’s been pretty successful,” Ralph Brown said. “It’s way better than what we had before.”
Ralph Brown runs a 75-foot trawler, Little Joe, out of Brookings, Oregon. He fishes for pink shrimp, Dungeness crab, and groundfish, moving between the Oregon and Alaskan coastlines at different times of year. In 2011, the West Coast groundish fishery, which typically accounts for more than half of Brown’s gross, converted to a catch shares system of management. As a result, for both Ralph Brown’s business and for the groundfish he depends on, things are looking up.
Flexibility Is Up
Before the change, fishing for groundfish on the West Coast took place in two-month bouts. During each mini-season, fishermen would race to catch their limit before time ran out. This led to unsafe conditions on the water and to periodic gluts as boats all brought their catch to market at once.
Today, each fisherman or company is allocated a percentage of the year’s total allowable catch for a species. That share of the catch—the catch share—translates into the fisherman’s individual quota for the year, and they can fish it whenever they like.
“The main thing is, it allows us to plan better,” Ralph Brown said. “We’re spreading out the supply with the other boats, so the processor gets an even flow, while we can go out shrimping or crabbing in between. Plus we do bigger trips, fewer of them, and more pounds.”
Brent Paine, executive director of the United Catcher Boats Association, said his members benefit from the flexibility. “If the fishing’s really bad and we’re burning up a lot of fuel,” he said, “we can hold off for a while until the fishing’s better. In the old system, you would fish until your quota was over, no matter what.”
The West Coast Groundfish Fishery includes Pacific whiting, Pacific cod, sablefish, and many species of flatfish and rockfish. In 2011, the first year of the catch share program, revenues came in at $54 million, up from a previous-five-year annual average of $38 million.
Bycatch Is Down
In the old system, fishermen were racing against the clock, so they didn’t have the time to target fish carefully. As a result, they took on a lot of bycatch, which are fish that are caught unintentionally. To avoid fines at the dock, fishermen often discarded the bycatch, already dead, at sea.
Bycatch is a particularly tricky problem for groundfish trawlers because so many different species mingle on the bottom. There are more than 90 species in this fishery, and a fisherman never really knows what’s in his net until it comes out of the water.
In the new system, fishermen are given an individual quota for all species. That includes both the ones they’re targeting and the ones, because of low population numbers, that they need to avoid. But for those species, they get a very low quota—in some cases, so low that a single unlucky tow can put them over.
Today, they cannot toss those fish overboard. Instead, the fisherman must lease unused quota from someone else to cover the difference, or pay it back out of the next year’s allotment. Until they do, they’re locked out of the fishery. This gives fishermen a strong incentive to avoid certain species of fish. It also insures that, even when an individual fisherman exceeds his target—which is bound to happen sometimes in a complex groundfish fishery—the total catch for the fleet stays within the limit.
This system is effective because every boat now has an observer on board. The observer identifies and weighs everything that comes up in the net, and makes sure that every pound is accounted for.
According to Paine, all members of the United Catcher Boats Association get together to strategize before the season starts. “If one area is really hot for canary rockfish,” Paine says, naming a rare species with a very low catch limit, “we’ll draw lines around that hotspot and agree not to fish there. So we have closure zones that are generated by the boat captains themselves.”
Also, fishermen have an incentive to innovate. If they manage to avoid species with very low catch limits, they can lease their unused quota pounds to someone else. “People have been experimenting with different net styles in order to become more selective in their catch, because we know that individually we can benefit” Ralph Brown says.
Since the catch share system was put in place in 2011, the whiting fleet has reduced bycatch of canary rockfish by 79 percent. Overall discards for the entire groundfish fishery in 2011 were a very low 4.8 percent. Because of this, overfished populations are getting a chance to rebuild.
Looking Forward
Catch shares provides a combination of flexibility and accountability that leads to a more efficient and sustainable fishery. The West Coast Groundfish Trawl Catch Share Program is proving to be a model system of management. The program was created through a collaboration of the Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission, the Pacific Fishery Management Council, the West Coast states, and NOAA Fisheries.
These partners will continue to fine-tune the program. But already, things are looking up. “From my perspective, it’s been pretty successful,” Ralph Brown said. “It’s way better than what we had before.”
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