A British trawler was caught on film dumping tons of cod and other white fish overboard. This wasteful practice of discarding 'bycatch' is the result of catching fish that are too small (according to regulations) or unmarketable. The film caused quite the uproar, though it should be noted that this absurdity occurs frequently in waters all around the world and is most common in shrimp fisheries. The Sea Around Us Project's Dirk Zeller and Daniel Pauly published a paper in 2005 on how discards are declining globally but that this decrease is not exactly a grand accomplishment given that total catches are also declining...
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After 19 hours via London (where I had the unfortunate Sea Cow sighting), I arrived (and felt like I put the 'poo'ped) in Maputo, Mozambique. Tomorrow I deliver a talk to the Mozambique Fisheries Division on the fisheries catch reconstructions I recently completed as part of my Ph.D. research (co-…
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After Oceans Week 2007 concluded, the National Fisheries Institute did what any group committed to fishing would do: ran a PR campaign. An article titled NFI Reaffirms Support for Sustainable Seafood was published that included the following:
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This is excellent news. The Magnuson-Stevens fisheries act which passed not long ago has a lot of measures to cut overfishing in the oceans. Many important fish species have been fished to the breaking point, and need serious efforts to allow them to recover. This isn't just a matter of…
Oy. I hate stories like this.
Check out these photos by ace underwater photog Brian Skerry that he allowed me to add to this piece about bycatch:
http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2007/12/5/84020/7064
All bycatch related to shrimping.
Erik
just another exampel as to why humans should be wiped off the face of this Earth