European fish stocks dwindling severely

[falling rain]

Did anyone see the news last night ? There was a small piece on our dwindling fish stocks. I think it’s fair to say we’ve known about this for years and it’s really about time something decisive was done.
I personally love sea fishing and I could happily eat fish every day I love it.
When I was a 10 year old back in 1974 – 75 I sat on Exmouth pier fishing at every available opportunity I would regularly catch 1 – 2lb Pollock from the pier. Nowadays you’re lucky to catch one more than 6 inches in size. Weaver still seem to be in abundance though. Little ******s that they are. I’ve also noticed generally when beach casting and boat fishing the big fish just aren’t there anymore. Have any other fishermen noticed this over the years ?
Catch Quotas are already in place but they don’t seem to be saving the stocks.
I think there should be a European ban on Trawler fishing during the prime fish breeding seasons and each European country should pay Trawler men of their country whilst the seasonal ban is in place, or a massed European fund to ensure these men and their families are looked after while fishing is not allowed. Maybe a total ban for 2 or 3 years to allow stocks to recover. Also to be fair all rod and line fishing should also be banned. And believe me I’d find that painful because I love sea fishing. What are your opinions ? Have you got an idea to save the fish stocks ? Nothing of course is as simple as we think and it would be huge undertaking to sort out all this, but something needs to be done and pretty soon or fish will be a rare luxury. £20 quid for a cod and chips !!!! or worse still the fish stocks will collapse completely – Of course as I’ve already said the Trawlermen must be looked after during non-fishing times. We owe it to nature, and we owe it to those to come. What do you think ?

 

[tomtom]

Down here in devon Spotlight (local BBC) took the possition of "some stupid burocrats in london want to runin the lives of our local fishermen" so i doubt the real issue at hand wrung true with many people.
i would go for the harsh/foot down approach stop it all, all fishing, for the next few years the seas around lundi island had an outright fishing ban emposed upon the around a year agoIIRC and in the space of time since they have seen a 3 fold increase in sea life in the area!! i know this isnt going to be much help for the trawlermen but if they/we keep going the way they/we are there are going to be no fish left and NO CHANCE of SAVING THEM! despite the fact that every rod/real in England probably wont catch ina year what a mile of net slung between two 600ton ships and dragged through the sea all day sucking up everything be it cod or dolphin i do think this should be baned too for a time!!!
thanks for brining this up its an interesting topic!!
Rant over!

 

[bushwacker bob]

I have to agree.A total ban on all boat fishing for at least 3 years is the only realistic way to preserve the cod and haddock stocks.Of course the trawlermen need to be subsidised by the government or the EEC for the duration,and there are huge amounts of money available in Europe,but LOTS of it is wasted on building huge expensive 'Government buildings' and the over financed beaurocrats that run it.
We have a responsibility for future generations and destroying any rescources should not be in the plan.
I have a friend who owns a fish and chip shop and clears a profit of over £5000 per week! Its a hard bullet to bite but it has to be done.

 

[falling rain]

Maybe a total ban for a few years IS the answer. I don't know
No body's saying it will be easy. It would affect many people in the industry. from your local tackle dealer to the big fish markets and fishing gear manufacturers. I don't know the answer, but all the european countries need to address this problem, and get together to sort it out whatever it takes. If they don't in 20 years or so (maybe not even that long) the people in the industry will be out of business anyway because the stocks will have collapsed and there will be nothing left to catch. I for one couldn;t bear the thought of never being able to go fishing again or eat a beautiful large Cod fillet. Very worrying

 

[falling rain]

Just found this http://www.guardian.co.uk/theissues/article/0,6512,1110621,00.html
Last years date but still relevant

 

[stuart f]

Intrestingly i read sometime ago that fish stocks were in trouble before the second world war,but because of the outbreak of war,there were no boats allowed out to fish.But when the boats returned to fishing they noticed that the stocks of cod had very much increased in the 5 years of no fishing. So maybe a ban is the only way to go if we still want to eat fish.

 

[Jeroen Zuiderwijk]

The problem is that on one hand you've got people who want to reduce fishing, to make sure the fish stock doesn't decrease, but on the other hand you have fishers who complain that they will loose their jobs because of it. So the government meets them in the middle, which means instead of fishing far too much, they'll be fishing just too much. Then the following year there's less fish left, so fishers are allowed to catch even less. Then they complain again and blame the government. What's not realized is that the more the government allows them to catch, the quicker they're going to loose their jobs anyway. The only way to make sure they have anything left to catch, is to reduce the allowed catch much more drastic, to the point the fish stock can restore. Then a certain minimum growth rate should be set, which determines how much the fishers can catch. That way, the amount of fish will steadily increase until a sort of equilibrium is reached.

What's far more worrying though is the fish catching in international waters in front of for example third world countries. There fishers can totally empty the seas unrestricted, which is exactly what they're doing. This also means that the people who live along the coast loose their only means of making a living. So all those fishburgers, fish sticks etc. that end up in supermarkets, McDonalds etc. are one of the most damaging things in nature.

The only way to make sure that the fish stock is unharmed is by using fish mainly from "fish farms". Though those come with their own problems, and should not be introduced blindly either.

 

[bambodoggy]

I believe the article we're discussing was about British fish stocks....

I might be wrong here but I only have two words to say on the whole subject: "Spanish Fleet".

No doubt I'll be shot down now for being to contraversial..... :?:

 

[tomtom]

not shouted down mate.. im sure you have a valied point (i dont know) but i can tell you i am sure your two words are not the be all and end all on this subject..

we cant be foolish enough to think that the problem with your fishstocks is because of the Spanish.. even if they have contributed to the problem.. i feel sure it is largly our falt and it is certainly our problem to sort out!

 

[alick]

Do I rememer rightly that in Canada they bit the bullet and imposed a total ban on some types of fishing ?

There's a basic problem with all of the "sustainability" argument - namely that you'll never get a concensus among the "experts". Science has plenty of room for personal judgement so there will always be a scientific opinion for each side of the argument to back.

If you just ban it for a few years, it should be A LOT easier to police - Spanish visitors included !

The longer we fudge on the issue, the more difficult it will be for the remaining fish stocks to survive and recover.

Good call to arms :biggthump

 

[CLEM]

You have to feel sorry for the blokes who make their living from fishing but facts HAVE to be faced, a total ban for a number of years is needed if the fish stocks are to recover otherwise there will be NO fish left at all.The sea will become barren just as the giant cod banks did in Canada some years ago through over fishing,the locals and indians said that their were so much fish it was possible to walk on water,now their are no fish and that area of sea is a virtual desert.There has to be a ban,and we have to reclaim our seas from the Europeans,this is allso imperative.

 

[ChrisKavanaugh]

This is just one more example of the worldwide collapse of the whole system. Yes, there are specific nations/commercial interests doing an inordinate amount of the damage; my nation not joining the Kyoto Protocols, commercial timber companies stripping the remaining forests, huge factory fleets creating literal deserts ad nauseum. What we all have to do is realise each and every one of us is either part of the problem, or part of the solution. Recycling an aluminium coke can is not saving the planet. At best,my act is prolonging the death rattle a few micro seconds. I need to stop drinking coke! The world needs to stop consuming so much, from that coke to throwaway ecosystems. The world needs to stop pointing fingers, unless standing in front of a mirror. Fishermen, timber workers, sweatshop labour in Red China need to be embraced as fellow victims of a broken system. We need to care for one another and fix this together.

 

[Ed]

I agree with Chris here.... There is far too much finger pointing. Blaming spanish fishermen etc just takes focus away from the main problem and how we can try and help the situation..... finger pointing does very little to help, it just makes people take sides, not talk to each other, argue lots .... and then nothing gets solved.
Its a shame that people would rather appoint blame than try and get it fixed.... but thats the way of the modern world I suppose.

Ed

 

[CLEM]

Have to agree with Ed and to give Chris his due,that is a damn good post and allso an accurate one.

 

[rapidboy]

I have a customer who is involved in the fishing industry.
They own boats ,run a few processing plants and an auction so i get to see quite a lot "behind the scenes" in the fishing industry.
The fishermen regularly either blatantly ignore the quotas or they work out ways to beat them.
At the minute some are fishing very small boats that the quota's don't apply too ,the boats are so small and overloaded with equipment that they are dangerous to use but greed drives them on.
I have witnessed on many occasions ,used engine oil ,plastic packing etc. being disposed off over the side of boats by the men that make their living from the sea!!
There is greed in the fishing industry ,a total disrespect for the sea by many and they only have themselves to blame for the situation they find themselves in.
Recently i saw coal fish ,dog welks and shore crabs being processed in a factory where once it would have been Cod ,Clams and Crommer crabs.
Some boats are now using cheap labour and are crewed by Lithuanians to further increase the profits.
I also know the houses the boat owners live in and the cars they drive.
They are making a fortune but it's unsustainable.
Im not saying all fishermen are like this and i know many that are hard working and honest individuals but it only takes a few to set the precedent and then others choose to or are forced to do the same to compete.

 

[bambodoggy]

Clem, Ed, Chris.... I can't dispute what you're saying ethically and in an ideal world what you're suggesting about the whole world waking up to these enviromental issues together and all working together and discussing them together is great but in my opinion (and please, I don't mean to offend any of you...I'd love it if you were right and I was wrong) I think that you are looking at human kind through rather rose tinted glasses.
If we humans were that nice to each other and that able to all get on then there'd be no wars and we'd all be so nice that we wouldn't have raped the earth in the first place...in the real world not everyone is that nice and while people pontificate about how we're all to blame and how we shouldn't point fingers the various fishing fleets continue to empty the sea, the power companies continue to pump rubbish into the air, the chemical plants pump it into the rivers and the mining companies strip the earth of minerals while the timber companies hack down the forests etc etc etc.
Why shouldn't we point fingers at these people? Whether or not I drink coke is nothing compared to a day's green houses gasses from one industrial plant. While we are happy to make it everybody's collective faults in order not to point fingers and risk offending, what we actually do is allow the industry to carry on happily destroying for profit while we all feel guilty for drinking a can of coke! It's madness! They are the people doing this damage on this scale and they are the ones to blame, shame and to try to stop, not your Joe Bloggs on the street.

Let me give a daft example...you have 100 school kids in a playground with an ice cream van parked up. you know that too much ice cream is not good for the kids so you want to stop them eating too much. Which works best:
1) Ask the kids nicely to all stop eating ice cream, you know it tastes nice but you've explained it's not good for them. you haven't got time to watch them all but you're sure your message went in ok.
2) You order the ice cream man to pack up and stop selling ice creams and watch him leave.

People the world over are not organised enough to collectively boycott products and to be fair why shouldn't the sweatshop labour in China want the things we in the west take for granted.
This leaves us with only one option....find the culprit, blame them, shame them and then close then down.

If I see somebody dropping a mars bar wrapper in the woods I blame them and tell them to pick it up...I don't blame myself because I also like Mars bars! They dropped it, not me!

As I said, I don't mean to offend and I really wish we could all get together and sort it out ourselves in a friendly way, maybe I'm cynical but just a little look round and I see damage caused again and again....whether through ignorance or more often just for a slightly higher profit line.
I think that's partly why I am so inspired and drawn to bushcraft....I want to work with nature, I want to live in an ideal world and I want to live in harmony......maybe one day hey? But until then I will continue to point fingers at those parts of society that I think are doing the most damage....I may sometimes be out of turn and I may sometimes be spot on but that doesn't make me wrong for doing it....and neither does enjoying the odd can of fizzy pop!

Blimey....that was a waffling rant wasn't it.....sorry lads!

 

[tomtom]

Let me give a daft example...you have 100 school kids in a playground with an ice cream van parked up. you know that too much ice cream is not good for the kids so you want to stop them eating too much. Which works best:
1) Ask the kids nicely to all stop eating ice cream, you know it tastes nice but you've explained it's not good for them. you haven't got time to watch them all but you're sure your message went in ok.
2) You order the ice cream man to pack up and stop selling ice creams and watch him leave.

i feel it is most likely that rather than watch the Ice Cream Van leave the guy selling them would mostprobably say "heres my trading liscense.. heres my hygene lisence.. this is a designated parking space and ice cream is not illegal.. now please get out of my que i have kids to serve!"

im sorry but i cant help but feel that nameing and shameing the big companys just isnt going to help!!
its the Government whome we need to pursuaid.. lets face it weather we like them or not they got the power!! its them we need to impose Fishing Bans and slap bigger Tax on poloution!!

 

[bambodoggy]

I don't disagree Tomtom....but think it through as little further....we slap on the higher taxes, the fish, coke, ice cream etc prices go up to pay for the taxes and we the consumer end up paying more for something that's just as bad for the earth as it was at half the cost..... tax is irrelevant to consumer preferance (british car drivers have proved that time and again).

What we should be saying is; we're revoking your licence, you are a bad man, you may not sell ice creams anymore....look at all the little fat kids you've help create....you're to blame for this and you WILL stop.

I've just read that back to myself and feel so daft talking about naughty ice cream men!!!! ): :rolmao: ):

 

[tomtom]

I don't disagree Tomtom....but think it through as little further....we slap on the higher taxes, the fish, coke, ice cream etc prices go up to pay for the taxes and we the consumer end up paying more for something that's just as bad for the earth as it was at half the cost..... tax is irrelevant to consumer preferance (british car drivers have proved that time and again).

there is also the possibility that if large tax is placed on pollution that some company may actually see that as incentive not make so much pollution!
especially if there were further tax brakes for those companys who were Enviromentally friendly.. and we can hope that should prices go up people might be less incline to puchase things like coke!! which lass face it are a lot less essential than petrol!!

i like ice cream.. rocombe farm lemon marang icecream..!!

 

[bambodoggy]

Again....in an ideal world you're spot on Mate..... but seeing as you bring up petrol.... the tax on petrol in the UK is sky high but we all still pay it. Honda and others have now produced cars that can do over 100 miles to the gallon but look at the sales figures and compare them to the sales of big petrol guzzling 4x4's and luxury saloons and the 4x4's/saloons win hands down....I don't believe there's a person in this country that isn't enviromentally aware (they may not be bothered about it but they all know about it) and there's few that have money to burn....but they still buy the wrong type...just like the kids in my example knew the ice cream was bad for them but it tastes nice and so they still eat it.

I'm not saying that we ban everything out of hand...just that taxing doesn't seem to work....only the poor have to stop using it and the rich carry on and ironically, those in the country that actually need 4x4's then can't afford them! As I said...it's madness! :?:

Right, that's more than enough from me on the subject...this started as a comment on UK fishing stocks and I've turned it into a full on enviromental debate.....sorry all, I'll butt out now! ):

mmmmm, hagen das......mmmmmmmmm