Limey1
Advanced User
Joined: Sep 09, 2006
Posts: 977
Location: Enfield, North London
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 Posted:
Wed Feb 07, 2007 7:16 am |
 
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The real reason that fish and other marine species are in decline....
A coalition of leading environmental and conservation groups has called for a ban on the damaging fishing practice known as bottom-trawling.
The Deep Sea Conservation Coalition says the technique of dragging heavy nets across the seafloor is doing immense harm to fragile ecosystems.
As well as bringing up valuable fish species, such as orange roughy, the trawlers also gouge out corals.
The principle of bottom-trawling is simple - drag a heavy net across the ocean floor, and any fish there will be caught. The problem is,
everything else is caught, too.
It has been likened to fishing with a bulldozer.
The trawl doors disturb the sea bed, create a cloud of muddy water which hides the oncoming trawl net and generates
a noise which attracts fish. The fish begin to swim in front of the net mouth, but do not seem to be distressed by it.
As the trawl continues along the seabed, fish begin to tire and slip backwards into the net. Finally, the fish become
exhausted and drop back, into the "cod end" and are caught. The speed that the trawl is towed at depends on the
swimming speed of the species which is being targeted, but for most demersal species, a speed of around 4 knots
(7 km/h) is appropriate.
The countries with deep-sea bottom-trawling fleets are few in number.
They include Spain, Russia and New Zealand, but there are other fleets operating out of Portugal, Norway, Estonia, Denmark/Faroe Islands,
Japan, Lithuania, Iceland and Latvia.
These 11 countries took approximately 95% of the reported high seas bottom-trawl catch in 2001.
What ever is caught in these monster nets, even if it cannot be used for food, is destined to die or be seriously injured by crushing.
So not only are they responsible for the serious decline in fish stocks, but also the destruction of many other marine species.
Note the steel trawl doors that scrape the bottom of the sea.
Not much could withstand five tons of heavy metal.
These monsters are responsible for destroying virtualy evrything they trawl over, including some of the cold water coral reefs which will take thousands of years to recover. If they ever do.
Anglers are not even in the same league as these trawlers when it comes to the question of decline in fish stocks.
This type of trawling should be outlawed by every Country that has a fishing industry.
But like most things, it's the money that does the talking in this world. |
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