Haven't seen this elsewhere but know that a great deal of other fora are trying to lend their support to this.

Take a look and see what you think:
Fish Fight - Half of all fish caught in the North Sea is thrown back overboard dead

Bri

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www.goldengrovecottages.com

I dont know what the answer is .
The one thing that makes me question things is if they catch the fish should they then keep them for market which would basically mean a free for all. However I dont like seeing all the fish thrown back and it happens all the time especially if the boat gets a more precious haul.
The one thing I would like to see happen is for there to be a limit on how close trawlers can fish to the shore with perhaps a 1 to 2 mile limit thus leaving these area for fish nurseries.

When I was a teenager I helped out on a trawler for a couple of years.. The amount of undersize fish that got dumped overboard dead is a tragedy and has been going on for decades, There are partial solutions , a Square mesh net has been developed that allows most smaller fish through, At the moment the mesh design traps just about everything. Although there are no incentives fir trawlers to take up the changed net design.

The whole industry is badly regulated even down to coastal netsmen taking sea trout with their legitimate bass nets. I fear until everything totally collapses like the herring stocks did nothing will change..

Andy

Fly fishing North Yorkshire

Norway has the right idea. It's simple and effective. No discards - all fish brought onboard have to be landed. Net sizes are regulated strictly.
For bycatch - it's landed and the vessel is fined for the amount of undersized fish, but it's not wasted. It is illegal to dump any fish at sea. Obviously this needs policing, but vessels keep an eye on one another and they have coastguards checking vessles aren't discarding the less valuable or undersize catch. Of course they can't stop EU vessels that are landing the fish somewhere else, but all Norways fishing boats have to abide by the rules - the result is a lot more fish in the seas around Norway.

In the rest of the EU we catch one species, fulling our quota, then: what luck - we've find a shoal of a more valuable 'crop'. So let's dump the first catch and fill up with the prize fish. This is not only a sure way to destroy the slim pickings that are left in our seas, but it should be illegal for f*s sake. Quota's have never worked.

It drives me to despair.

Needless to say - signed up! I'll try and spread the word.

Likewise I don't profess to know the solution but agree it seems like the right thing to do.
I was thinking though that farmers and contractors who are able to cut hedgerows now have sattelite tagging in their equipement which means that it records when the machinery is engaged and where they were at the time. If they are found to be cutting out of season in a location they don't have special dispensation for, then they are fined (atleast, that's my understanding).

I was thinking there must be a way of implanting similar technology in the machinery which engages the nets such that as they are raising the catch it records not only where you are and the date/time, but also perhaps an approx weight? Then regardless of bycatch you'd have to show you landed as much as you caught without discarding the smaller / less saleable ones.

Realise that I've just theoretically sellotaped different technologies together, but I used to be a Supply Chain consultant and there's been technology doing things like this around for the last 10 years...

Bri

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www.goldengrovecottages.com

I first became aware of this sad practice back in the days of MAFF and Elliot Morley.
We have had a long time to do something about this awful waste and so far have done little.
There has been talk of changes to net size etc, but i think the best solution is to allow all boats to keep what they catch.
Less fish exploitation, less fuel burnt, less time at sea, common sense really should prevail.