Almost four years ago Celtic League highlighted the impact industrial fishing was having by so called super trawlers on larger species such as sharks and marine mammals caughts as part of the ‘by catch’.
This report from Green News.ie shows that sadly we were prophetically right:
https://greennews.ie/sharks-commercial-bycatch/
MFVs like the Annelies Ilena (Formerly Atlantic Dawn) at 144 metres and displacing 14000 tonnes have turned the whole concept of sustainable fishing on its head. They are capable of catching sorting and packaging up to 240 tons of fish a day and can operate in all oceans and most weathers.
The ‘by catch’ is incidentally to these fast paced operations and with a vast net covering a swathe of ocean there are inevitable casualties amongst shark, dolphin and whale species. Sadly no serious effort has been made to date to address the issue and indeed the problem is growing as vessels from China operate from bases in West Africa scouring the Atlantic.
Image: Annelies Ilena – inset sharks
Bernard Moffatt
Assistant General Secretary Celtic League
