trawler lobby rte news

i couldnt believe what i was hearing last night on the news

the story was headlined with pictures of boatmen chucking fish overboard as discards and then with the usual tags about something should be done to stop this waste of fish

then lobbyists came in and would you believe it used the argument that all our fisheries are mixed fisheries and that they didnt want to stop discarding perfectly good fish - in fact they wanted to increase their quota so they could catch more of the fish they want, thereby discarding even more perfectly good fish

rte failed to make any comment on how ridiculous this chaps logic was or even contary to general thinking from europe or other boat lobbys or indeed the scientific community

i know i shouldnt be surprised by this but i thought their PR wing would be green washing this far better, but instead its lets go back to doing the things we did and now know were very wrong and keep doing it

Yip watched it last night with the mrs.She turned to me in the middle of it all and told me how ridiculous it would be if quotas were increased as it would lead to evenmore discards But she did say at least the disgarded fish were stored neat and tidy before been dumped overboard.
It is a joke to have such small quotas especially on our own turf but in this day and age with technology etc surely a better method of trawling or netting can be developed to be more selective on species and thus reduce the amount of disgards and maybe in a weird way the quotas would be increased as more fish would be surviving instead of been killed needlessly in the bottom of a trawl net.
But the irony is this is why quotas are so stingey these days i suppose as no such[successful] method of trawling exists,a vicious circle
Tight lines

missed that as i was working but saw this...

Irish chucking away 4 out of 5 fish caught....

http://www.independent.ie/national-news ... 29322.html

Seems hughs fish fight might have a new target!

And a few people on this forum have at go at someone who keeps a few codling for the table pathetic.

meanwhile, north of the border....

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15614869

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15616862

and lets not forget our "friends" in the EU

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-14143606

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14133913

Since it takes up to 7 kg of forage fish to produce 1 kg of farmed Salmon [via fishfood and fishoil], could these discards not be used in this industry thus reducing the need to destroy more fish ?

Since it takes up to 7 kg of forage fish to produce 1 kg of farmed Salmon [via fishfood and fishoil], could these discards not be used in this industry thus reducing the need to destroy more fish ?

The commercial lobby is in mortal fear of having to keep their discards. They would very soon fill their holds with fish that they would not get top dollar for.

Since it takes up to 7 kg of forage fish to produce 1 kg of farmed Salmon [via fishfood and fishoil], could these discards not be used in this industry thus reducing the need to destroy more fish ?

The commercial lobby is in mortal fear of having to keep their discards. They would very soon fill their holds with fish that they would not get top dollar for.

Which would incentivise them to finally take seriously selective gear that would reduce the numbers of juvenile & non-quota fish caught.