Trawler Trash

I must say its a travesty to be sitting here looking out over the Liffey at 30+ trawlers emitting masses of Diesel into the Dublin sky and sounding their deafening air horns in tandem.

Its a great country we live in really for this protest to even be permitted giving the audacity of these guys. These same guys who trawl inshore bays and destroy local fish stocks have the cheek to complain as they are finally going to be policed for exceeding their regularly exceeded quota limits. Its a disgrace. To have sympathy for these people or even attempt to agree with their stance would be a crime.

If they had have obeyed laws in the past they would be happily fishing well past our lifetimes with consistent quota's. Now, lined up in their greasy, greedy, over equipped angling destroying vessels which might I add are worth more than anyone would ever earn in three lifetimes have chosen to disrupt and annoy people going about their normal day.

I am sorry but we all have choices in life and if mine was one that involved destroying the happiness of anglers who greatly out-way the number of fishermen well then I would rather be homeless.

Last edited by RobertMcClean on Fri Feb 03, 2006 3:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Good Post Robert. I hope that the media get someone involved from " Our side" and highlight the constent and persistent damage that these guys are doing to the Irish fish stocks. I think (fingers crossed) that this protest will do much to help our problems with these guys. I am hoping that we can use the media coverage to highlight our cause.....

Any takers..... a few e-mails to newstalk or Today FM and a willingness to do a radio interview and we would be in business

Kev

Heard about the protest on the news earlier - couldn't believe the cheek of them - asking that their nets are NOT confiscated if caught with illegal catches!

here's a link to the story ... if any one wants a laugh

http://www.breakingnews.ie/2006/02/03/story242923.html


Andy

Do the commercial lobby want to be free to break the law with no fear of sanctions? Broadly speaking, probably not.

Before I go on I'm going to nail my colours to the mast, for the benefit of anyone not used to my usual tone and position on this issue.

I firmly believe that delibereate overfishing and breaking fisheries rules should be a criminal offence and as such should be subject to penalties commensurate with the crime. If you have two trawls on board that are deliberately modified with chokers on the cod end to deliberately restrict the mesh size to hold in undersize fish by distorting the square mesh escape panels - you should lose your licence, skippers ticket, boat, gear catch and if I had my way, your liberty for some considerable time. That's the skippers. Anyone knowingly working said gear should be classed as an accomplice. Even the dumbest deckie knows what gear they are fishing. No 'ignorance defence' there, same as with any other crime.

I'm playing Devil's Advocate here, so bear with me.

If you look at it from the average trawlerman's perspective, any Irish boat caught 'at it' gets a legal hammering compared to the blind eye or slap on the wrist that our EU partners face for exactly the same offences. They are justifiably hacked off about it.

I put the problem down to the labrinthine and unworkable mish-mash of regulations they work under, which change faster than a chameleon changes colour.

They're not on a level playing field with the rest of Europe, so I have a certain amount of sympathy for them. It's limited, but has to be there because like all things, there are good guys who try to play fair and a few right sods who are out to push it, all the time. And they all get tarred with the same brush.

As usual, the department of the marine, in my strictly personal view (with no liability to the officers of SAI or this website or it's hosting company), in conjunction with a pile of useless bureaucrats in Europe and a pile of utterly corrupt EU partner governments, has made a complete and utter dogs dinner of fisheries regulation.

If there was fair play for the trawlermen in this country from the EU and indeed our own government, there might be some small possibility of getting them to stay offshore and leave something for shore and inshore anglers so we could all have a sustainable future.

I don't want at all for fisheries offences to be decriminalised. But I do believe that until somebody wakes up to the sorry state of the fisheries legislation, an all or nothing approach to sanctions is wrong. Right now, a simple log book error is treated pretty much the same as the guy who goes flat out 'poaching'.

I want to see sensible legislation, and I want the bad apples out of it for good. On that score, I'm no different from your average trawler skipper.

There are two or more sides to every story. Think, discuss, get the real info. We all know the problem inside out. Now think about a solution, for a bit. Our government is funamentally wrong in this, so are the bureaucrats in Europe. We all voted them in. I've been heartened by how many people from this forum have written to their elected representatives about fisheries issues here and proud of the response to the call to sign the petition to save the cod in the UK and the bass MLS consultation. If all the anglers in Ireland, the UK and the rest of Europe finally get their act together and sing en mass from the same hymn sheet sheet, we might finally make a difference. Keep up the good work. Future generations will thank you.

Just have to say, that trawler skippers have to make a living as well so I understand where they are coming from. However if you think of it, if the governments were so concerned about there tourist/sea angling industry they would surely have legislation in place by now. Truth is like it or lump it sea angling don't fit in the governments equation. I hate seeing trawlers inshore, there really is no excuse only greed. However it is like every industry nowadays and no point in crying, if you ain't in it for the long haul with large investments you are going nowhere only to the wall. If we invested the money some trawler skippers have we would be doing the same just to try and make a living. Get real guys nobody forced you to buy a pleasure boat, you did so by choice, if you catch fish, the day has been a bonus!

Everyone has to make a living and no one is forced to do anything. I know a lot of individuals who have invested serious money into businesses only to have them fail due to competition , the high cost of running a business and so on. Did those people cut corners and decide to do some illegal transactions in order to survive or make and extra few quid?

The answer is NO, so please explain to me why the commercial fishing industry should have unregulated laws or be able to fish inshore or bend the rules to add extra to their living. I am sorry, I just don't buy that. It's simply Greed. Of course with everything in life there are bad apples and good apples, but the simple fact is if things are not properly legislated and policed then guys will bend the law if they know that they will more than likely get away with it.

It's the same huge problem with this country, a slap on the wrist on they are back doing it three weeks later. You only have to look at the statistics of re-offenders in this country compared to the rest of Europe. I am not talking just about rapists, murders or thief's, crime is in every walk of life, from financiers to the average trawler man.

I also think its simplistic of us to once again follow suit with what Europe have or are doing in terms of legislation. I think we should be setting the example for Europe on this one. We should be sending a message to the rest of Europe stating that we are not going to accept inshore fishing or overfishing. The reason being that we have possibly one of the most enriched waters in Europe and we should be protecting that.

We should be protecting our fish stocks for both the Angling and Commercial Industry for centuries to come, if that means sending a hard message by enforcing these new laws then so be it.

We will be telling stories to our Children in years to come of two pound cod being caught back in the ninety's as we were told stories when we were kids of 20lb cod being caught regularly back in the 60's, see the pattern!!, stop the sympathy and aimless debates, these guys obviously need to be policed weather they like it or not. There simple will be nothing left in the sea in years to come if this pattern continues.

Hi, I think Mac raised a good point. This protest has been brought to the attention of the media and is a great chance for somebody ( possably from here :?: ) to take this oppertunity while its in your hands.
People who know little/nothing about it unfortunately might side with the trawlers as some peoples view is - if these hard workers (which most are) are going to the trouble of protesting they must be being treated unfairly?
If enough emails/letters were sent to radio stations, east coast, today fm etc this currently topical issue might have the oppertunity to be discussed from the sea anglers and consevationists point of view and get the real message out to many. If it does get air time the radios may even get politians involved if they feel enough are interested to listen, but the only way they'll know is if they are told. Time is short on this from a media point of view so if someone wants to act do it now. I will send some emails, not much but it may get a mention somewhere. I have no interest in boat fishing (this forum) but it will affect the shore too so mabye let those who only view the shore ones know?
Good luck
Col

I believe in an ideal world it would be great to see these problems addressed and policed but the fact remains that Ireland does not have a navy. We have one gun boat or is it two? im not sure but the point is they can't be everywhere at once and the trawlers know where they are at all times. I regularly see trawlers inshore in Wexford and nothing is done. ireland simply does not have the resources to police this problem. Quotas are swaped at sea by trawlermen. One guy hammers cod, another hammers Turbot and then they swap the difference. i have heard this said by ex trawlermen now doing the charter thing. The Quotas themselves make no sense A few years back the cod quotas were seriously reduced by 50% but the fact was that trawlermen were only hitting half their quotas anyway! Nothing changed but it looked good on paper... A trawler hammers plaice or whatever and most of the fish are thrown back as undersized fish aswell as by catch etc. namely dogfish and gurnard etc. These fish are crushed in the nets and do not survive the hawl but the doggies do cos them things are indestructable. Why do think there are so many of them around?...

It makes no sense that undersize fish are thrown back. Think about that for a moment. These fish go back in the sea and die from crushing when they could be filling quotas. 99% of small fish end up on the menu of a bigger fish. they probaly would'nt make it anyway to breeding size. An adult fish returned is far more likely to spawn and continue the species. For this reason i tend to keep smaller fish for eating if the fancy takes me which is not very often.

to put an end to this rant, i believe the only way to solve the problem with fishing boats is not reduce boat numbers and quotas every year as this is simply looking at the problem upside down. everyone knows there is a serious problem with fish numbers. This is obvious. Boat numbers need to besignificantly reduced to the point that the fish themselves have the upper hand. if this was done th fish would recover pretty quickly and then the fleet could be allowed to increase slowlyuntil a balance was found. as Robert quite rightly says it is greed and nothing more that got us into this problem to begin with and a greedy attitude the problem is never going to solve it!

On the bright side, just for a change anglers and commercial fishermen are really unhappy with the minister for the marine. As are his own party, by and large, plus all the other parties put together. With any luck, he'll get moved somewhere where he can do less harm. Irish ambassador to Finland or something?

Boat numbers need to besignificantly reduced to the point that the fish themselves have the upper hand. if this was done th fish would recover pretty quickly and then the fleet could be allowed to increase slowlyuntil a balance was found.

The problem is that as the experience of the Newfoundland Banks has shown, the fish do not recover quickly. When the stocks collapsed, the Canadian Government placed a total ban on cod fishing. They implemented a package of measures to compensate the fishing communities but there was only enough money for 5 years. After this time, they were forced to reopen the fishery, even though the stocks had failed to recover to anything like the expected level. Most authorities agree that the present quotas for the Banks are not sustainable given the lack of recovery over the 5 year ban.

When quotas in Europe were first introduced (and I wasn't even an angler then) I was scornful of the fishing industry spokesman who claimed that " they had a right to make a living from the sea, in the same way as the farmer from the land". I remember thinking at the time, the the farmer only gets out of the land what he puts in (in terms of seed, fertiliser, the tilling of the soil, crop rotation, you name it). The commercial fisherman only takes from the sea, he puts nothing back. He won't even exercise prudence in how much he takes.

I am very cynical with regard to commercial fishing and the relationship between the industry and government (national or EU). Nobody has the will to tackle the issues head on.

There are so many examples of collapsed fisheries, but no one seems willing to learn the lessons of history.

A trawlerman, with a huge capital investment in his boat, will not willing give up any chance of a financial return. The size of the fishing fleet will not diminish until there aren't enough fish to make a boat profitable. At my most pessimistic, I can only hope that when there aren't enough wild fish in the sea to catch, the boats will be scrapped, and commercial fishing for wild fish will cease to exist: that there will be just enough stray fish left to breed, even if it takes 500 years to recover the stocks..... where does that leaves us anglers? Freshwater day tickets?

I worked on trawlers mainly as a deckhand for more than a decade in 4 different countries, before I was "born again" and realised the scale of damage being done, and managed to get a job ashore. Top
trawler skippers by there nature are very competitive, and in Ireland they will not let fishery regulations stand in their way. It is all about having the biggest catch and getting the biggest gross payment for it. No thought goes into what fish will be left for the future. Living in a tightly knit commercial fishing community, I often get bother when I make my views known, views which agree with nearly all the posts on here. I will say though that a deckhand has no say when a skipper decided to "modify" a trawl mid trip ie. insert a small mesh purse into the codend.
As far as regulations and enforcement are concerned, I will tell you this.
In Holland some trawler operators keep aside a percentage of the money made from the catch each trip to pay for the cost of future fines for fishery infringements. Irish trawler owners don't do this because they obviously know that [a] they wont be caught or [b] if caught illegal fishing ,the fines and penalties will only be paltry, and not worth worrying about. What does this tell you? :( :(

This is interesting....

http://www.highlandradio.com/news.php?a ... =000002284

While I'm for fair laws, regardless of how harsh the penalties are, I want laws. I want them enforced.

As the old saying goes, if you can't do the time, don't do the crime - then you won't have to worry about how harsh the penalties are.

Bertie was speaking in Sligo today - said that if the issue of illegal fishing is not dealt with Ireland will be liable for EU fines to the order of millions of euro.

That's tens, if not hundreds, of millions if the fines levied on the French for the same craic are anything to go by.

It's great being a taxpayer isn't it? Some guys get to rob the nation, Joe Public gets to pay the fines. Nice.

Maybe, when the issue of illegal fishing gets sorted, they'll get around to looking at the legal but unsustainable and tackle that.

Having worked on commercial and charter boats in New Zealand I was interested to read this string.In NZ they have approached this from the other end with those who use the fish ie resturants processors etc having to have a proof of purchase receipt to show who they bought the fish from,if they do not have one they are fined considerably and if the person they bought it from does not have a licence they are also prosecuted.
The Kiwis have realised that they have a finite resource and want to protect it. Charter boats regularly report any suspicious activity to the fisheries via vhf ,often the fact they hear reports on air is enough to scare them off. Charters are also subject to restrictions and fines for example a charter boat caught keeping snapper less than 29cm will be fined a 1000$.
Would this policy of an end users certificate work?If they cant sell it why catch it,the restraunts would not be so quick to buy the illegally netted Bass if it was going to cost them a Few hundred quid!!!

The above suggestion from Marlin is the best I,ve heard so far. Spend money on Inspectors to check the origin of fish.

THanks Geo,I thought it was novel approach they have.To illustrate my point we had been snapper fishing one night filled a fish box offered it to a friend who owned a resturant as we had more than enough,he would not take it or even have on the premises as he could not afford to be caught :!: Additionally once you have been caught check ups are regular!
Most of the fishing is by long line in inshore waters,but not these crazy 10,000 hook nonsense most of the ones we used were100 hooks or less.

I too think its a good idea, but like a lot of decent suggestions the fact remains can it policed and more importantly will it be policed.

Like I originally said crime is in all walks of life and unfortunately if there is extra fish left over you can be guaranteed that there will be a willing recipient there to buy them, especially if the price is reduced as its outside quota levels.

The guy selling them won't reduce his price at the customer end and will probably be looking at a much higher profit if he takes a few discounted illegally netted fish here and there. You could be sure that larger restaurant's and fish merchants would abide by these laws as they have much to loose if they were prosecuted but with a good suggestion like this its always going to be a case of catching the little guy who does a bit on the side to make more.

Add up all those little guys and your facing the problem as I said of trying to police them.

For me it has to stop at the commercial end first, i.e. areas which are prohibited from netting. This should be enforced as much as possible. Making a hard example of an offender would instantly put fear into the commercial industry and certainly make these guys think twice before abusing our natural resources again. I would certainly say have these extra by-laws in place too, everything would certainly help and make things more difficult for these guys to break the law. It may be a combination of a lot of different things to help combat this huge increasing problem.

Where there is a fish there is a profit!!