The End of the Line

[Wild-Woman]

The title suggests this is about fishing. It is. It's about how the world's fish stocks are being over fished. It's disturbing and I've seen some of the trailers on youtube.
The film/documentary is released here in June.
I think it would be wise to listen.

[TheEndoftheLine]

The film has a very powerful message and the problem of overfishing is an issue that we can do something about - by eating only sustainable seafood.

Have a look at the website - The End of the Line - for more details about the film, the campaign and where you can see it. It is showing in cinemas across the UK on World Oceans Day, 8th June, and is on limited release from 12th June.

You can also follow the film via the Facebook group and Twitter.

[Pete84]

i'm reading a book at the moment called seasick by alanna mitchell that covers overfishing as one of it's topics in an overall examination of the state of our oceans and the possible repercussions of continuing to neglect them.

thought provoking stuff ! i think we all should stop eating fish for a while !

[Rich_]

Did anyone see this again on channel more 4 last night?
As someone who has grown up and lived in a small fishing port I have seen the fishing fleet over the last 30 years or so reduced to a handfull of small vessels as the catches gradually fizzled out. The cod and whiting I used to catch as a boy from the local rocks and from my Dads boat angling with rod & line are few and of a small size compared to then, even the mackerel numbers are nothing compared to the vast shoals I used to see on the surface of the water feeding on the herring fry on a calm Summers evening. Around the mid to late 1980s my Dad and I drifted away from sea angling and sold the boat as it was hardly worth the effort of going out for what you were catching, because Winter fishing meant cod fishing, they outnumbered anything else and that's all you caught.

The programme explained some of the things I have seen happening locally too. When cod were plentiful I never saw a dogfish in fact to catch one would have been a novelty. Now the local anglers are catching them in numbers to the point where thay can become a nuisance. This is aparently a result of the larger fish being removed, the cod are no longer competing for the same food supply I suppose. Examples similar to this were given in other parts of the world where the populations of a species of ray & squid had exploded when the nimbers of their major competitors had been decimated.

When I was a school boy i used to often watch the Fishing boats unload their catch by the truck load and I used to wonder how many fish there must be in the sea? That film went some way to providing the answer I think.

[loripo]

It's no longer someone's livelihood, but big business and so much is wasted!

[Rich_]

That's right, a hundred years or so ago the fishermen were only supplying the local coastal towns or as far inland as a horse and cart could travel inland.

It opened my eyes to the supposedly sustainable source of farmed fish. They have to kill more fish like anchovy, to make food pellets than they actually produce !

[animartco]

Did anyone see the documentaries about fishing fleets? There were a few. The most awful thing about it was the legislation that was supposed to help the situation and has made it incredibly worse. The point being that everyone has their quota of each kind of fish, and when they pass their quota on one type they just carry on fishing until thy have filled their quotas of all types and throw all the extra ones overboard dead! This means that everyone is catching and killing tons more fish than they are allowed to land!

[Jim Ford]

I wonder what 'soylent green' tastes like? I guess we'll get to find out in the not too distant future!

Jim

[Lancashire Lad]

Originally Posted by animartco

....The most awful thing about it was the legislation that was supposed to help the situation and has made it incredibly worse. The point being that everyone has their quota of each kind of fish, and when they pass their quota on one type they just carry on fishing until thy have filled their quotas of all types and throw all the extra ones overboard dead! This means that everyone is catching and killing tons more fish than they are allowed to land!

Couldn't agree more. The EU/Britain's policy on by-catch is insane.

The European Union admit that between 40 and 60% of all North Sea catch is classed as by-catch, and is being dumped overboard. (In 2008, this was estimated at something like 600,000 tonnes from boats operating in British waters).

The policy of simply throwing the (now dead) by-catch overboard, on grounds that it was not the "target species" or that it would "exceed quota" must be one of the biggest wastes of valuable resources known to man.

Countries such as Namibia (which, incidentally, claimed its own 200 mile limit, and banished the EU fleet from fishing within that zone) have the policy of landing everything caught, but of levying a charge on non-quota species.

The scheme is closely monitored by on-board inspectors.

Fish landed that are not included in, or are in excess of the quota, are still sold. The amount of the levy is such that the vessel/crew concerned don't make any profit on the excess/non-quota catch, but also, they don't suffer any financial loss as result of landing/processing the excess. (This ensures that there is no financial incentive to the crew to try to catch more than they should).

The scheme creates funds for the government, and, more importantly, ensures that the excess catch goes to market instead of being simply wasted.

If countries such as Namibia can operate such a straight forward and logical policy, then why can't Britain and the rest of the EU?

Regards,
Mike.

[snowdrop]

I watched a cookery programme today in which the cook visited a French quay to see the catch unloaded.
The crew sorted the catch into boxes...mostly sizable fish...the rest of a smaller size, was shovelled along the deck and thrown overboard for the waiting flocks of seagulls. The amount of discarded dead fish earned a rebuke from the cook herself.

What a mindless waste of a valuable food source.