- Catching fish with long lines, which was hailed as the
"green" solution for the fishing industry, is responsible for
the death of almost 4.5 million fish, dolphins and birds in the Pacific
Ocean every year, a study has found.
-
- Sharks, marlin, sea turtles, albatross, whales and dolphins
are caught unintentionally on the lines, which are up to 60 miles long
and bear thousands of hooks just below the surface.
-
- Some of the species are listed as endangered, and some
of those are at critically low numbers.
-
- More than 600 scientists from 54 countries have now signed
a petition urging the United Nations to impose a moratorium on longline
fishing in the Pacific.
-
- Longline fishing was introduced because it was expected
to reduce the number of unnecessary catches produced by the alternative
method of dragging large nets through the ocean.
-
- The latest research shows, however, that millions of
fish die or are seriously wounded after being caught on the hooks, either
when taking the bait or, in the case of many seabirds, when feeding on
fish caught on the line.
-
- Many species found in the longline "bycatch"
have been seriously depleted and some pushed towards extinction, according
to a report by the American Sea Turtle Restoration Trust.
-
- Robert Ovetz, the author of the report, said that an
immediate moratorium should be imposed on longline fishing in the Pacific.
"Longlines are wiping out the lions and tigers of the ocean - sharks,
billfish and tunas, as well as sea turtles. Catches are indiscriminate
and therefore uncontrollable," he said.
-
- "Contrary to its reputation as a clean fishing technology,
industrial, pelagic longline fishing in the Pacific annually captures and
kills about 4.4 million non-targeted marine species."
-
- The report, entitled Pillaging the Pacific, says that
3.3 million sharks, one million marlin, 59,000 sea turtles, up to 76,000
black-footed and laysan albatross and almost 20,000 dolphins, including
the bottlenose, spotted and spinner, are captured or killed by longline
fishing.
-
- Among the whales killed by longlines are the beaked,
humpback and sperm varieties.
-
- The critically endangered leatherback turtle is expected
to become extinct within the next few decades if the decline of the adult
population is not halted. The number of adult nesting females has fallen
by 95 per cent since 1980, the report says.
-
- Bycatch represents about a third of all Pacific hauls.
Sharks, seabirds, sea turtles and marine mammals are particularly vulnerable
to extinction as they have low reproductive rates. Longlining is also having
a damaging effect in the Atlantic Ocean where a recent study found that
populations of sharks, and some tunas, had declined markedly.
-
- The UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation estimates
that up to 40 million tons of bycatch and "discards", worth an
estimated £2.4 billion, are wasted annually.
-
- "With little control over what is captured and killed,
fishery managers can only regulate what fishermen keep and land,"
the report says. "As a result massive amounts of unwanted or illegal
fish (and other species) are thrown back into the sea as overcatch."
-
- The report highlights another disturbing trend: with
fish stocks falling, longline companies are turning to "top-of-the-food-chain"
bycatch species, such as sharks, to increase their profits.
-
- The fishermen cut off the sharks' fins and these are
sold to markets in the Far East, the United States and Europe. The report
condemns the practice as a "senseless waste of entire sharks for the
fibres of their fins which are an insignificant additive to so-called shark's
fin soup, a luxury item with no nutritional value".
-
- Attempts to control longline fishing have failed because
commercial operators are now using longer lines and more hooks.
-
- The most commonly caught species in the Pacific, bigeye
tuna, and the most valuable commercial species, Southern Bluefish tuna,
are listed as "vulnerable" and "critically endangered"
respectively.
-
- Sarah Duffy, the oceans campaigner for Greenpeace, called
for more marine reserves to control fishing in sensitive areas.
-
- "If industrial fishing continues at this rate then
many species will be wiped out," she said.
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- © Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2004.
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- http://telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/11/21/nfish21.
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