Fish Fight

[Stormy]

There is a petition going on right now about the massive amounts of wasted fish that is thrown overboard within European waters.

Basically to help "Conserve" our fish stocks fisherman are only aloud to catch a standard quota (in weight) of each species of fish. As many fish in multi-specie waters they never know what the nets will bring up. If they have reached the quota for cod for example all excess is thrown overboard dead. This is known as discard.

Of course as they are trying to fill there quota for each fish wile throwing much away they fish for longer. A better solution would be a limit on time aloud to fish rather then a quota in weight.

The EU estimates that in the North Sea, discards are between 40% and 60% of the total catch. Many of these fish are species that have fallen out of fashion: we can help to prevent their discard just by rediscovering our taste for them.

I really hate seeing any food go to waste especially when its something like this which we are removing from the environment and it must have a massive effect on the eco system. So if anyone cares here is the linky to the petition!

http://www.fishfight.net/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIVPkbYV0CI

^^ Ignore the "omg bastards" stuff. The law states they HAVE to throw this food overboard.

PS. I'm really not a massive hippy for this kind of stuff but seeing so much food go to waste, wile at the same time complaining about failing stocks is just crazy.

 

[Ren.182]

Signed.

What a stupid law. If they've caught it they might as well bring it back.

 

[morgs]

Signed, sent the petition to a few other people too, this is terrible.

 

[VirusType2]

Signed. Thank you for posting this. I have the propensity to become a militant activist about this kind of thing.

 

[Stormy]

Agreed.

The thing is, its understandable that the EU should do something to stop over fishing, with no laws there will be no fish left. But this clearly isnt the way to go around it. Things need to change.

The scary thing is, this law has been in place now for 10 years, think of all that wasted fish

Its amazing how much waste there is each haul, and the fishermen hate doing it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbrDfh1kL1g

 

[Mr. Djees]

This is illegal in Norway, but foreign fishers will often trawl in norwegian waters and then take their catch to EU waters to discard before trawling some more. Once they are out of our waters all the coastguard can do is watch.

 

[Bad^Hat]

Signed. Disgusting.

 

[Kisze]

Signed. Funny how the only reason (it seemed) that the fishermen were upset with it was because of the money loss though.

 

[VirusType2]

I feel like an American Indian against the white man. Stop ****ing everything up for a dollar.

 

[Krynn72]

I don't like fish. Neither their taste, nor their personalities. However, unlike Bees, I have no desire to specifically see fish killed pointlessly. I've signed it, for all the good that will do.

 

[Sheepo]

I definitely came into this thread hoping for some footage of people dueling with comically large fish, but eh, whatever. Signed.

 

[Evo]

Watched two of the Channel 4 shows so far, very very interesting and shocking to see how much fish gets thrown back in the water dead because of the quota system. Disgraceful that the EU has let this go on so long, there has to be a better way.

 

[VirusType2]

What concerns me more is overfishing. The world is overfishing fish into extinction. So, our ultimate goal should be to reduce fishing to sustainable levels, to where the young fish have time to reproduce, sustaining population levels.

 

[Ren.182]

I'm not sure of a better way really. Not with the fishing methods they use at least. The only way would be to catch one fish at a time, see what it is and throw it back before it dies. But obviously, with demand so high that's not going to work.

But this law has changed nothing. The same amount of fish are caught, just half of them are thrown back into the water dead rather than took back to port. Surely it'd be better to just bring it back anyway, don't let them sell it, donate it to a country that needs food or something. I dunno.

 

[Mr-Fusion]

We should hunt fish to virtual extinction. Then all the fishermen lose their jobs, demand drops worldwide, humanity loses it's taste for fish as its simply nit available. Then in the coming decades the fish recover, and we can start all over again.

Inevtiably were going to ruin this planet, demand to feed is simply far more important than preservation.

To the stars. There are millions of earth like planets, we can leave this plane and start anew in a distance solar system that is infested with primitive humanoid creatures that look like japanese women that we can subdue and make our sex slaves.