Tag Archive for "fishing"
Seems like the fishing industry in Japan is taking a step in the right direction. The largest fishing co-operative in Japan that has 230 longline tuna-fishing vessels have decided to stop fishing for short periods of time. This time will make up 2 months of the next 2 years and are estimated to cut 5% of the catch.
That doesn’t sound much at all as the worldwide tuna stocks have dramatically dropped in recent years, but it also include efforts to reduce tuna fishing in China, South Korea and Taiwan.
Earlier this summer the European Union stopped early the tuna fishing in the Mediterranean sea because they were afraid the extensive fishing would make the species go extinct.
The main reason for this extensive fishing is said to be the global popularity of sushi and sashimi. Maybe it is time for rich western yuppies (and yuppies in other parts of the world) to stop feeding on threatened species..
Lets hope these are the first steps at protecting the tuna worldwide and that is not too late!
A couple a days ago I wrote about some depressing news that many shark species are facing extinction.
Today I found some good news from Ireland about our oceans. According to an article on Yahoo the Irish Sea Fisheries Board will start to clean up “ghost nets” in northeast Atlantic Ocean.
Ghost nets are abandoned and dumped fishing nets that are catching big amounts of fish and other marine life. The amount of deepwater sharks has declined rapidly because of these ghost nets (I would think because of overfishing too).
A study made by Irish, Norwegian and British scientists estimates that 1,254 kilometers (620 miles) of 600 by 50 meter (1,970 by 164 feet) sheets of nets are lost each year. That is a mind numbing amount!
I hope the Irish Sea Fisheries Board are successful in cleaning up the northeast Atlantic Ocean and that other governments will do the same time. The fishing industry should also look into their practices and stop dumping fishing nets.
When I walk along the coastline here in Northern Norway it is very sad to see the enormous amounts of trash that has been washed ashore. A good deal of this trash seems to be coming from fishing boats, like parts of fishing nets and rope. Trash like this can entangle and kill marine life. Smaller plastic parts are also known to be eaten by fish and sea birds thus bringing toxins into the ecologic system.
It is time to clean our oceans and stop treating them like massive waste bins!
