Fishermen act on cutting discards in wake of Hugh's Fish Fight
By Lewis Smith
January 20 2011 Lewis Smith
Plaice
Experiments intended to slash the number of fish wasted as discards by fishermen trying to keep up with the demand for scampi are about to start in the Irish Sea.
Scientists are joining forces with fishermen to identify how equipment used by trawlers targetting nephrops, which are served up as scampi in pubs and restaurants around the UK, can be redesigned to reduce the damage to other creatures.
Plaice, dab and dogfish are constantly getting caught up in the nets used to catch nephrops off the coast of Cumbria but an estimated 90 per cent are thrown away as discards because they are too small.
The vast majority are juveniles that are caught before they have grown big enough to spawn even once and the rate of discarding is so high that it is having a serious effect on the fish populations in the area, especially plaice.
The issue of discards has become especially controversial this month as Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall highlighted the problem on television and launched the Fish Fight campaign to get them outlawed.
The trawlers sailing from Cumbrian ports including Whitehaven, Maryport and Fleetwood are equipped with nets that are dragged along the seabed. It is an effective means of catching nephrops, which burrow into the ground, but means huge numbers of unwanted plaice, dab and dogfish also get hauled in.
Fishermen working on the bottom trawlers approached scientists at the Centre for Environment, Fisheries & Aquaculture Science (Cefas) asking them to help design modifications to the nets that would reduce the number of small fish being caught.
Dr Tom Catchpole, of Cefas, said he and his colleagues have several ideas that could work and that the fishermen will test them out over several months as the trawlers fish for nephrops, also known as langoustine and Dublin Bay prawns.
Dr Catchpole said: "We are trying to develop some trawl modifications which retain what they are trying to catch, which is nephrops, whilst not retaining some of the small fish they don’t want, which includes the likes of plaice and dab.
"Because they are trying to catch small things it means they inadvertently catch small fish in the process. There’s a high level of discards of plaice relative to what they are retaining. The idea is to get the fishermen to test designs which will improve the selectivity of the trawls."
He added: "It was the fishermen who recognised there was an issue and approached Cefas. It’s a collaborative effort and there’s a lot of motivation on the part of the fishermen."
Plaice, dab and dogfish all live at the sea bottom so one approach the scientists will be working on is identifying differences in behaviour that would mean the fish would escape the nets without the nephrops being able to get away.
A similar approach has proved successful in the North Sea with cod and haddock. When cod are alarmed they swim up whereas haddock go down so a net fitted with an escape panel at the top means the cod can get out.
Scientists from Cefas have already been involved in two other experimental projects to reduce discards recently. In Project 50 Per Cent off the Devon coast they helped cut discards by beam trawlers by more than half. While the South West Otter Trawl (SWOT) Project involving boats based in Cornwall is due to finish later this year.
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1 responses to "Fishermen act on cutting discards in wake of Hugh's Fish Fight"
Andy Kendrick says:
This may sound stupid, but why do we need worry about scampi? Its hardly a species that we cant do without, is it. Best solution, stop fishing for it!! Would save on loads of dead by catch .
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