Trawl Bycatch

Time

Well-Known Member
This article appeared in the Times Colonist October 20/09
It's not directed at the bycatch from trawlers, but the numbers quoted seem amazing to me. Do they sound right to you?

http://www.timescolonist.com/technology/Shifting+Seas+Part+Quotas+results/2125828/story.html

"Logan noted that the B.C. trawl bycatch of halibut, which is regulated by the International Pacific Halibut Commission and cannot be retained, has dropped to below 135,000 kilograms of dead fish tossed overboard this year from about 450,000 kilograms over the past decade.


Among other fish species caught by groundfish trawlers and tossed overboard at sea, 1.7 million kilograms were labelled "dead marketable," 833,000 kilograms were "live marketable" and 3.2 million kilograms "unmarketable live and dead" — a term that includes juvenile fish — according to a federal fisheries department report for the year ending April 2007.


BYCATCH WASTED


The report also reveals more than 200,000 kilograms of invertebrates were scraped off the ocean bottom and dumped back — dead and alive — into the ocean, including crabs, starfish, squid, octopus, sponges, sea cucumbers, shrimp, jellyfish, etc., during the same 12-month period.


Scott Wallace, sustainable fisheries analyst for the David Suzuki Foundation, agrees the trawl discard of fish is "awfully wasteful" but said at least the quota commercial fishery accounts for every fish caught. In contrast, he argued the sport fishery is "is loosely managed with insufficient catch monitoring and enforcement."
 
How can we be such idiots to allow this kind of waste to happen. I can understand this lawnmower type of harvesting would be tollerated 50 years ago, but now. Just shows you who actually makes the rules. $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$.
 
Yah in another thread everyone was upset by how much seals eat...thinking that was so wasteful. We are still the problem.
 
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