Enquiries have been launched into how Dutch-owned supertrawler FV Margiris deposited more than 100,000 dead fish off the French coast this month.
Owned by Parleviliet & Van der Plas, Margiris, one of the largest fishing vessels in the world, deposited the blue whiting in the Bay of Biscay on the morning of Thursday 3 February 2022.
Images of the spill were shared by Sea Shepherd.
A social media post from France’s Minister for Fisheries and Maritime Issues, Annick Giardin, advised that she had ordered France’s national fishing surveillance authority to begin an inquiry, while the EU Commissioner for Environment, Oceans and Fisheries, Virginijus Sinkevičius, confirmed on Twitter that the European Commission is also launching an investigation.
In a statement, the Pelagic Freezer-Trawler Association (PFA), which represents the vessel’s owner, attributed the spill to a ruptured net.
PFA wrote, “We would like to clarify that around 5.30am on 3 February, an amount of blue whiting was involuntarily released into the sea from the Margiris vessel, due to a rupture in the cod-end part of its net. Such an accident is a rare occurrence and in this case was caused by the unexpectedly large size of the fish caught. In line with EU law, the incident and quantities lost have been recorded in the vessel’s logbook and reported to the authorities of the vessel’s flag state, Lithuania.”
It continued, “Blue whiting is a target species which is of great value to our members. Moreover, it is a quota species and as such the lost fish will be deducted from the vessel’s quota. It is not in our members’ interest to lose any fish they take on board and we regret that this will now not be available for human consumption.”
According to the association, Margiris has implemented “drastic measures to prevent similar accidents in the future”, with the trawls adapted so that they are “able to deal with the exceptional size of the fish currently in the area concerned”.
