the pressure from the ‘green’ lobby on the catching and gear manufacturing sides of the industry remains relentless.
In March Greenpeace took direct action against French and British vessels engaged in seasonal mid-water pair trawling for seabass in the Channel, with the campaigners claiming that they were saving dolphins. This led to complaints by fishermen to the UK Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) that Greenpeace activists were endangering vessels and the lives of crews.
In April, one of Britain's largest charities, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), launched a campaign, with Birdlife International, against longlining, claiming that 100,000 albatrosses die each year after being snared on the hooks of the longlines. Their "Operation Ocean Task Force" received the endorsement of the Prince of Wales and record-breaking yachtswoman Dame Ellen MacArthur.
The Greenpeace campaign received favourable coverage in the British media with newspapers such as the Daily Mail claiming that "English" dolphins were being “slaughtered” by French fishermen. In the recent UK general election, a Conservative Party candidate in Cornwall called for a ban on pair-trawling in the Channel.
So, it is no wonder that fishermen feel more and more isolated. Many also feel faced by aggressive direct action supported by celebrity endorsement on the one hand and on the other that the wider public is not informed about the steps the industry has undertaken to change their methods and gear to reduce and prevent the bycatch of cetaceans and seabirds.
While he did not want to get involved in the question of pair- trawling as such, because none of his members was engaged in it, Cornish Fish Producers Organisation (FPO) chief executive Paul Trebilcock told World Fishing that he and his members were outraged by actions of Greenpeace as they had endangered the lives of fishermen. Mr Trebilcock also felt that no matter what his members were already doing to prevent cetacean bycatch in their gillnets it was not enough for the likes of Greenpeace.
The jury is still out on whether acoustic alarms like 'pingers', are effective in the long term as a deterrent for dolphins and porpoises and cost effective as regards durability for fishermen, said Mr Trebilcock. They are to become compulsory in the North Sea, the Channel, the Western Approaches and parts of the Baltic by 1 January 2007,
He pointed out that his members had adopted a new code of practice that had led to an “amazing reduction” of cetacean bycatch. This involves not setting up nets in so-called hot spots where cetaceans had been caught in the past in nets twice or more per day
But instead of praise there was now pressure for a total ban on gillnets within a mile of the coast and this would affect netters who targeted flatfish and had never seen a dolphin in their nets, said Mr Trebilcock. Animal rights activists had in recent months also damaged lobster boats and pots and he believed that it was therefore no use to talk to organisations such as Greenpeace anymore.
is views were echoed by Doug Beveridge, deputy chief executive of the National Federation of Fishermen's Organisations (NFFO). He and Mike Park, vice president of the Scottish Fishermen's Federation (SFF) and chairman of the Scottish White Fish Producers Organisation, have lodged a complaint against Greenpeace with the MCA. Park said the winter seabass fishery in the Channel was economically important for his members. Based on their own experiences they seriously questioned the figures of more than 2,000 dolphins killed by pair trawls, a number produced by Greenpeace.
Mr Park, like UK fisheries minister Ben Bradshaw, who has been campaigning in the European Union for measures to prevent cetacean bycatch, accused Greenpeace of “silly stunt” politics with the dumping of frozen dolphins at the door of the UK department of fisheries in March. “They produced no evidence that these dolphin had been killed in the Channel -- it was like [saying] 'here you have one we froze earlier',” Mr Park said. He stressed that his members were strongly in favour of any reasonable changes in methods and gear to reduce cetacean bycatch.
Even some other green campaigners questioned the wisdom of the recent actions by Greenpeace in the Channel.
One should work with the industry rather than against it in the presentation of cetacean bycatch and certainly not do anything that could endanger vessels and their crews, according to Alan Stuart of the European Cetacean Bycatch Campaign (ECBC).
Stuart says he believes there is common ground between campaigners such as himself and the fishermen since neither wish to see cetacean or any other bycatch. “The last thing that a fisherman wants is to spend time and effort disentangling dolphins or other sea animals, which have no value to him, from his nets,” said Mr Stuart.
And while he shared some of the reservations fishermen have about 'pingers', Mr Stuart believed that the US Atlantic Gillnet Supply company was offering a very good alternative with its reflective and stiffer gillnets.
'Pingers' and float clatter could have the effect of a “dinner bell” for cetaceans, but less noise and changing the time of hauling nets or trawls, for example to dawn could lead to a substantial reduction in cetacean bycatch deaths, he believes.
However, Greenpeace, when contacted by World Fishing, remained unrepentant and it did not seek accommodation with the fishing industry looking for ways to improve gear and methods, according to Vera Duffy. She was on board the Dutch-registered Esperanza in the Channel in March.
“These fisheries are anyway unsustainable because of the depletion of stocks like cod, according to figures of the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), and should therefore stop altogether,” said Ms Duffy. She further stressed that Greenpeace was complying with the rules on the high seas on collisions, as pointed out by the MCA.
Industry developments
The irony is that the newer methods and gear (such as static nets, e.g. gillnets) or longlines are often more environmentally friendly to the seabed environment than beam trawling which also came under attack from Greenpeace last year in the North Sea. Yet the more conservationist and preventive gear is what is being targeted by the environmental lobby because of the bycatch of cetaceans or albatrosses,
It is also ironic that the quality of the catch from gillnets or longlining is often regarded as superior to that of trawl-caught fish. A great challenge for the fishing industry, one of the last major hunter-gatherer activities in the world, is to find new methods and gear which are both ecologically acceptable to the consumers and still allow fishermen to work in an economic and profitable way.
Gear manufacturers such as Le Drezen in France, Van Beelen in the Netherlands and Fiskevegn in Norway have been working with the catching side of the industry to find ways to reduce, if not prevent, the bycatch of seabirds and mammals. There are also some smaller companies producing alternative gear.
Le Drezen is focusing on eliminating bycatch in pair trawls, Christine Perrot, export and marketing manager for Le Drezen Group, told World Fishing.
“Tests were achieved during the ‘Boulogne Cetacean Workshops’ last February in the Ifremer trial tank. These tests showed the efficiency of the textile grid placed in the middle part of the trawl with an angle tilted forward allowing the non tradable species, like cetaceans to escape through a window cut in the upper face of the middle net,” explained Ms Perrot.
“Another model of vertical textile grid was also tested. Since then, Ifremer achieved other trials at sea with the help of commercial fishing vessels that resulted in good commercial catches.
“Indeed, it might seem that the vertical grid let pass more easily the target fish into the codend as the grid presents itself more perpendicularly to the traction line. But no dolphin was found in the trawl,” explained Ms Perrot.
Dutch trawl makers van Duijn, in Katwijk, who use the ropes and nets manufactured by van Beelen, started experimenting years ago to see whether different colours, white or black, had an influence on the behaviour and the catch of fish in pair trawls.
Huig van Duijn says that using white materials substantially reduced the amount of cetacean bycatch. Other experiments off the coast of Mauritania, using separation panels, facilitated the escape of larger fish and these had previously caused problems when trying to haul in the nets, van Duijn added.
There have been further experiments in Iceland, using steel mesh or other materials, in the back of trawl with an escape hatch on top to allow the escape of dolphins, and this has proved successful, Mr van Duijn said.
Another Dutch company, SaveWave, has developed an acosutic deterrent system for cetaceans by influencing their behaviour. As soon as these ‘dolphin saver’ micro-computers are touched they start to emit ultrasonic signals, according to Rick van Lent, unit coordinator of SaveWave.
He says the signals are programmed to disturb and distort the echo location system of cetaceans and therefore prevent the animal getting into the net. Experiments in 2001 and 2002 showed that system had an efficiency range of between 75 per cent to 90 per cent, he added.
The ‘dolphin savers’ were meant in the first instance for gillnets, but the company had already produced one type of ‘dolphin saver’ for trawls, and other devices are under research.
A different approach has been taken by Atlantic Gillnet Supply Inc., in Pennsylvania in the USA, using reflective, ‘dolphin-safe’ nets. It also produces degradable gillnets so that if they are lost they do not continue permanently to "ghost fish". They also have whale-safe ropes that are designed to be broken by an entangled whale.
The ‘dolphin safe’ nets reduce the bycatch of small cetaceans such as porpoises and dolphins because of three factors, explained Norman Holy of Atlantic Gillnet Supply. The nets are more acoustically reflective, more visible and stiffer.
“The filled nets are not as likely to entangle an animal, if there is an encounter, because of the stiffer twine. The nets are only slightly stiffer than conventional nets and many commercial gillnets are actually stiffer than our filled nets,” said Mr Holy.
He added that one test in Denmark showed that no cetacean was caught, but nor did it catch any fish. The reason was that it had not used the correct filler for the net. However, tests in the US and Canada showed it worked with cetaceans and had substantially reduced the bycatch of seabirds as well, Mr Holy said.
The nets were originally manufactured by Morenot in Norway, were now made in China and could be made in Europe too if the market warranted it, said Mr Holy.
One solution, suggested by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), to eliminate the bycatch of albatrosses in southern oceans, is the weighting of lines so that they sink more quickly before birds spot them. This has been developed by Fiskevegn in Norway and the New Zealand fishing firm Sealord as the Integrated Weight Line (IWL). This has shown great results in reducing, in some cases by more than 90 per cent, the bycatch of seabirds, said Jakob Hals of Fiskevegn.
He said that most of the vessels using automatic baiting in the Ross Sea Tooth Fishery have equipped themselves with IW lines from Fiskevegn.
“IW lines sinks at approx 0.3m/s, about 2,5 times faster than unweighted longlines. Compared to using external weights, the use of IW longlines also saves time,” said Mr Hals.
“No negative operational effects, while using IW Lines, have emerged during use. The lines run even more smoothly than regular lines through the baiting machine, linehauler and hook separator. One positive side effect is improved efficiency… while setting the lines and during hauling, and this has helped produce a big increase in the catch.”
Mr Hal said that the team, which worked on the development of the prize-winning IW line system, was proud and excited that they had come up with a mitigation method that is proving extremely effective in safeguarding some of the bird species which are most prone to bycatch.
