January 20, 2004. Copyright 2002. Graphic News. All rights reserved.

Spotlight on dolphin deaths

LONDON, January 20, Graphic News: Campaigners and European parliamentarians have launched a new offensive against destructive fishing practices which they claim are decimating the numbers of cetaceans (dolphins, whales and porpoises) in European Union waters.

MEPs on Tuesday unanimously passed a proposal making acoustic warning devices mandatory for ships in many parts of European seas. It also proposes the phasing out of drift nets in the Baltic Sea by 2007, bringing fishing boats in this area into line with those in the Atlantic and Mediterranean oceans, and calls for better conservation measures to be found as soon as possible. The directive now has to make it past EU government ministers.

A joint report from green group Greenpeace and the UK-based Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society (WDCS) claims that up to five percent of the dolphin population dies in trawling nets every year. The report, entitled ÒThe Net EffectÓ, says that in the Baltic Sea the porpoise population is so low that Òeven a very low level of bycatch (dolphins and porpoises caught accidentally) is critical in conservation terms.Ó

Ali Ross of the WDCS says that, Òthousands of animals are suffering prolonged and agonising deaths that would never be tolerated if they were happening on landÓ.

ÒTrawling and other forms of destructive and unsustainable fishing are the biggest threat to marine lifeÓ, adds Stephen Tindale, Greenpeace executive director. ÒA quarter of everything fished is thrown back into the sea dead.Ó

A Greenpeace vessel, the Esperanza (Spanish for ÒhopeÓ), is sailing from London on January 21 to spend about six weeks in the English Channel, the Celtic Sea and the Bay of Biscay to investigate the fisheries suspected of being responsible for dolphin deaths. The crew will document the amount of bycatch in the nets, while a WDCS team will study the behaviour of the mammals around the nets. 

The report blames huge nets -- some more than a kilometre long and towed by two vessels -- for much of the carnage. These pair-trawls are used in the sea bass fishery, which runs from October to April. According to the report, fishing for mackerel, hake, albacore tuna and horse mackerel also threatens common and Atlantic white-sided dolphins, bottlenose dolphins and long-finned pilot whales.

Worldwide, it is estimated that 300,000 dolphins, whales and porpoises die in fishing nets every year.
/ENDS

Sources: Greenpeace, Whale And Dolphin Conservation Society