Discarded Fish

[Dogger Bank - German Bite]

Just been reading an interesting discussion on discards on this forum. In all the years at sea I never gave much thought to the harm we were doing. I saw it as a job that provided money for the family. Recently I got to thinking about just how much life we sent back into the sea with little or no hope of survival. I have been looking around the internet for more information on the subject. I found relatively little. The only thing I did find was something about north sea cod on the ICES website that appeared to say 1 fith of cod caught in 2004 was discarded (6400 ton from 33600t).

 

I think this figure must be wrong, I wonder what others think. I also hope someone can highlight some more research on discards of other species for me to take a look at.

Edited April 1, 2006 by Dogger Bank - German Bite

[seaside]

Just been reading an interesting discussion on discards on this forum. In all the years at sea I never gave much thought to the harm we were doing. I saw it as a job that provided money for the family. Recently I got to thinking about just how much life we sent back into the sea with little or no hope of survival. I have been looking around the internet for more information on the subject. I found relatively little. The only thing I did find was something about north sea cod on the ICES website that appeared to say 1 fith of cod landed in 2004 was discarded (6400 ton from 33600t).

 

I think this figure must be wrong, I wonder what others think. I also hope someone can highlight some more research on discards of other species for me to take a look at.

 

 

20 to 25% seems to be the received values for cod in the north sea.

 

Have a look at http://epaedia.eea.eu.int/page.php?pid=516

 

and http://epaedia.eea.eu.int/page.php?pid=415

 

The UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) reports that, on average, 27 million tons of unwanted fish catch are thrown back each year. Most do not survive (FAO's estimated range of bycatch/discards is 17-39 million tons/yr, but does not include marine mammals, sea birds and some invertebrates killed in fishing operations). Twenty seven million tons represent more than half of all fish produced annually from marine capture fisheries for direct human consumption.

 

http://www.fao.org/DOCREP/003/T4890E/T4890E03.htm gives a global view of the issue of bycatch and discards - long and detailed and not encouraging reading.

[wurzel]

quote

Just been reading an interesting discussion on discards on this forum. In all the years at sea I never gave much thought to the harm we were doing. I saw it as a job that provided money for the family. Recently I got to thinking about just how much life we sent back into the sea with little or no hope of survival. I have been looking around the internet for more information on the subject. I found relatively little. The only thing I did find was something about north sea cod on the ICES website that appeared to say 1 fith of cod landed in 2004 was discarded (6400 ton from 33600t).

 

I think this figure must be wrong, I wonder what others think. I also hope someone can highlight some more research on discards of other species for me to take a look at.

 

Well if you have spent the amount of time at sea you say you have, you would know.

 

Re quote

I saw it as a job that provided money for the family.

 

I don't know any body that goes to sea for that purpose alone.

[big_cod]

Just been reading an interesting discussion on discards on this forum. In all the years at sea I never gave much thought to the harm we were doing. I saw it as a job that provided money for the family. Recently I got to thinking about just how much life we sent back into the sea with little or no hope of survival. I have been looking around the internet for more information on the subject. I found relatively little. The only thing I did find was something about north sea cod on the ICES website that appeared to say 1 fith of cod caught in 2004 was discarded (6400 ton from 33600t).

 

I think this figure must be wrong, I wonder what others think. I also hope someone can highlight some more research on discards of other species for me to take a look at.

 

Discards i thought there wasnt any well according to our friend binitone anyway, it looks like i was right after all silly man.

Edited April 2, 2006 by big_cod

[wurzel]

Big Cod

 

You are not often right, but are deffently wrong this time.

[JB]

Hello, Dogger Bank - German Bight,

I wonder if you would possibly humour me, please, by being prepared to answer a few questions on this forum, regarding your curriculum vitae?

 

JB

[big_cod]

Big Cod

 

You are not often right, but are deffently wrong this time.

 

Wurzel if i remember correctly at some time on this forum a while you were quoting as saying, when you were fishing out of whitby you were annoyed about the amount of discards from trawlers now peter you are talking like they have never excisted ,dumping was seen as doing nothing wrong years ago 100 kit halls (1000 stone) half going back over the side this was not uncommon 80ml codends slaughter those were the days .

[The doctor]

Just a few Official figures (weights in tons);

 

Haddock; 2000: 2001: 2002: 2003: 2004:

56,975 126,199 49,609 24,648 17,780

(55%) (76.5%) (49%) (37%) (27.5%)

 

Whiting; 32,100 23,845 24,836 26,836 No data

(57%) (55%) (60%) (70%)

 

 

Plaice (28%) (45%) (48%) (50%) (49%)

 

The above figures are for the North Sea as a whole, and include all member states fishing not just the UK fleet.

 

There is no actual discard data on cod, ICES/ACFM have included discards within the general dataset, however based on the Scottish and English ground fish surveys and other official surveys, cod discards may bebetween 20 - 25% and occasionally as high as 35% (individual trawls). The plaice data are misleading to some extent, as within the Dutch sector (Plaice box) discarding on plaice and sole is between 70% to 85%.

 

You can make your own mind up as to whether these are acceptable numbers, however, discarding is STILL an issue, especially where stocks are attempting to rebuild.

 

Cheers

 

 

Doc

[wurzel]

I have never said discards never existed , I have always said , there has been some bad practices concerning discards .

 

There still is in the mixed sole and plaice Dutch beam trawl fishery, until they separate the fisheries they will never solve it.

 

As for the white fish sector , the use of bigger meshes and square mesh panels had now started to address the problem.

The days of having huge lifts of just size and under codling are over , or should I say , I was led to believe they were over.

 

I can assure any body that will listen , the discard figures quoted have no baring on any type of fishing that I do.

[Guest binatone]

Big cod.

You say that 100 kit hauls (50% retainable fish 50% discards) was not uncommon in the good old days?

When was this? Do you mean on the Whitby boats? If you where to ever get a haul as big as that with so many discards the first thing you would do is take hold of the cod end and let the lot go. The second thing you would have done was to get the hell out of it.

Do you know what 100 kit haul of fish looks like? I think not.

If the Whitby boats where getting hauls like that back then and taking it all aboard like you are suggesting, they would of spent most of there time along side the quay clearing the fish.

I never witnessed a 100 kit haul where you had to return 50% of it. I never heard of anybody getting a 100 kit haul and have to dump half of it.

I witnessed some big hauls but they usually ended up on the quay for auction.

Wurzel.

How is it going Pete? You where having a discussion with big cod about rounded haddock and stated that I might be able to shed some light on it.

Well all I can say is that the Scottish fishery was and still is one that catches most of the haddock that comes into British ports. They have historically rounded there chat haddocks because A) they could not handle (gut) the amount that they where catching, even when they had large crews. The processors obviously wanted these small haddocks, whiting and even codling at times. They obviously had a market for them they had the skills in processing them and so I suppose that it was better to land and process these fish the way they did rather than add them to big cods growing mountain of discards.

We use to always gut our whiting, not very nice stood for days at a time only to get a similar price as to what the Scotchmen did for the same fish rounded.

The sad thing with rounded fish was when they where putting red die on the fish (because they had not reached the minimal price) boats where going and filling up with cod, haddock etc bulk fishing landing the lot rounded because they new they would at the end of the day get the minimal price when they had been withdrawn.

What a travesty that part of our history was.

Doctor.

Hello doctor have got a question for you (if you don’t mind) or at least for anyone who can answer it for me.

When a government (through defra) with the help of there scientist set a quota, weather this be days at sea, size of mesh to be used, or amount of fish to be taken from said area for said time. Do they take into account the amount of discards that they estimate the said fishing boat will catch and discard? If they do then surly they are telling us all what discards the fishing industry catches or they would not issue the said quotas in order to maintain a sustainable fishery. Or have the scientist got it wrong and big god has got it correct?