Discards

[glennk]

I think you'll have to give me something to look at John of who has done what and where. I know you said search but I'm not sure what I'm searching for. I would like to know who is doing the threatening of livlihhods.

 

When I have asked DEFRA to look at this issue I've always been specific. I've mentioned the time span of when I think the issue arises and I've used the available science to illustrate my point. I've never asked them to close the fishery just to take another look and see if they can come up with something to stop the discards. As far as I know no one else from this Forum has spoke to DEFRA about this so I assume by what you say above you mean it's me threatening people livlihoods. Given that the dead undersized fish cant be landed anyway I struggle to see how stopping catching them would threaten anyone's livelihoods as they don't make any money from undersized fish. Surely it would be quite the opposite - less dead fish means more fish in the sea which will grow to be legal size which hopefully would lead to quota increases in future years.

Edited December 19, 2006 by glennk

[Guest challenge]

I am not saying that you are threatening anybody’s livelihood.

What I am saying is if commercial fishermen fell threatened, because of bad evidence regarding discard management, then the powers that be will have missed a good opportunity to look at the herring fishery.

By what John B said at the last meting, they did not seam to find a problem?

if people (like has been said many times on this forum) keep pressing with evidence of discards (that has no relevance to the majority of trawling) then it wont help when you, or we or us, try to highlight a problem (if there is one) within a fishery.

if you feel so strongly about discards then by all means try and get some answers from defra and if indeed there is a problem then I whish you all the luck with any sort of campaign.

All I am trying to say is don’t try and tar all the fisheries with the same brush.

If you do, at the end of the day, defra will start to say that on a larger scale the amount of discards that are being taken are acceptable.

If you are not attempting to tar all fisheries with the same brush then except my apologies as I have miss read your quotes on the subject in the past.

Regards.

[glennk]

I am not saying that you are threatening anybody’s livelihood.

What I am saying is if commercial fishermen fell threatened, because of bad evidence regarding discard management, then the powers that be will have missed a good opportunity to look at the herring fishery.

Sorry for the misunderstanding - I thought you said something different.

 

By what John B said at the last meting, they did not seam to find a problem?

 

As I wasn't at the meeting I cant really comment. It would be interesting to see the minutes of the meeting to see what was asked and what the reply was, then I would have an insight into how John formed this opinion.

 

if people (like has been said many times on this forum) keep pressing with evidence of discards (that has no relevance to the majority of trawling) then it wont help when you, or we or us, try to highlight a problem (if there is one) within a fishery.

You will have to give me specifics of who is doing what and where John. I know of very few people who have written to defra about discards and as I say when I have done it Ive always been very specific that the problem lies over a couple of months in a certain area - Ive never tried to generalise this to all trawling.

 

If your worried about people discussing discards on a more generalised level you might be more concerned to read the recent parliamentary debate where several MP's asked questions of Ben Bradshawe about the problems of discards.

 

 

All I am trying to say is don’t try and tar all the fisheries with the same brush.

If you do, at the end of the day, defra will start to say that on a larger scale the amount of discards that are being taken are acceptable.

If you are not attempting to tar all fisheries with the same brush then except my apologies as I have miss read your quotes on the subject in the past.

Regards.

 

 

 

You will have to give me examples of where and when John. My concern wrt discards is the herring spawn fishery for cod off Whitby in late summer and early autumn.. I know others have concerns about the wider Haddock fishery where Discard levels appear exceptionally high.

Edited December 20, 2006 by glennk

[Guest challenge]

Sorry for the misunderstanding - I thought you said something different.

As I wasn't at the meeting I cant really comment. It would be interesting to see the minutes of the meeting to see what was asked and what the reply was, then I would have an insight into how John formed this opinion.

 

You will have to give me specifics of who is doing what and where John. I know of very few people who have written to defra about discards and as I say when I have done it Ive always been very specific that the problem lies over a couple of months in a certain area - Ive never tried to generalise this to all trawling.

 

If your worried about people discussing discards on a more generalised level you might be more concerned to read the recent parliamentary debate where several MP's asked questions of Ben Bradshawe about the problems of discards.

You will have to give me examples of where and when John. My concern wrt discards is the herring spawn fishery for cod off Whitby in late summer and early autumn.. I know others have concerns about the wider Haddock fishery where Discard levels appear exceptionally high.

None more so than the Scottish fishermen themselves.

The one way to stop discards is to stop boats trawling. They have stopped 60% of commercial fishing boats (British) from catching discards, by (scraping) discarding them.

 

Again fishermen have to sustain another cut back, in fish they are allowed to catch and in the days they are allowed to catch them.

Hard coming on the back of a record braking year.

http://www.fishupdate.com/news/fullstory.p...00m_record.html

Still they accept it and will fight on and hopefully (with a stable market) will again go on to make a living and hopefully sustain some confidence in a hard earned industry.

The Whitby fleet (being a historically cod catching fleet) or at least what is left of it, will again be hit hard. But they have resolve and will (and with additions) be there next year.

 

I believe that the people at the meeting new exactly what John Breenan meant when he asked his question about discards. I just don’t think (regardless of campaigns) that at the moment the powers that be think they justify a ban on that fishery.

Regards.

Edited December 22, 2006 by challenge

[barry luxton]

Again fishermen have to sustain another cut back, in fish they are allowed to catch and in the days they are allowed to catch them.

Hard coming on the back of a record braking year.

http://www.fishupdate.com/news/fullstory.p...00m_record.html

Still they accept it and will fight on and hopefully (with a stable market) will again go on to make a living and hopefully sustain some confidence in a hard earned industry.

The Whitby fleet (being a historically cod catching fleet) or at least what is left of it, will again be hit hard. But they have resolve and will (and with additions) be there next year.

 

We here time and time again of the sacrifice being made by the uk fishing fleet. Does any have any idea of the sacrifice being made by the rest of the eu fleet, i.e. how many boats have they scrapped?

 

cheers barry

[glennk]

Having read the questions in the cod recovery review John which is being undertaken. I have a strong feeling that that review will look closely at discards. The way the questions were asked made me feel that cuts in quotas and days at sea were about at their limit and I dont see many other feasible options. Perhaps next year you wont see anymore cuts like you have in the past 5 years. My feeling and its only a hunch is that discards will become the focus for the future of cod recovery. Its only my gut feeling and I know no more than you. But lets see in a couple of years time if fisheries like this one with high discard rates haven't come under closer scrutiny and become part of the plan. Only time will tell John.

[Guest challenge]

Having read the questions in the cod recovery review John which is being undertaken. I have a strong feeling that that review will look closely at discards. The way the questions were asked made me feel that cuts in quotas and days at sea were about at their limit and I dont see many other feasible options. Perhaps next year you wont see anymore cuts like you have in the past 5 years. My feeling and its only a hunch is that discards will become the focus for the future of cod recovery. Its only my gut feeling and I know no more than you. But lets see in a couple of years time if fisheries like this one with high discard rates haven't come under closer scrutiny and become part of the plan. Only time will tell John.

I believe that plenty of research has been done on discards glen. You yourself have highlighted discard observations during surveys on Whitby boats.

I hope that (if indeed there is a problem) that some solution will be made available to all concerned on this fishery (Whitby herring fishery) sooner rather than later.

but if they are putting more restrictions on what they can catch and when they can catch it, then I think that there will be more pressure on the said fishery next year than there was on it this year.

Maybe they have taken every thing into consideration, (the lack of any substantial fleet, days at sea etc and even the none committal of local boats to this fishery) and have decided (after consultation and research) that discards in this fishery do not constitute anymore restrictions?

Still glad to see that the (Whitby) lads had a good run up to Christmas, good weather and a good clean fishery. Some lovely fish landed over the last few weeks and it made a good price. “Worth catching as we use to say” more than can be said for our fishing in bay over this last week. If we had caught as many fish as there where seals we would of certainly caught our quota this year.

Regards.

[Guest challenge]

Seeing as I have been left the commercial fishing industry since 1989 I decided to have a look at the discard situation hands on as to speak.

Had the opportunity two have a couple of days with a commercial boat from Whitby trawling for prawns.

We had two hauls a day and was working a 80m net with a square mesh panel in the trunk of the net situated about 12 foot up from the cod ends.

All four hauls that we had over the two days averaged out about the same.

For each haul. 5 baskets of prawns, 6 baskets of whiting, I basket of flats (place and lemon sols) one basket of haddocks, half a basket of cod, I basket of mixed fish (monk fish, skate, hake,) half a basket of prime (Dover sols, turbot, brills) and half a basket of discards, which included shells, weed, starfish, undersize prawns and undersize fish. I only sore 3 undersize codling in the four hauls that we had over the two days.

I asked the skipper if this was his average sort of hauls and he said “we usually get the same amount of fish and discards, but we often get a lot more prawns”.

I always thought that the prawn fishery was one for high discards, but by this evidence things have certainly changed since 1989. not that we ever got many discards fishing for fish then, but the few trips that we did prawn fishing, there certainly was a lot more small prawns when we hauled.

Regards.

[seaside]

Having read the questions in the cod recovery review John which is being undertaken. I have a strong feeling that that review will look closely at discards. The way the questions were asked made me feel that cuts in quotas and days at sea were about at their limit and I dont see many other feasible options. Perhaps next year you wont see anymore cuts like you have in the past 5 years. My feeling and its only a hunch is that discards will become the focus for the future of cod recovery. Its only my gut feeling and I know no more than you. But lets see in a couple of years time if fisheries like this one with high discard rates haven't come under closer scrutiny and become part of the plan. Only time will tell John.

 

Would that they would Glen -

 

The west coast of Scotland prawn fishery is a disgrace - I was talking with one of the west coast creelers the other day and he was really pee'd - the prawn trawlers are working the lochs every day, right up to the very edges, and the prawn are getting smaller and smaller.

 

Overall, nearly 50% of their catch is discarded. This includes around 10 million immature fish in the last year I have data for. Never mind the prawn - that's 10million + taken out of the breeding stock.

 

This of course pales into almost insignificance when one looks at the major fisheries; for example, the figures I have for 2003 show that for ICES sub area IV, North Sea, 200,000,000 + haddock, cod and whiting were discarded.

 

This stuff hasn't been invented by anyone, it's happening now, it's documented under observer programs and it's being ignored by politicians and the industry alike with no real thought for the future.

 

Why can't SEERAD / Defra / EU stop fiddling about with half baked solutions and exemptions and just mandate that ALL those commercially exploiting fisheries will use those methods that result in minimal by-catch. It may not be the total answer, but it would massively reduce wastage, wouldn't impact the commercials revenue one bit, but it would certainly help stocks recover.

 

What's even more ironic is the fact that the governments are trying to promote 'local identity' to 'add value' to catches - thus enabling such as the creelers and the smaller inshore boats to make a more viable living - yet their very living is being undermined by those governments and the 'bigger' commercials.