Overfishing of Cod predates trawlers

[Jaffa]

quote:

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Sorry I just have to ask, Any Idea why there is such a large increase in the amount of monk fish on the overfished grounds of west and north scotland,

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I don't think those grounds are overfished but just new which is worse in my opinion .

 

The new trawlers with big HP figured a lot of those grounds out in the 90's. Perhaps they are sustainable, perhaps not, but no way anyone can claim they represent an ecosystem change - these are new methods and grounds for a species that used to have no value.

 

Just my opinion like

 

Chris.

[sam-cox]

soon we will be eating fish that no one has heard of, we will have to invent methods of reaching miles down to those areas that at preseant we can not reach.

Maybe trawlers should have their gps plotters, raydar, magnomiters, sonars and engins taken away.

All trawling to be done the old fashoned way by sail and halling by hand.

Maybe gill netts should go back to being made of dakron.

Maybe Tony Blair will tell us the truth.

[Newt]

sam-cox:

 . Maybe trawlers should have their gps plotters, raydar, magnomiters, sonars and engins taken away.

. All trawling to be done the old fashoned way by sail and halling by hand.

. Maybe gill netts should go back to being made of dakron.

. Maybe Tony Blair will tell us the truth.

sam-cox, after looking at the first part of that list I was gonna ask you to send me some of whatever it is you are smoking. Looked like it must be good stuff.

 

Then I read the last item and decided that it is just too powerful to be safe.

[Guest jay_con]

By that definition wurzel it sounds like defra are as just as corrupt as the rest. Thats my interpretation of what you said anyways. Is the Log keeping thing coming for the merchants wurzel or not ?

[Guest stevie cop]

I've been following this thread with interest, and today I was pondering over some of the points raised and the old mind started wandering. I started to put things into a bit of perspective and here's what I came up with.

 

All life on this planet came from the sea. There were fish in the sea long before we ever evolved into what we are today. The sea provided the perfect food chain for all the creatures that lived in it, and it thrived. Just think about that for a moment. For millions, and millions of years the fish in our seas thrived.

 

Then we came along. The fish in our seas provided us with a valuable source of protein and we took advantage of it the best way we knew how. For thousands and thousands of years, the sea provided us with a major source of food, and the fish still thrived. Then the fish became not only a source of food, but something to be traded. It became a currency. Fish was exported to all the four corners of the globe. People who lived far inland and who had never seen a fish, started to enjoy, then demand fish as part of their diet.

 

The only way that we could keep up with the demand was to develop more efficient fishing methods. As the currency became even more valuable, the demand got greater still and even more efficient fishing methods were devised.

 

The fish in the sea had thrived for millions and millions of years, yet in the last 50 years we have wiped out a very high percentage of what was there. O.K, so we have been denting the stocks since the first Spanish boats started fishing the grand banks, but we have done the most damage in the last 50 years. 50 years in the history of the sea is literally a drop in the ocean.

 

If we've done this much damage in 50 years, if we've taken so many fish from the sea in just 50 years, what will be left in another 50? Or 30? Or 10?

 

Maybe I should just stick to watching the Tweenies.

 

[ 09. March 2005, 11:38 PM: Message edited by: Steve Coppolo ]

[Ken Davison South Wales]

Hi Steve,

 

I would say we've done all the damage in the last forty years, some where during this period we started using the capital instead of the interest.

 

It is sad but we have to hope that the people who are now fighting to try and correct the situation will win before it is a total wipe out.

 

People will have to except that fish prices will have to go up which in turn will take it of millions of tables, that is the price of stupidity.

 

Everyone seems to concentrate on the large fishing ports and the major trawling areas, I do not know how old Wurzel is but if he an old fart like me and cast his mind back to all of the little pockets of coastal fishing that have vanished. They died out because there was insufficient fish in local waters to support them. Each one was like a mini grand bank vanishing; add them all together and you have the same if not worst situation than the grand banks. Hopefully they will revive as it covered a wider range of species and give us a second chance to get things right.

[Jaffa]

Peter, regarding the monkfish ; here is one of the "new breed" of trawlers that I remember opening up the new ground in the late 80's and 90's:

 

http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/sfn/old/grena.htm

 

quote from this article:

 

"One of the things the Vega will be best remembered for was "breaking out" new bottom to the west of Shetland around Rockall and Faroe. Many of these tows are still used by other Shetland and Scottish boats who now know where all the wrecks and fasteners are that the Vega found the hard way."

 

The Vega was not the only one breaking out new ground for others to follow as the price of monk rose and made it worthwhile. I very much doubt monk numbers have risen, rather that they are being heavily fished for the first time.

[sam-cox]

I dont smoke lots of weed Newt, I just cant spell.

[wurzel]

@winter@

I am not sure what has happened to the log books for fish merchants,it's in the bin I hope,

As for DFRA, Yes some of it is currupt, some just nigh eve, mostly it's just a big office full of self important people clammering over each other to get up the office ladder,

I've met Rodney Anderson a couple of times, he's the new big cheese, seems a nice enough bloke, very good at running the office. He did not like it when I told him that DEFRA was nothing but a huge burden on the tax payer and had never done any thing for conservation and if they had never existed nothing much would be any different.

The quota system is just figures for them to play with, it has nothing what so ever to do with what is caught.

It's the EU who run the show any way, and what they are up to is more sinister.

[wurzel]

Hello Steve

as you say there were fish in the sea long before man stood up on two feet, and when we have all been wiped out by aids ,chicken flu, some strain of mixermatosess or just blown are selves to kingdomcome there will still be fish in the sea,we might have upset things a litle while we were here but the fish will win in the end.

What comes around go's around.