Daily Mail-style rant? Hopefully the opposite.

[cheekbones3]

Apparently numerous fishermen are complaining that they lose money every time they leave port, and are therefore thinking of blockades as a protest about fuel costs etc.

 

Call me stupid, but wouldn't it be more sensible if they didn't set out fishing until it's economically viable? "Duh, the fuel for the boat is going to cost more than the price I'll get for what I catch. I'll set out anyway and whinge about it later."

 

Might even be some fish to catch if they take some time off...

Comments

[henriksdal.livejournal.com]

(OK, google is not helpful about the Orange Roughy and just gives recipes for the "delicious" fish. They found this fish on seamounts, which are mountains in the middle of the sea, which are like oasises of life in the desert. Vast shoals of Orange Roughy congregate at them. Orange Roughy lives for ~70 (possibly up to 150) years, and has a very slow reproductive cycle, few eggs, and don't become mature until age 20. The fisheries decide to catch these by bottom dredging - dragging a huge metal-bottomed net along the sea floor, which scrapes up and kills everything that get caught in it.

It's absolutely sickening - the Orange Roughy is fast becoming extinct, as are millions of other species on the seamounts. To eat a fish that lives to be 125 years old! They only discovered the fish about 25 years ago! And it's nearly extinct!

Last I checked Marine Science, everyone was fairly agreed that the world's seas will be dead within 50 years.

GOd, I forgot how ranty I get about fish... (<has degree in Marine Biology)

[cheekbones3.livejournal.com]

Looks like I should do more posts about fishing - it's the best response I've had in ages!

And aye, like so much in a democratic system, short-term thinking dominates and stifles any sort of sense.

[llamarines.livejournal.com]

I get incredibly pissed off about this too. There need to be quota reductions, MASSIVE fines for going substantially over quota - losing your boat levels of fines - a ban on dredging, a huge incentive to open fish farms and a very well funded EU agency (akin to the US Coastguard) that keeps a strict eye on everything.