Hughs fish fight Channel 4

Hi dov

I knew that the programme was on, and I knew what it was going to be about. So I made the decision to not watch it.

Maybe I did the right thing. :-)

the current policy is clearly not working & i have every sympathy for the fishermen who have to find a way to make a living despite the quota systems, but i couldn't help but also wonder if the fishermen could do more to not net fish that aren't in their quota. Trawling is a devastating way to fish & as this programme clearly shows, kills everything in the path of the trawl net.

seems like the equivalent to me of a farmer dragging a huge plow behind his tractor, ripping up whole fields including hedgerows & the top soil & then throwing away everything but the one crop he's allowed to keep. it clearly isn't sustainable so he finds other methods. because trawling is done out at sea & the damage is hundreds of feet down on the seabed, somehow it becomes acceptable?

i'm interested to see how the weeks programmes continue but i though last night was a little one-sided

I haven't watched the programme, I've seen footage of fish being thrown overboard and it makes me sick and what makes it worse is the fact that many fish species are heading straight towards commercial extinction because of it and nothing it been done to reverse it.  Look at the situation Bluefin tuna are in, they are on the brink of commercial extinction that had they been a mammal there would be outrage over, but because they are "just a fish" the majority of people turn a blind eye and continue buying their "dolphin friendly" tins not thinking about the fate of the very fish they are consuming - or that dolphins are part of the very same ecosystem that will be affected by the disappearence of tuna and other fish! 

Touchy subject with me I'm afraid, but unfortunately I'm passed even hoping that anything effective will ever be put into place.  I think the only hope for the fish stocks now is that enough remain once they reach commercial extinction to avoid them going totally extinct.

Oh, and it does my head in on these cookery shows where they go serving up rare fish as well!  Why not just have roast Amur leopard with gorilla eye and giant panda stuffing served on an ivory plate!

Do you have a link to the petition?

Hi again , don`t have a link Kat , i just went to channel 4 then found it. I know where you guys are  coming from regarding fishing methods etc and you do have some valid points . However , if it isn`t the british fishermen fishing other european countries will step in and  it wll probably get worse . Is it not ironic that certain scandinavian fishermen hoover up sand eels etc then turn them into fish food for farmed salmon . Why do you think sea birds are found on beaches with no signs of injury , fish stocks are very low and they`re starving.

dov said:

Hi again , don`t have a link Kat , i just went to channel 4 then found it. I know where you guys are  coming from regarding fishing methods etc and you do have some valid points . However , if it isn`t the british fishermen fishing other european countries will step in and  it wll probably get worse . Is it not ironic that certain scandinavian fishermen hoover up sand eels etc then turn them into fish food for farmed salmon . Why do you think sea birds are found on beaches with no signs of injury , fish stocks are very low and they`re starving.

The oceans need international management and this is where the problem lies, and it isn't only birds that suffer and starve through a demand for fish.  In North West Africa the people rely on fish for protein, and European trawlers (including british ones) basically overfished the waters there and left the people the scraps to scavange.  There were not enough fish left for the local people to fish (something they had done for centuries without damaging the fish stocks) and they had to take more risks to get the fish going further out to sea to try and find some.  The greed of the fisheries is responsible for people starving to death, we hear it all the time when it is global warming causing famine and drought but not when it is the "good old" fisherman! Not to mention the Phillipenes, they found big-eyed thresher sharks were visiting a part of the reef early in the morning to get a clean.  These are animals that are rarely seen because they usually remain in deep water and the tourist income from this would have been a massive boost to the economy, they were going to set it up so that a maximum of 8 people could go and watch the sharks (paying about a grand each if I remember rightly!) to avoid scaring the sharks away.  Unfortunately as they were in the process of passing legislation to protect the sharks a Japanese fishing boat went into the area.  A sustainable source of income for a poor country wreck to supply the rich, heartless snobs with a tasteless soup.  As for the sand eeel fish food, that is supply and demand.  If fish farms (and those that buy "farmed" fish thinking  they are better than wild) were more responsible in their choices then there would be less of a demand, same goes for people buying pet food as sand eels also end up in that!  Though fish farming is opening another kettle of fish itself.

We could all stop eating fish - I haven't eaten either fish or meat for 30 years now. It is just unsustainable.

CJ

You can find the link here!

You might be interested in looking at our marine conservation work here as well.

cjbeady said:

We could all stop eating fish - I haven't eaten either fish or meat for 30 years now. It is just unsustainable.

CJ

I haven't eaten fish for years but that's only because, even though I did like fish, fish didn't like me.....

I think the above are all very valid comments. Sad but true. I can't see anything worthwhile being done to stop it. The Human Race needs to eat to survive. Therefore, the larger the HR becomes the more we eat other species.

Until they all extinct. Then it will become just like 'Soylent Green'.

:(