Tony Wardle takesa global look at fishing and asks whether we could
be heading for the…
End Of The Line?
As a kid, I grew used to being awoken by the clack of early-morning wooden
clogs on paving stones as ‘lumpers’ made their way to the docks.
These were the men who unloaded trawlers of their catch. It was a very
long time ago, when 150 deep sea trawlers made Grimsby the largest fishing
port in the world. So much fish was landed that much of it never found
a market and was trundled
down the road to the fertiliser factory.
In the intervening 60 years or so, I have watched cod wars come and go, fishing limits extended, the introduction of industrialised fishing, the imposition of quotas, an EU common fisheries policy and scientific monitoring of stocks. But the rape continues even more aggressively than it did in my childhood.
Humankind’s mismanagement of the seven seas is a lesson in stupidity, greed and utter disregard for the natural world. No matter how many warnings are issued, how dire the situation becomes nor how inept industry scientists show themselves to be, the destruction continues under the pretext of being scientifically ‘managed’.
Canada should have taught everyone a salutary lesson. In the 1960s, 800,000 tons of cod were dragged from the sea bottom every year off the east coast of Newfoundland, even while spawning. In 1975, only 300,000 tons could be found and by the 1980s it was down to 250,000 tons but still the ‘scientifically-based fisheries management program’ gave the go ahead to repeat this scale of slaughter each year.
In 1992, devastation struck with a complete collapse of the fishery. Total cod stocks in these once-teeming waters were estimated at just 1,700 tons. It was the end of the line for cod.
Again ‘scientists’ demonstrated their ignorance of a complex ecosystem by claiming that the fish would quickly recover. That was 13 years ago and they are showing no signs of doing so. Icelandic and European cod stocks are now heading in exactly the same direction and a similar tale of incompetence, political cowardice and short-term self interest pertains. And to a greater or lesser degree, it is the same with all fish stocks right across the globe.
Knowledge that fishing on sucha massive scale is unsustainable has been around for decades. Governments and industry have chosen to ignore it. As a consequence, the number of fish killed has doubled in under 30 years and the devastating effects on the environment have escalated phenomenally.
In 2003, the UK had 7,283 fishing vessels which landed 631,000 tonnes of fish valued at £521 million – plus about another 200,000 tons worth £1,437 million were imported. These kinds of figures are repeated in dozens of other countries so that the total global catch stands at 93.2 million tons (2002), with a further 39.8 million tons coming from fish farms. Aquaculture – the posh phrase for fish farming – is not a saviour and is every bit as unsustainable and damaging as fishing itself.
Even the organisation set up to share out the spoils of oceanic plunder,
the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES), is aware
of the magnitude of the crisis. In 2003, only 18 per cent of the fish stocks
they assessed were ‘within safe biological limits’ – a
scientific way of saying that 82 per cent of all fish stocks are on the
road to extinction.
Every conceivable method has been devised to catch more fish more efficiently. Trawling involves dragging a huge net across the sea bottom with massive wood and metal otter boards to keep the mouth of it open. They crunch and grind everything in their path and effectively plough up the sea bottom – over and over again. A variation is the beam trawl, which uses a huge metal beam rather than otter boards but manages to do just as much damage.
Seine nets encircle and scoop up entire shoals of fish in mid-water while gill nets and drift nets, which can be miles long, hang in the water at any depth and entangle passing animals. Longlines, carrying tens of thousands of baited hooks, can stretch for 60 miles or more.
All these methods kill far more than the fish they’re targeted at. Every time a trawl is hauled in, one third of its contents will be unwanted sea creatures – small crabs, starfish, sea anemones and so on. They are shovelled back into the water dead or dying. An estimated 300,000 dolphins and small whales are caught and die in nets every year while countless sharks, turtles and sea birds die in a similar way or are impaled on the hooks of longlines.
Even those animals dependent upon the sea but who escape the nets and hooks are no longer safe. Their struggle to survive intensifies as their food sources are wiped out and fishermen turn them into scapegoats, heaping blame on them, accusing them of greed and then killing them.
Fish die horrible deaths. They drown in nets under the weight of others
or their swim bladders burst and their eyes bulge out because the difference
in pressure makes them blow up. They are left to suffocate in an alien
environment or they are gutted with a sharp knife while still struggling
and full of life. In fish farms they may be bludgeoned, electrocuted, gutted
or simply left to suffocate. There are no regulations to protect them and
the claim that fish don’t feel pain has always been crass – a
lie to help justify what is done to them.
Fish farming is now the fastest growing global food sector and a disaster in every sense of the word. For every ton of farmed salmon, three to four tons of wild fish are consumed. Peru is the world’s second biggest catcher of fish – mostly Pacific pilchards, a species which has crashed by 99 per cent in just 15 years in order to feed farmed fish.
All the same problems that typify factory farming on land now apply to fish farming – environmental devastation, over use of antibiotics and other drugs, pesticides and fungicides and appalling animal welfare as wild, free-roaming animals are penned together in their thousands, prey to lice and disease.
The greatest threat of all may turn out to be our interference with a delicate ecosystem that provides most of the world’s oxygen from phytoplankton. Destroy that and we destroy ourselves. Yet Government still encourages the devastation of our oceans by promoting fish with subsidies and as a health food. It is anything but.
This is just a snapshot of the dreadful problems facing the world’s
oceans and all the animals who depend upon them. For a full report, send
for a copy of Viva!’s latest fish guide – End
of the Line. Just £1.50 (inc p&p). Write to Viva!,
8 York Court, Wilder Street, Bristol BS2 8QH. Tel: 0117 944 1000.
Or order online: www.viva.org.uk.