First tuna of the year sold in Japan: The annual auction of the first tuna of the year took place in Toyosu fish market in Tokyo at the start of this month. The auction sees wealthy Japanese business owners bid hugely inflated prices for the honour of buying the first tuna of the new year. This year the Onodera Group, which owns and runs Michelin-starred sushi restaurants won with a bid of ¥207 million (around £1,000,000) for the 276kg (608lbs) tuna. This was the second highest price ever paid for the first tuna of the year, but still some way short of the record, set in 2019 when a 278kg (612lb) tuna sold for ¥333 million (£1,700,000). Read more by clicking here.
EU and UK sandeel battle goes to court: Britain’s post-Brexit ban on fishing for sandeels has ended up in court after lawyers for the European Union said that it breached the terms of the Brexit agreement. Sandeels are a small species of fish which provide an essential source of food for huger numbers of fish and seabird species in the North Sea. Due to their importance to the marine ecosystem, the Conservative government prohibited commercial fishing for the species in 2021 and brought in a ban on commercial sandeel fishing in English waters in March 2024, with the Scottish government doing the same in their waters. The Labour Party, which came into power in July 2024, kept the ban in place. This infuriated the Danish fishing industry which catches most of Europe’s sandeels in British waters, mostly to be turned into animal feed as they have little to no culinary value. The EU has backed the Danes, saying that the ban breaches the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement and initiated the legal action. The British government has said that the ban is fair and proportionate, while the EU say that scientific modelling does not justify the prohibition of sandeel fishing in British waters and that it will have “economic and social impacts” on Danish fishermen and fishing communities. A three-man panel made up of experts from France, New Zealand and South Africa will sit to hear evidence between 28 and 31 of January, reporting back with their verdict in April, which cannot be appealed. If the UK ban is upheld it will lead to outrage in the EU and Danish fishing industries, but demanding that the UK drops the ban could lead to a stand-off between the British government and the EU, and put the current Labour government into an extremely awkward position. Read more by clicking here.
Improvements in salmon farming making slow progress: Members of the Scottish parliament have delivered a critical report of the nation’s fish farming industry and its slow progress in improving practices. In the report, MSPs were highly critical that many of the measures put forward in a 2018 report had not been implemented. Fish mortality remained at around a quarter of the stocks, and there were still major problems with parasitic sea lice infestations and mass mortality events caused by algal blooms. However, MSPs stopped short of implementing a ban on the expansion of the nation’s fish farming industry due to the impact that it would have on rural jobs. The organisation Animal Equity UK, which gave evidence to MSPs, said that the report showed that the Scottish fish farming industry remained in a “state of crisis” but Tavish Scott from Salmon Scotland claimed that Scottish fish farms were “world leading” in their fish welfare standards. Read more here.
Questions asked over sending eels from UK: Campaign groups have warned that eels which are sent from Britain to Russia are not being used for restocking and conservation purposes as claimed, and may instead be sold on the black market. The eels, which are in the glass eel stage of their life, are transported from the Bristol Channel to the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, ostensibly to stock the wetlands there and boost eel numbers. However, it is claimed that this is simply a guise to sell the eels into Asia, where they are seen as a delicacy and command a very high price. The number of eels sold to Russia is set to rise: half a million were transported in 2022, rising to three million this year, and there are plans to increase it to fifteen million in coming years. Multiple campaign groups, backed by celebrity campaigners such as Chris Packham and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, have written a letter to the media, seeking to raise awareness of this issue and pressure the government to reverse the plans. A spokesperson from Defra said that there were “robust rules and laws” in place to protect endangered species such as eels, and that any exportation of eels was “scrutinised thoroughly” by the authorities. Click here to read more.
Protests in Brighton over toxic sludge along coastline: Surfers Against Sewage and the Sussex Wildlife Trust have launched a protest against plans to dump sediment from river dredging in a conservation zone. The sediment will be created by the dredging of Brighton Marina and will be disposed of in Beachy Head West Marine Conservation Zone. Premier Marinas, which has a licence to dump the sediment said that they were required to carry out “ongoing” dredging of Brighton Marina under the terms of their lease and that the dredging only removed natural silt which was “sampled to confirm it was not harmful to the environment.” But Surfers Against Sewage and the Sussex Wildlife Trust said that the sediment damaged the environment and filled rockpools. The Brighton Kemptown MP, Chris Ward, backed the conservation groups saying that “no one was against dredging” but they were against disposal in the conservation area and a “better disposal site and a better solution” needed to be found. Readf more on this story by clicking here.
Fear of ‘Trawler Wars’ between Britain and France: This month there were fears that the so-called ‘Trawler Wars’ between Britain and France could resume after a clash between vessels from the two nations. The French trawler Rose de Cascia allegedly passed over the fishing gear of the British fishing boat Henk Senior. The Henk Senior then allegedly switched off its AIS tracking system and used a grappling hook to cut the nets of the smaller French vessel, whose crew claim the action could have “flipped” their boat over. Tensions have risen since British fishermen, as members of a non-EU state, can fish all year round, but the French must observe a ban on fishing between May and October to protect stocks. This has boiled over into conflict between French and British boats between 2012 and 2013 which reignited in 2018 and 2020, and in 2021 French boats briefly blockaded Jersey harbour as a protest against losing the right to fish in certain areas of British waters due to Brexit. Read more on this story here.