Chelsea footballer criticised after bizarre fishing incident: Chelsea and USA national team midfielder Christian Pulisic has been criticised by conservation groups following a strange incident involving a goliath grouper during a boat fishing trip. The footballer was filmed doing keep-ups with a football over the side of a boat, just above a huge goliath grouper which had been hooked and was being held at the surface of the water. Pulisic then slips and falls into the water on top of the fish which begins to thrash around. He is pulled back onto the boat, at which point the video ends. Pulisic has been criticised on social media and by organisations such as Blue Planet Society for cruel treatment of the goliath grouper, a species which are classed as Vulnerable by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. Read more and watch the video by clicking here.
Questions asked over MSC blue tick ecolabel: An article in the Guardian this month asked whether the Marine Stewardship Council’s (MSC) blue tick ecolabel is fit for purpose following allegations that it is given to fisheries that have very high levels of bycatch. The Guardian article states that critically endangered North Atlantic Right Whales, of which there may be as few as 356 left in the world, have changed their migration patterns and are now present off the coast of New England and Canada. Entanglement with the ropes of crab and lobster fisheries in this area is now one of the biggest threats to the whales, but these fisheries are currently listed as sustainable by the MSC. This highlights the difficulties the MSC faces – while the crab and lobster fishing may be sustainable, the bycatch it causes is not. Critics claim that the MSC is slow to act when issues such as these are highlighted and that fisheries which display poor practice and do not take measures to minimise bycatch are still given sustainable verification by the organisation. A further issue is that the majority of the MSC’s income also comes from fisheries which pay to be able to use the MSC blue tick, something which critics say creates a conflict of interest as the MSC is incentivised to verify fisheries as sustainable to maximise its own income. Today fourteen per cent of global fish landings are verified as sustainable by the MSC, with £9.5 billion of products given the MSC’s blue tick. Click here to read the full article on the Guardian website.
Southern Water fined £90 million for dumping raw sewage into the sea: Southern Water has been fined a record £90 million after admitting to dumping billions of litres of raw sewage into the sea. The company admitted to 6,971 incidents where sewage was illegally spilt into the sea along the south coast of England between 2010 and 2015. The illegal dumping of sewage first came to light when the Environment Agency found that shellfish were contaminated with E. Coli and anglers reported finding condoms, sanitary towels and tissues in areas where they were fishing. Lawyers for Southern Water claimed that the sewage had been released into the sea due to negligence, but Mr Justice Johnson at Canterbury Crown Court said that the offences had been “committed deliberately” and showed ” a shocking and wholesale disregard for the environment, for the precious and delicate ecosystems along the north Kent and Solent coastlines, to human health and to the fisheries and other legitimate businesses that depend on the vitality of the coastal waters.” Read more on this story on the BBC website by clicking here.
Up to seventy sharks found dead on a Welsh beach: A woman who was snorkelling at a Welsh beach has found dozens of dead sharks, and there are claims that the true number could be as high as seventy. Karen Jones was snorkelling at Hunts Bay in Gower when she found the sharks dead and on their backs in a line on the seabed. Jones says that she saw a man setting what she believed were lobster pots but now thinks that this may have been a gill net and the sharks may have been bycatch from this net. She put pictures of some of the dead sharks on social media and comments from other people said that another fifty dead sharks were found in the area, some of which had pieces of gill net attached to them. The Marine Management Organisation said it was investigating the incident. Click here to read more.
Great white sharks could soon be present in British waters: Scientists have calculated that warming seas could soon see great white sharks present in British waters. The species is already found in the Mediterranean and off the coast of the Balearic Islands, but could soon be in British waters, most likely off the coast of Cornwall or southern England. There have already been ten possible sightings of the species around the British Isles, although none of these have been confirmed. Dr Bob Hueter, a Florida-based scientist from the marine research organisation OCEARCH told the Sun: “It is very possible that white sharks already occasionally venture to the British Isles but are not observed or documented … With climate change increasing water temperature, this likelihood could increase … It is not likely to be soon that white sharks will become common residents of the British Isles, but occasional visits by this species venturing up from the Atlantic coast of France may start to increase.” Read more on this story by clicking here.
Notable shark catches made but anglers criticised: A group of British anglers have caught fourteen six-gill sharks on a single fishing trip. The species is rarely caught on rod and line and the catches were made from an undisclosed area of the Atlantic where the water depth is believed to be around 900 metres. The largest of the sharks was around 450lb and all were released. The sharks were landed on the Welsh-registered charter boat Size Matters which is fitted with a special sling to allow large fish to be lifted on board in a way that reduces stress and allows catches to be unhooked and released quickly. However, conservation groups on social media criticised the group for catching the rare species. Read more on this story here. In another shark-related story, a 500lb thresher shark was caught off the coast of Ireland this month. Although the shark was released it was brought on board the boat for photos leading to criticism from conservation groups. This was picked up by the mainstream media with newspapers such as the Mirror running stories which focused on the fact the shark was brought onto the boat for pictures (and may have suffered from stress or injury) and was not released at the side of the boat. Read more on this story here.
Trawling in MPZs equivalent of “bulldozing through a nature reserve”: The UK’s only Green Party MP has likened trawling being permitted within British Marine Protected Zones (MPZs) to driving a bulldozer through a nature reserve. Carline Lucas, the Green Party MP for Brighton Pavillion, made the comments after joining Greenpeace to observe fishing vessels operating within MPZs. While around forty per cent of British waters have some form of protection but this is often very weak and damaging activities such as seabed trawling are still allowed. Chris Thorne of Greenpeace told ITV: “We have a network of offshore marine protected areas, but they offer protection in name only … They are just lines on the map and they don’t have any kind of restrictions on disruptive activity … It’s almost a free for all within them.” It is believed that trawlers spent tens of thousands of hours fishing within MPZs last year and while the government now has the power to stop much of this activity following Brexit little progress has been made. Read more on this story by clicking here.
North American heatwave kills an estimated one billion sea creatures: Up to one billion sea creatures such as mussels, barnacles and starfish may have been killed by an unprecedented heatwave that has affected western US states and part of Canada this month. Temperatures over 40 degrees Celsius (121 degrees Fahrenheit) meant that many creatures were unable to survive the heat, and the situation was made worse as the peak temperatures coincided with low tide, meaning that the exposed shoreline had no protection from the sun. It is now feared that the loss of so many creatures will have an impact on the wider marine ecosystem and some scientists have warned that climate change could mean that heatwaves of this type could happen every five to ten years. Read more on this story by clicking here.