Celebrity angler Nick Fisher passes away: Angling writer and TV presenter Nick Fisher has died aged 63. Fisher was best known to anglers for presenting the Channel 4 angling series Screaming Reels in the 1990s and presenting the BBC Radio 5 angling show Dirty Tackle. He was a close friend of celebrity chef and environmental activist Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall as the two worked togther on the TV series River Cottage: Gone Fishing and Hugh’s Fish Fight. Fisher was also an extremely successful television scriptwriter, working on programmes such as Eastenders, Casualty, New Tricks and Holby City. He also wrote a novel entitled Pot Luck which was set in the commercial fishing community of Weymouth. Nick Fisher went missing from his home in Hooke, Dorset earlier this month. Two days later police found a body in the Dorchester area which was identified as Fisher. Police were not treating the death as suspicious. Fearnley-Whittingstall said that Fisher was “a great writer and broadcaster [who was] always full of insight and compassion.” Read more here.
BBC criticised over Trawlermen programme: Our Seas, a coalition of over 135 fishing and conservation organisations (including the Blue Marine Foundation and Sea Shepherd UK) has written to the BBC Director General Tim Davie to complain about the recent documentary series Trawlermen: Hunting the Catch. Our Seas has said that the programme failed to mention any of the “urgent sustainability issues” associated with the type of commercial fishing covered in the programme. Our Seas said that Trawlermen showed the decks of commercial fishing boats “writhing with marine life”, much of which was thrown back into the sea dead as bycatch, but this damaging and wasteful practice was never mentioned and it was instead presented as an “acceptable byproduct” of commercial fishing. Furthermore, the huge amounts of carbon emitted by seabed trawling, and the immense damage trawl nets cause to the seabed were also omitted. Our Sea went on to say that the BBC broke its own guidelines by failing to reflect the fishing industry as a whole and instead only presented the positive aspects in Trawlermen: Hunting the Catch, and also went against the BBC’s pledge to encourage audiences to make “greener choices.” Read more on this story here.
At least 6 per cent of global fishing likely to be illegal: A report in this month’s Guardian revealed that a minimum of 6 per cent of global commercial fishing is likely to be carried out illegally. The figure was calculated by the non-profit organisation Global Fishing Watch which analysed the times when commercial fishing vessels switched off their automatic identification system (AIS). When this system is off a vessel’s movements and activities cannot be tracked. A computer algorithm was used to analyse billions of AIS messages issued between 2017 and 2019 and found that AIS was switched off for a total of 6 per cent of fishing time. The authors of the study stated that switching off the systems allowed vessels to fish in areas they were prohibited from and allowed illegal ship-to-ship transfers of fish to be made. It was found that areas such as the coast of Argentina, areas off the west coast of Africa and parts of the Pacific were hotspots for AIS systems being deactivated. While it is not illegal to switch off AIS systems – stopping rivals from discovering specific fishing areas is a legitimate reason for doing so – Global Fishing Watch said that a vessel constantly switching off its AIS was a “big red flag.” The authors said that real-time monitoring of AIS deactivation could be used to direct patrols to check that vessels were fishing legally. Read more on this story by clicking here.
Hull distant water fleet reduced to one vessel: The distant water fleet operating out of hull will be reduced to a single vessel after the owners of the Farnella said that the vessel would be retired. The move will lead to the loss of twelve jobs and leave the controversial Kirkella as the only distant water vessel operating out of Hull. The distant water fleet of Hull has been in decline for a long time with the BBC quoting information from the Sea Fisheries Statistical Table which states that catches from the port have fallen from 197,000 tonnes in 1970, to 15,000 tonnes by 1981. Jane Sandell, from Fisheries UK, the company which owns the Farnella, said that the vessel had to be retired due to the government negotiating a poor post-Brexit deal to fish in Norwegian waters. She said that the company had gone from three distant water vessels to just one since the UK had left the EU and seventy-two crew had been laid off in that time. She said that the Kirkella will continue to operate but its future was “incredibly uncertain.” Read more on this story by clicking here.
Plastic from around the world washed up on remote island: Thousands of pieces of platic waste and rubbish from across the world have been found washed up on the coast of Ascension Island. The island is a British Overseas Territory and is located in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. A study by the Zoological Society of London was carried out over five weeks on the island and found over 7,000 pieces of plastic. The main types of rubbish found were plastic bottles, cigarette butts, unidentifiable fragments of plastic and commercial fishing gear, some of which had come from as far away as Japan, China and South Africa. Ascension Island is home to a range of rare and endangered species including frigate birds and a range of sharks, turtles and fish and the study will continue for another three years to work out how plastic pollution is affecting these creatures and how currents and tides carrying plastic rubbish to the island. Read more here.
Jellyfish numbers increase in UK waters: Research from the Marine Conservation Society (MCS) has found that British waters are seeing increasing levels of jellyfish due to warming sea temperatures. Utilising data gathered through twenty years of citizen science, the MCS found that as well as increasing numbers of jellyfish coming to UK waters, there were also new species of jellyfish appearing in waters around Britain. The majority of these species were previously only found in warmer waters and include the crystal jellyfish which is a bioluminescent species which can emit blueish/green light and is most commonly found in the Pacific. Sightings of the Portuguese nan o’ war, a jellyfish-like creature which has a potent, and potentially lethal sting, also increased. Jellyfish can thrive in poor sea conditions and the reduction of fish stocks has allowed jellyfish numbers to rise further as they face fewer natural predators. Click here to read more on the Guardian website.
Germany calls for pause to deep sea mining: The UN-backed International Seabed Authority will hold a meeting in Kingston, Jamaica this month to decide whether or not seabed mining will be permitted in international waters from 2023. This type of mining will produce cobalt, nickel and other rare earth metals which are in high demand for batteries in electric cars, mobile phones and other electronic devices. However, there is concern that seabed mining could cause significant and irreversible damage to the world’s marine ecosystems. Countries such as Spain and New Zealand have called for the proposed 2023 start date to be delayed while the environmental impacts are assessed, and now Germany has called for a pause before deep-sea mining begins. Steffi Lemke, Germany’s environment minister, said: “Deep-sea mining would put even more pressure on the oceans and irreparably destroy ecosystems. That is why, as a first step, we are calling for a pause to prevent any rash decisions at the expense of the marine environment.” As the largest economy in Europe, Germany’s call for a pause in seabed mining is significant, and BMW and Volkswagen, two of the country’s largest companies, have said that they will not use metals mined from the seabed in their electric vehicles, even if mining is allowed from 2023. Read more about this story by clicking here.