Destructive Fishing

As promised on Monday, a post devoted to Taras Grescoe’s Bottomfeeder, which I just finished reading.

I’ve heard Grescoe called the “Michael Pollan for the oceans,” and I think that designation is pretty accurate. They are both compelling writers -- Pollan deals with the land and how it feeds us (and how we treat it in return), and Grescoe does the same for the oceans.

I'm a little late on this one, but last Friday the National Marine Fisheries Service announced that as of August 25, 2008, 180,000 square miles of the Bering Sea (that's five times the area of California) will be off-limits to bottom trawling.

In the famed Tokyo fish market, a single Bluefin tuna can fetch $100,000.

Yesterday was a definitely a sad day for the oceans.

The Oceana Ranger, our roving catamaran, has discovered deep-sea white coral in the Aviles Canyon in the Bay of Biscay, off the northern coast of Spain. The coral was identified using an underwater robot, which can work down to 600 meters.

The deep-sea coral can take centuries, or even millennia, to form -- some European coral formations are more than 8,000 years old, and their age makes them especially vulnerable. Recent studies estimate that almost half of the deep-sea coral reefs in Europe have disappeared, particularly due to destructive fishing methods such as bottom trawling.

In honor of World Ocean Day, June 8, Air America Radio's Clout with Richard Greene talked to Oceana CEO Andy Sharpless and Oceana board member/actor Ted Danson. Check it out!

Part 1 : Sharpless discusses the importance of World Ocean Day.
Part 2 : Sharpless explains Oceana's five major campaigns.
Part 3 : Freedivers Martin Stepanek and Niki Roderick talk about their personal connection to the ocean.
Part 4 : Ted Danson discusses his longtime commitment to ocean conservation.
Part 5 : Danson elaborates on the importance of sea conservation.

Another un-sexy but vital marine species needs protecting: Atlantic herring. The fish, a keystone species, are caught by huge nets that can catch sometimes close to a million pounds in one haul. Despite the successes that Oceana and our allies have achieved in recent years to rein in this fishery, herring trawling continues to operate without effective regulation or monitoring. The New England Fishery Management Council is developing a new set of regulations for herring fishing, and they are taking your comments through the end of June.

It’s been said over and over again: Eastern bluefin tuna cannot handle the pressure they face from overfishing. These sleek and powerful fish are unlucky enough to be among the world’s most coveted seafood species, and for years scientists have called for a moratorium as a last-ditch effort to save these genetically pure, irreplaceable creatures. While strict quotas have been in place for years, poor quota enforcement and illegal fishing have driven the bluefin to the brink of extinction.

On Monday, the European Union ended the fishing season for most of the Mediterranean’s purse seine fleet, the ships that are responsible for 70 percent of the Med’s caught tuna. This move could save up to 100,000 bluefin this year alone.

Oceana has been carefully monitoring the purse seine fleet with our new boat, the MarViva Med. We have recorded rarely-seen images of bluefin fattening pens and documented purse seiners illegally using spotter planes in their pursuit of the fish.

I didn’t anticipate that the E.U. would react so quickly and shut down the season well before its original July 1 end date. But our work is far from over. The next step is to make sure that the closure is enforced, and that non-E.U. fishing outfits don’t start targeting tuna as well. We will be watching.

The most popular story right now on current.com is about shark finning, a horrific practice that most people know nothing about, and that Oceana is campaigning to stop. Millions of sharks are indiscriminately killed every year to satiate a growing hunger for shark fin soup, a delicacy in some countries.

Finning isn't the only challenge sharks are up against. Sharks are also caught for meat and as bycatch. Click here to access an exclusive Oceana slideshow of images of shark fishing around the world, including finning.

The Standard-Times, a newspaper covering southern Massachusetts, features a blog about fishing issues. It's an appropriate topic for an area that has been part of America's oldest fishing communities. Waterscape polls its readers on fishing-related issues; currently, it wants to know whether you favor closing scallop fishing grounds to protect sea turtles. I think we know the answer to that one, right? Head on over and make your voice heard.