November 11th, 2009

Endangered Fish Cartoons

by Alex Hallatt

This week’s fish series came from an article I read about Greenpeace dropping rocks in the North Sea to stop fishing trawlers chewing up the seabed.

The fishing industry seems determined to catch every last fish in the North Sea. The governments of the region and the EU have done little to stop them, but they may soon hit a few snags: a team from Greenpeace Germany and Greenpeace Netherlands has sailed into the German North Sea and begun placing 150 granite rocks on the seabed. They are hoping that the rocks, each weighing 2-3 tonnes and measuring one square cubic metre, will prevent fishing boats from bottom trawling on the Sylt Outer Reef. This highly destructive fishing method involves a net being dragged across the seabed indiscriminately catching everything in its path.Bottom trawling not only decimates stocks of popular fish, such as sole and plaice, but it also results in a large amount of bycatch – which is thrown back into the sea either dead or dying.