UK to push for sustainable fishing at EU level
The EU is currently negotiating a bilateral fisheries agreement with Norway and Mr Jonathan Shaw, Fisheries Minister, said that the focus should be on sustainable fishery based on 'scientific advice that stocks are improving.'
Animals Count wonders which scientific advice Mr Shaw is referring to. The common skate is already extinct in the North Sea and species such as cod, herring and whiting are at the brink of extinction. Only last year scientists demanded a ban on North Sea cod fishing as years of tougher quotas within the EU failed to revive stocks.
In addition to these species, many other sea life has been disrupted due to unsustainable and greedy fishing methods as well as pollution. Animal Count is sceptical that commercial fishing can ever be sustainable especially given that hundreds of thousands of tonnes of fish, shrimp and other marine species are caught to feed industry-raised fish such as salmon. These captive fish suffer enormously and the intensive farming methods cause pollution at a grand scale.
Animals Count wants to see tougher measures on wild caught fish, as well as on industry-raised fish to reduce suffering, pollution and the threat of species going extinct. Ecology must be considered before economics.
28 October, 2007 