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Only a few species of salt water
fish come from a fish farming. Most of the salt water fish are still caught
directly on our seas and thus removed from their natural habitat. As more fish
get caught as they can reproduce themselves the only thing that remains there
is a big emptiness.
Here some background information of today's most frequent fishing methods and
their consequences:
Drift nets:
Drift nets stretching up to 60 kilometers (37 miles) are pulled through the
seas. These nets catch everything that's around, if usable or not. All non usable
life is called as bycatch and get thrown back in the water - no matter if injured
or dead. Not only small animals but also turtles, dolphins, sharks and even
sperm whales find their death in these cruel nets.
Just in the Mediterranean Sea approximately 600 Italian ships catch sword fish
with drift nets with an average length of 12 kilometers (7.5 miles) each. All
in a row you could stretch them twice from Gibraltar to Beirut. The bycatch
is extremely high: Only 18 percent of the caught animals are sword fish, the
rest are other kind of fish - for instance more than 8000 dolphins remain dead
in the sea each year.
Longlines:
A longline is a fishing line usually made of monofilament. The length of the
line generally ranges from 1.6 kilometer (1 mile) to as long as 100 kilometers
(62 miles). The line is buoyed by styrofoam or plastic floats. Every hundred
or so feet, there is a secondary line attached extending down about 5m (16 feet).
This secondary line is hooked and baited with squid, fish or in some cases even
with fresh dolphin meat. The baited hooks can be seen by albatross from the
air and when they dive on the hooks, they are caught and they drown. Other forms
of marine wildlife see the bait from the waters below and get hooked when they
try to eat the bait.
Every year just along the African Atlantic Coast more than seven million sharks
and rays die by longline fishing as
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bycatch. Also more than
34'000 birds and more than 4'000 turtles die every single year only along this
coast line. Worldwide more than 100'000 Albatross die just because of the longline
fishing - each year. The bycatch of commercial longline fishing for tunas can
reach more than 90 percent. They catch for example 4-5 times more sharks than
tunas.
Dynamite:
Explosives are placed in the middle of shoals of fish or reefs. The explosions
are so strong that all the animals within the explosion area are paralyzed or
even killed. Only the dead fish lying on the surface after the explosion will
be collected. All the others remain injured or dead in the sea. If something
like that happens on land it is called terror attack - under water it's only
a kind of fishing!! Although dynamite fishing is prohibited in many areas it
is still illegally widespread.
All mentioned fishing methods not only kill unnecessary fish but directly contribute
to the extermination of the fish population.
All these fishing methods are comparably with a farmer who doesn't climb on
the tree to pick the apples but cut down the whole tree to get the fruits.
According to the Food and Agriculture Organization FAO more than 70 percent
of the fish existence are already overfished. Too many technically upgraded
fishing ships on the oceans are in competition with too little fish. Most of
the fish don't get old enough to reproduce themselves any longer.
Before you order or buy fish next time think first about how it had been caught
and what the consequences are. Even if you are not responsible for the fishing
method it still has to concern you. The sentence "but it is already dead,
so it doesn't matter if I eat it or not" is very imprudent because demand
determines supply!! With other words: As long as people eat fish, the fishing
industry will catch and deliver fish - merciless until the seas are empty!
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