Report: Fishermen Discard 63% Of Catch, UPI 8-29-07

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Report: Fishermen Discard 63% Of Catchby StaffNearly two-thirds of all fish caught commercially in Britain arerejected and thrown back into the ocean dead, a British government study saidMonday.The study said 63 percent of the 186 million fish caught by commercialfishing vessels -- 117 million fish weighing 24,500 tons -- are thrownback into the English Channel and other British seaways because theyare found to be too small or the wrong species.The study said the most destructive vessels are beam trawlers, whichtow a metal bar at the mouth of the net, and heavy otter trawls, whichfish on the bottom, The Telegraph reported.These accounted for 90 percent of all discards, the British newspapersaid.The most frequently discarded species included some of the waters'most-overfished, including cod, European plaice and lesser-spotted dogfish,the report said.Mackerel, pilchard and

sprat were the most discarded fish by vesselsfishing in mid-water for surface-swimming fish, it said.Conservationists noted a large proportion of fish being tossed wereyoung fish of threatened species such as cod that might otherwise havegrown to maturity and propagatedThe Scottish fishing-industry group Seafish said there is now afisheries science partnership project to study and reduce discards in IrishSea fisheries and proposals by the Scottish industry for 'real-time'closures where high levels of juvenile fish, particularly cod, areencountered. © UPI

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