Fish Waste

Hello Fellow Ponders,

I hope that the last week has been well. I’m sorry for the wait I just thought I would take a break to relax. As you have probably heard the Brexit deal recently passed meaning that Britain will be leaving the European Union shortly. This has been in the works for a fairly long time. But you’re probably wondering why this matters to me. Well it will probably have little effect on me. However, I saw this article the other day that really caught me eye. It was about how Britain fisheries are suspected of disposing of over one million tons of fish per year because of the EU’s fishing rules. These returns were often made alive or dead because the fishing boats exceeded their quota and were not allowed to bring in anymore fish. This practice of retuning dead fish is an active pollutant in the ocean and is not any better than overfishing. Current studies have been unable to pin the blame directly on the UK. The studies did show an increase in disposal over the past 15 years. In 2005 it was “estimatedthat 500,000 to 800,000 tons of fish were discarded in the North Sea each year…”. Sadly, in a study conducted in 2013 this estimate increased to over “…1.7 million tons of fish and “other marine animals”…” The EU has been attempting to stop this drastic amount of discarding, through a discard ban implemented in 2015, but so far it has seemed ineffective. Most experts have seemed hasty to believing that the bulls put in place will actually have much effect. In my personal opinion I think that this amount of waste being produced is horrible and out of control. I am a strong believer in commercial fishing regulation. However, if these boats are going out and devastating populations enough to dump 1 million tons of dead marine animals back, they should find a more proper disposal system then just throwing back the dead. This practice seems wasteful and just as devastating. I think also implementation of better regulation in the fishing industry would greatly improve this problem of overfishing. So, what do the officials hope to change? They are hoping to install many methods of higher observation so that it is much harder to disobey the discard ban. They hope to create higher surveillance of the seas through “…observers and CCTV on boats…” It’s just been challenging since most surveillance options do not exist across all countries in the EU. What I am wondering is if Brexit will affect this surveillance once it is enacted. I hope that overfishing and discarding gets resolved and starts to decline. I just want the ocean to be healthy and fish friends to be safe and not have to swim with the dead. The fish are my first priority, fresh water or saltwater, I am just a humble fish lover. I hope that man’s impact on the great ocean does not continue to worsen. FOR THE FISH!

Keep Swimming,

Koi Lover