Yesterday, French president Nicolas Sarkozy announced that France backs Monaco’s call for an international trade ban for Atlantic and Mediterranean bluefin tuna.

“Ours is the last generation with the ability to take action before it’s too late – we must protect marine resources now, in order to fish better in future. We owe this to fishermen, and we owe it to future generations,” said president Sarkozy at the close of a national stakeholder consultation on France’s future sustainable fisheries and maritime policy, the ‘Grenelle de la Mer’.

This means that France joins the growing list of countries and marine experts that wish to place Bluefin tuna under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) to give the populations a chance to recuperate.

“WWF welcomes the Monaco initiative and the position of France, whose fleets have traditionally caught more bluefin tuna than any other country,” said Dr Sergi Tudela, Head of Fisheries at WWF Mediterranean.

The Principality of Monaco was the first state to announce its willingness to sponsor a proposal to ban international trade in Bluefin tuna and the country is now seeking the support of other states in whose waters this species lives.

“In terms of eligibility for a listing on CITES Appendix I, Atlantic bluefin tuna ticks every box – and then some,” said Dr Susan Lieberman, Director of WWF’s Global Species Programme.

The next CITES conference will be held next year in Qatar, but proposals have to be submitted by 17 October to be eligible for consideration.

Rocky, a snakehead living with its keeper Chris Deverso in New York State, might get a new lease on life.

Snakeheads are Asian predatory fishes capable of breathing oxygen from the air and move over land. They have been banned in the USA since they might wreck havoc with North American ecosystems if introduced to the wild.

Channa marulius caught by fisherman.
Copyright www.jjphoto.dk

Due to this regulation, the Department of Environmental Conservation wanted to euthanize the pet snakehead, but Deverso – who has owned the fish since before the ban was put into action in 2004 – refused to give up his pet and has therefore been back and forth to court and fined for owning the illegal fish.

The Department of Environmental Conservation has now offered a compromise; they will grant Deverso an educational permit, provided that he fulfils the educational permit requirements. He must:

– Install a lock on the top of the aquarium.

– Holds an open house or lecture in his home for groups interested in learning about snakehead fish.

– Pay an annual permit fee of $500.

“I never went to college; I never made much. I’m just an average guy who stood up for what I believed in and hopefully in time I’ll be granted the permit and it’ll all be worth it,” said Deverso. “I’ve taken care of him for 11 years, it’s my family pet; $500 is a lot of money but if it saves his life, it’s worth it.”

After acknowledging the failure of current fishery policies within the union, EU officials are now considering banning the practice of discarding fish at sea.

“What’s the point of setting a quota if fishermen aren’t accountable for the fish they actually catch?” says Mogens Schou, a Danish fishery official.

The EU’s quotas limit the size of the annual catch that countries and their fleets can sell on their return to harbour, but instead of protecting remaining fishing populations from depletion, the system is making fishermen dump lower-value fish at sea to maximize profit. According to officials in the European Commission’s fisheries office, most of these fishes do not survive.

“To stay under their quotas, and make more money, fishermen discard half of what they catch,” says Schou, “They ‘high-grade’ – in other words, only keep the most profitable fish.”

Last month, an EU report was released highlighting the failure of current EU fishing regulations by showing that 88% of fish species in EU waters are being fished out faster than they can reproduce. In response to the report, fishery ministers from the 27 EU nations are currently discussing how to protect the remaining fish stocks from complete eradication.

As a part of these talks, Denmark has proposed an amended quota system where fishermen and their countries are held accountable for the amount of fish caught rather than the amount returned to port. To make it harder for fishing fleets to cheat, Denmark is also proposing that fishermen voluntarily equip their boats with on-board cameras. In exchange, the fishermen would get bigger quotas.

Denmark has already designed a surveillance kit consisting of four cameras, a GPS (Global Positioning System) device, and sensors that notice when fish is being hauled or dumped. The Danish kits are currently being used on six fishing boats with Danish officials monitoring the footage.

Danish fisherman Per Nielsen installed the kit on his trawler Kingfisher in September and believes it to be a good investment. The kit cost roughly 10,000 USD, but Nielsen was compensated by being allowed to catch several extra tens of thousands of dollars worth of cod.

As of now, EU fishermen throw overboard an estimated 50% of the fish they catch and did for instance dump 38% of the 24,000 tons of cod they caught last year, according to the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea.

Yesterday, the European Parliament voted to ban most seal products from the European market. The legislative resolution was adopted with 550 votes in favour, 49 against and 41 abstentions.

Suggestions from the European Parliament’s will only become law if adopted by the European Council of Ministers, which represents the member states. The legislative report on the seal products ban was agreed with the European Council of Ministers in first-reading.

An exemption is allowed for indigenous communities so seal products resulting from hunts traditionally conducted by Inuit and other indigenous communities can still be imported to and marketed in European Union countries.

“This deal will protect seals from cruelty and protect the Inuit people’s traditional way of life,” said Christel Schaldemose, a Danish Socialist MEP.

Import of seal products will also be permitted where it is of an occasional nature and consists exclusively of goods for the personal use of the traveller or products that result from by-products of hunting conducted for the purpose of sustainable management of marine resources on a non-profit basis.

The legislative report was drafted by UK MEP Diana Wallis of the Alliance for Liberals and Democrats in Europe (ALDE). ALDE is the third largest political group in the European Parliament.

No ban on hunting

“Seals are very beautiful marine animals, in fact, I have realized during this process that they have great PR, but to some they are the rats of the sea”, Wallis said in the debate yesterday.

“That is how they are perceived by many fishermen – an adult seal gets through an enormous amount of fish on a daily basis. Therefore, there will remain the need for seals to be hunted to ensure the sustainability of fisheries in some area.“

“But what we have not done here is to regulate hunting,” said Wallis. “If people in any of our

member states wish to hunt, they can still continue to hunt. What they cannot do is take commercial gain from the results of that hunt. But it should be the case that the results of the hunt can be used, and I hope particularly that those parts of seals that can be used by the medical community will be able to be used.”

Today, human heart valves can be replaced with bioprosthetic valves from seals and other marine mammals.

“Great progress has been made in the survival and quality of life of cardiac patients by using the aortic, pulmonary and pericardial tissue of harp seals, the assumption being that they are sustainably hunted or killed and not in a cruel way,” said Irish MEP Avril Doyle of the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats, EPP-ED. “I would like assurances on ongoing medical research and bioprosthetic use of products from seals in the context of the compromise,” she added.

The patent holder for the valve replacement process, Efstathios Andreas Agathos of Massachusetts, says the needed seal valves can be supplied by “the annual seal harvesting supported by Canadian government for population control.”

Canada will challenge ban at WTO

Canada‘s Trade Minister Stockwell Day said that Canada will challenge the trade ban at the World Trade Organization, unless an exemption is added for any country that has strict guidelines in place for humane and sustainable sealing practices.

“The decision by the European Parliament lacks any basis in facts,” said Canadian Fisheries and Oceans Minister Gail Shea. “The Canadian seal hunt is guided by rigorous animal welfare principles which are internationally recognized by independent observers. I once again caution my European counterparts about the dangers of pursuing politically motivated bans on other countries’ traditional industries. Our government will stand up for the jobs and communities that depend on the seal hunt.”

The world’s largest seal hunt is conducted every spring off Canada’s Atlantic coast and Denmark, one of the main importers of raw fur sealskins to the European Union, imports seal skins directly from Canada and Greenland. Denmark and Italy are by far the two largest importers of raw fur sealskins for the EU market. Unlike Denmark, Italy imports most skins from Russia, and from the two EU members Finland and Scotland (UK). Greece will also be affected by the trade ban, but not to the same extent as Denmark and Italy since the Greece trade in raw seal skins – predominately from Finland and Scotland – is much smaller.