Bowhead whales - No connection to the incident.

Here’s something you don’t hear everyday… A father, son and a family friend spent four nerve wracking hours staying afloat in the open ocean off the north-west coast of Australia, after their boat sank from hitting, of all things they could possible hit, a whale.

A spokeswoman with the police has stated that the men were making their way from Port Samson to Geraldton in a 14 meter long boat, about 8 clicks west of the Exmouth peninsula, when they rammed into a whale and began taking on water.

The men, a 47 year old, his son of 22, and a 48 year old friend of the family, did the only thing they could do, make the mayday call, activate their beacon, and dive into the waves.

“They hit something hard, solid, they suspect it’s a whale,” Senior Sergeant of WA Water Police, Greg Trew commented.

“They abandoned ship and were in the water for about four hours.”

The police have stated that there were fortunate to have been wearing their life jackets, as none could be classed as Olympic swimmers.

The men, while dazed from the ordeal, were not suffering any ill effects after having spent four hours bouncing on the waves before being found by an oil tender which was a rescue coordinated by the police and volunteer marine rescue in Exmouth.

“They’re all in good health, they were prepared for it and did everything right,” Sergeant Trew went on to say.

“Horrendous seas out there, it was pretty shocking conditions, 35-knot winds and three to four meter swells, it was pretty nasty. It would have been pretty bloody awful.”

Shark ray - Rhina ancylostoma - by Cat from Nagoya, Japan

A rare shark, a shark-ray (Rhina ancylostoma), has traveled an astonishing 6,000 miles to end up at the Underwater Adventures which is located in the Mall of America. The purpose of its visit? Well this has to be a first in history.. It has traveled all this way to be a “stud”.

Yep, it’s true, this rare 6 month old shark is about to be pushed into becoming a father. It will be joining a female in the same aquarium, and it is hoped the two will hit it off well.

“We are really excited to have him. These guys are very rare to have in captivity and the fact that we have a pair is even more exciting,” said an employee with Underwater Adventures, Carol Byrns.

Byrns has suggested that the female shark, dubbed “Lola” would benefit from having a “Latin Lover” so they have sneakily named the male shark “Rico”.

“Rico” was reeled in as a baby by fishermen in Japan, and he won’t be going on display in the main aquarium just yet.

“He’s pretty small yet so he’s going to probably be in holding for quite a while until he grows up,” Byrns explained.

She went on to explain that should guests wish to view him, they will be able to do so if they take the “behind he scenes” tour offered by Underwater Adventures. So it appears that while “Rico” is expected to propagate the species with “Lola”, he is still not big enough to go on for show…

Shark-rays are noted for being extremely rare, and it should be noted that they have never been bred successfully in captivity.

Old illustration of a sea monster. In this case a squid, not Nesski

Nessie’s Russian cousin, “Nesski” seems to be misbehaving in a rather morbid way. It seems to have acquired the taste for fishermen!

Nesski has now been attributed with 19 deaths in the Chany lake over the years. According to Russian experts, that number may actually be higher, but no one has taken note of it yet.

On the books, these deaths have been reported as drowning. However, it is interesting to note that of the “drowning” victims only a few have actually been recovered. The bodies that have been recovered have been reported to be “half eaten”. Off the record, this has led to the speculation by many of the local community that “Nesski” has acquired a taste for human flesh.

Nesski claimed its latest victim, a 59 year old man, when the hapless fisherman tried to reel it in last week. Vladimir Golishev, the man’s close friend, explains what happened. “I was with my friend… some 300 yards from the shore. He hooked something huge on his bait, and he stood up in the boat to reel it in. But it pulled with such force that he overturned the boat. I was in shock – I had never seen anything like it in my life. I pulled off my clothes and swam for the shore, not daring hope I would make it.”

Golishev did in fact make it back to the shore, however his long time fishing partner, vanished beneath the waves, never to be seen or heard from again.

This sad incident is a painful reminder of what happened only three short years ago, when Vladimir lost his 32 year old grandson to the Beast. Mikhail, a Russian soldier, was dragged beneath the lakes’ placid waters, after something large capsized his boat. “The lake was calm, but suddenly the boat was rocking, and it capsized.” recalled Mikhail’s grandmother, Nina Doronin.

The couple has lived on the shores of Chany their entire lives. They firmly believe that Nesski is real, and is responsible for the death of their grandson, as well as the other missing fishermen. The most frustrating aspect of the whole thing, is that they have never personally seen the monster responsible for the crime.

Nesski is thought to be a pleiosaur, much like its counterpart in the Loch Ness. A pleiosaur is an aquatic dinosaur with a rather long neck, small head, large body, and an almost comicly short tail and fins. According to experts on the subject however, these beats went extinct at the end of the Cretaceous period.

The reports of Nesski sightings have been coming in a steady flow for decades, though actually locating such a beast really shouldn’t be too difficult, given its habitat. The lake is only 57 x 55 miles across, and only 23 feet deep at its deepest.. Which begs the question.. Why has no one proven the existence of the monster? But more importantly… Why can’t you find the missing fisherman in water so shallow?

According to Thaphol Somsakul, a civilian dive instructor with the Navy, rare marine species like Giant stingray and Ronin are becoming harder to find in their regular Thai habitats as they are sold to aquariums by fishermen.

Thaphol said he became suspicious after noticing rare species with distinctive marks at various trawler piers, and then seeing them later in aquariums.

“The decrease in number of these species coincides with the increase in the number of new aquariums opening, as well as in the number of rare species on display,” he said, citing his own experience and reports from fellow divers. “I interviewed fishermen who all said those rare species were trapped in their nets by chance.”

Unlike protected or endangered species, rare species are not protected by Thai law. A one year joint project by the Navy, PTTEP, and the NaturalResources and Environment Ministry is however scheduled to inspect 20 sites in the Gulf of Thailand and the Andaman Sea to locate coral reef sites and gather information that will be used in a coming reef conservation project.

Tens of thousands of crab pots litter the ocean floor, forming lethal obstacle courses of plastic lines and weighed-down metal cylinders. Lost crab pots are responsible for killing a long row of air breathing ocean dwellers, such as whales, sea lions and turtles. In addition to their effect on marine wildlife, stray crab pots also inflict costly and potentially dangerous damage to passing vessels.

The basic type of crab pot is a squat cylinder consisting of steel mesh and rubber, and with heavy iron that helps it sink to the bottom. Fishermen lose track of their crab pots due to various reasons, including storms, tousling kelp banks, and passing motor vessels that snaps of the line between the pot and the buoy.

In the past five years, two dead whales have washed up on the Oregon Coast entangled in the fatal combination of metallic pots and durable synthetic lines, but a federal stimulus grant of $700,000 from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has now been assigned to pay Oregon fishermen for cleaning up their crab pots – or at least a fraction of them.

As the crab season ends in August, the federal money will be used to charter 10 boats and hire 48 people — including the 31 fishermen who make winning bids. The aim is to recover 4,000 pots over two seasons.

Each year, Oregon fishermen lose 10 percent of the 150,000 pots they put out, according to a statement from Cyreis Schmitt, marine policy project leader at the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife.

A moray eel species native to warm tropical waters have been caught in the considerably colder waters found off the coast of Cornwall, UK. (picture here)

After catching the 4 feet (120 cm) long fish, West Penwith fishermen brought it to the Newlyn Fish Market auction where it was purchased by fish dealer John Payne of Marisco Fish in Penzance.

”I thought it shouldn’t be there, realised it was rare and it shouldn’t be swimming in these waters so I decided to buy it. It is a one off and first of its kind found in these waters”, said Payne who plans to stuff the eel and keep it in his shop.

Rory Goodall of Cornwall Wildlife Trust has never heard of a tropical moray eel being caught this far north before. “They are not rare in the Mediterranean but I have never heard of them being seen here so it’s possible that they have never been caught in the British waters before”, he said.

Moray eel of the species Gymnothorax meleagris.
Copyright www.jjphoto.dk.

When long-line fishing boat captain Rodney Solomon reeled in an air-to-air missile 50 miles (80km) off Panama City in Florida, he did what anyone would have done – strapped it to his boat and enjoyed the remaining 10 days of his fishing trip.

After returning from his trip, Solomon reported his unusual find to the local fire department only to find out that the missile was live and could have gone off any time.

Mr Solomon told local news organisation WTSP that fishermen are used to being in danger and are usually unflappable. “We’re fishermen, nothing scares us!”

But he admits that this experience “was kind of a fright“.

“It was like, ‘wow man, you all took a big chance bringing in this missile, he said. “You had it on your boat for 10 days and any time it could have exploded on you.”

Sidewinder

Solomon had assumed that the missile had gone off earlier since he found a hole in it.

“He actually came to the fire station and told us he had caught a Tomahawk missile, said local fire chief, Derryl O’Neal, “but it turned out not to be – it was an air-to-air guided missile, known as a Sidewinder“.

The firemen quickly evacuated the area around the missile until and the deadly device could eventually be dismantled without causing any damages. The missile was caught in or near a zone used by defence forces for testing.

Local fishermen are being advised not to bring in any similar discovery, but to alert authorities to its exact location.

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.

In this blog we have written a lot about the sensitive issue of bottom trawling, but unlike what many of us think, the bottom trawling debate is not a new 20^th century environmental concern.

One of the earliest known complaints regarding trawling is in fact 400 years older than the U.S. Declaration of Independence and over two centuries older than all the Shakespeare plays; it dates back to the European Middle Ages but raises the same questions as we discuss to today: the effect of trawling on the ecosystem, the consequences of a small mesh size, and industrial fishing for animal feed.

During the reign of Edward III, a petition was presented to the British Parliament in 1376 calling for the prohibition of a “subtlety contrived instrument called the wondyrchoum”. According to the petition, the wondyrchoum was a type of beam trawl, which caused extensive damage to the environment in which it was used.

“Where in creeks and havens of the sea there used to be

plenteous fishing, to the profit of the Kingdom, certain fishermen

for several years past have subtily contrived an instrument

called ‘wondyrechaun’ […] the great and long iron of the

wondyrechaun runs so heavily and hardly over the ground when

fishing that it destroys the flowers of the land below water there,

and also the spat of oysters, mussels and other fish up on which

the great fish are accustomed to be fed and nourished. By which

instrument in many places, the fishermen take such quantity of

small fish that they do not know what to do with them; and that

they feed and fat their pigs with them, to the great damage of the

common of the realm and the destruction of the fisheries, and

they prey for a remedy.”

According to the letter, a wondyrchoum had a 6 m (18 ft) long and 3 m (10 ft) wide net

“[…] of so small a mesh, no manner of fish, however small, entering within it can pass out and is compelled to remain therein and be taken […].”

Another source* describes the wondyrchoun as ” […] three fathom long and ten mens’ feet wide, and that it had a beam ten feet long, at the end of which were two frames formed like a colerake, that a leaded rope weighted with a great many stones was fixed on the lower part of the net between the two frames, and that another rope was fixed with nails on the upper part of the beam, so that the fish entering the space between the beam and the lower net were caught. The net had maskes of the length and breadth of two men’s thumbs.”

The Crown responded to the 14^th century complaint by letting “[…] Commission be made by qualified persons to inquire and certify on the truth of this allegation, and thereon let right be done in the Court of Chancery”.

Eventually, bans were introduced regulating the use of wondyrchoums in the kingdom and in 1583 two fishermen were actually executed for using metal chains on their beam trawls.

British fishermen continued to use trawl nets despite the ban, but trawling didn’t become the ravishingly successful fishing method of today until the advent of steam power and diesel engines in the 19^th and 20^th century.

In 1863, a Royal Commission was established in Great Britain to investigate the accusations against trawling, among other complaints. One of the arguments presented by the defence was a witness who, when asked what food fish eat, replied:

“There is when the ground is stirred up by the trawl. We think the

trawl acts in the same way as a plough on the land. It is just like

the farmers tilling their ground. The more we turn it over the

great supply of food there is, and the greater quantity of fish we

catch.”**

The Royal Commission also noted that when a trawler harvests an area already harvested by another trawler, the second trawler usually catches even more fish than the first. This was interpreted as a sign of the benevolence of trawlers, when in fact the high second yield is caused by how the destruction inflicted on the area by the first trawler results in an abundance of dead and dying organisms which, temporarily, attracts scavenging fish.

The result of the Royal Commission’s investigations was the abandonment of over 50 Acts of Parliament and a switch to virtually unrestricted sea fishing. Today, the 14^th century issue of destructive fishing practises is more acute than ever.

* Davis, F (1958), An account of the fishing gear of England and Wales, 4th Edition, HMSO

** Roberts, C (2007), The Unnatural History of the Sea, Gaia

The Turkish government has set their own very high catch limit for endangered Mediterranean bluefin tuna without showing any regard for internationally agreed quotas and the survival of this already severally overfished species. By telling the Turkish fishermen to conduct this type of overfishing, the Turkish government is effectively killing the future of this important domestic industry.

Turkey currently operates the largest Mediterranean fleet fishing for bluefin tuna, a commercially important species that – if properly managed – could continue to create jobs and support fishermen in the region for years and years to come. Mediterranean societies have a long tradition of fishing and eating bluefin tuna and this species was for instance an appreciated food fish in ancient Rome. Today, rampant overfishing is threatening to make the Mediterranean bluefin tuna a thing of the past.

Management of bluefin tuna is entrusted to the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT), an intergovernmental organisation. Last year, the Turkish government objected to the Bluefin tuna quota that was agreed upon at the ICCAT meeting in November and is now ignoring it completely.

The agreed tuna quota is accompanied by a minimum legal landing size set at 30 kg to make it possible for the fish to go through at least one reproductive cycle before it is removed from the sea, but this important limit is being widely neglected as well. Catches below the 30 kg mark have recently been reported by both Turkish and Italian media.

To make things even worse, Mediterranean fishermen are also involved in substantial illegal catching and selling of Mediterranean bluefin tuna. This year’s tuna fishing season has just begun and Turkish fishermen have already got caught red-handed while landing over five tonnes of juvenile bluefin tuna in Karaburun.

According to scientific estimations, Mediterranean blue fin tuna fishing must be kept at 15,000 tonnes a year and the spawning grounds must be protected during May and June if this species shall have any chance of avoiding extinction in the Mediterranean. This contrasts sharply against the actual hauls of 61,100 tonnes in 2007, a number which is over four times the recommended level and twice the internationally agreed quota. The crucial spawning grounds are also being ravished by industrial fishing fleets.

By blatantly ignoring international quota limits, the Turkish government is in fact threatening not only the tuna but also the future livelihood of numerous Mediterranean fishermen, including the Turkish ones.