Pair trawlers clean out Dunmanus bay

Malcolm600f

And all the people shouting and giving out about the shannon been used to supply water to Dublin I bet there is quiet a few people who have lost their houses this past few weeks who would be glad to see it piped now..

Zzippy

I stand corrected. The well-presented and scientific posts here have convinced me that it's all down to the wicked seals, those bloodthirsty savages are clearly the problem and our poor maligned fishermen are innocent victims of a dastardly seal plot to take over the world, one sprat at a time...thanks lads! :rolleyes:

gctest50

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The seals are believed to consume nearly 7,000 tonnes of cod each year off the west of Scotland, where landed catches now amount to only a few hundred tonnes.

Researchers from the University of Strathclyde said the amount of cod being eaten by seals was preventing stocks of the fish from recovering.

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-32773523

Malcolm600f

I was trying to find a paper that was wrote last year or the year before about Seals up as far as the bridge in Ballina so how long will Salmon stocks on one of Ireland's greatest salmon rivers last. Most salmon fishing commercially around the coast has stopped so this would mean 10's of thousands of Salmon entering our rivers but guess what thats not happening ????? ..

I cant post links as it wont allow me but google this and look at the independent article .... Fishermen demand massive cull as grey seals eat away their net profits ..

Also read the bit wrote by the ISS (Irish Seal Sanctuary)
Irish Seal Sanctuary (ISS) biologist Brendan Price acknowledged there was "a serious problem" and said his organisation would be "pushing for fishermen to be compensated for fish lost to seals".

wexandproud

Zzippy wrote: »

I stand corrected. The well-presented and scientific posts here have convinced me that it's all down to the wicked seals, those bloodthirsty savages are clearly the problem and our poor maligned fishermen are innocent victims of a dastardly seal plot to take over the world, one sprat at a time...thanks lads! :rolleyes:

did it never occur to you that the scientists could be wrong , and the fishermen at sea have a better idea of whats happening

lets ban drift netting so salmon can recover . drift netting banned- no significant increase in salmon
about 4 years ago scientific information suggested bass stocks sufficient to sustain a limited fishery .. angling groups lobbying and saying information must be wrong ,this year new information oh sorry bass stock in trouble more restrictions in uk and europe . last spring and summer were the best in years for bass along the shore in south east
Twice this year factories in wexford dumped dozens of boxes of hake - glut on the continent , gill netters tied up all along south of england and brittany no market for hake. glut of it
Round haddock regularly sold for crab bait , no market , haddock every where.
donegal , scottish and uk vessels having trouble avoiding cod in north sea
fishfinders marking fish over miles of ground .

but oh ya the scientists say there is no cod

sword1

freddyuk wrote: »

Seals are discerning in their food gathering efforts and take enough to feed themselves. It is part of the "natural balance" of the food chain.
Taking a bl**dy great net from end to end of a narrow bay fishing for "sprats", which I very much doubt can be "targeted", is not helping support the young stocks to increase the food supply it is basically trawling anything that happens to be there and any small fish which get trashed through a net is unlikely to survive whether it manages to get through or not.
The purpose of this practice is to turn the catch into fish meal.
Your argument sounds like something I would expect to hear from a commercial fisherman who does not give a damn - it's all about the money. To suggest the fish stocks are decimated by seals is daft but then the increase in seal numbers may to do with the introduction of salmon farms into the area? So again it is human intervention upsetting the natural balance.
The available fishing areas open to trawlers are vast so it is totally unnecessary to come onto the beaches and potentially destroy the recreational end of the industry which also supports tourism.

I am a commercial fisherman, but to say I don't care about fish stocks would be the same as to say a farmer does not care if his farm does not produce grass, me and my family depend on it, it is a bit disturbing that people are more worried that a seal has a plentiful food supply, especially as the stock of seals can only reach certain levels before they run out of food, so from both sides the massive increase I see is worrying, also people need to prioritise whether seeing seals swimming around them is is better than having the odd fisherman and his family in there community, I am very narrow minded and think feed them till they run out of food or control the population humanely and also try to look after humans, do you have any scientific backup for your observations

Zzippy

sword1 wrote: »

I am a commercial fisherman, but to say I don't care about fish stocks would be the same as to say a farmer does not care if his farm does not produce grass, me and my family depend on it, it is a bit disturbing that people are more worried that a seal has a plentiful food supply, especially as the stock of seals can only reach certain levels before they run out of food, so from both sides the massive increase I see is worrying, also people need to prioritise whether seeing seals swimming around them is is better than having the odd fisherman and his family in there community, I am very narrow minded and think feed them till they run out of food or control the population humanely and also try to look after humans, do you have any scientific backup for your observations

I get where you're coming from, and maybe you do care about fish stocks, but it is patently apparent that is not the attitude of the industry as a whole. Our fish stocks have collapsed over the last 40 years since we joined the EU, the tragedy of the commons as it's known. But our fishermen are just as complicit in the destruction of fish stocks, constantly lobbying for quotas greater than scientists recommend is the absolute maximum that can be safely harvested.
It's no wonder our stocks are depleted. And blaming seals for that destruction is patent nonsense when millions of tonnes are taken by commercial fishing. It's only now that stocks are so depleted that the amount taken by seals is an issue, because there are so few fish left fishermen are now competing with seals, so the attitude is shoot the seals? Nonsense!

CJhaughey

The last report I read from the NPWS Monitoring the Breeding population of the grey seal 2009-2012 basically said that there has been an increase in the Grey seal population from 2005 and the data shows evidence of a population increase back to the mid 90's and even the early 80's
The NPWS who would be the authority responsible, have published that report.
Are people still arguing that seals are not increasing?

http://www.npws.ie/sites/default/files/publications/pdf/IWM74.pdf

wexandproud

Zzippy wrote: »

I get where you're coming from, and maybe you do care about fish stocks, but it is patently apparent that is not the attitude of the industry as a whole. Our fish stocks have collapsed over the last 40 years since we joined the EU, the tragedy of the commons as it's known. But our fishermen are just as complicit in the destruction of fish stocks, constantly lobbying for quotas greater than scientists recommend is the absolute maximum that can be safely harvested.
It's no wonder our stocks are depleted. And blaming seals for that destruction is patent nonsense when millions of tonnes are taken by commercial fishing. It's only now that stocks are so depleted that the amount taken by seals is an issue, because there are so few fish left fishermen are now competing with seals, so the attitude is shoot the seals? Nonsense!

the vast majority of the industry care about the stocks and of course like any industry there are operators who don't care. the problem is that the scientific evidence does not tally with the stocks on the ground and the boats have been dumping more and more fish every year . thrown back dead , all in the name of conservation .
fishermen most certainly recognise the need for conservation and usually when you hear them looking for extra quota , its a bigger share of the overall amount they want and less to be given to the foreign boats operating in irish waters
surely thats not an unreasonable request
no one is blaming the seals totally for the overall decline in fish stocks , but they have a part to play , especially along the shore. In recent years they have even learned to follow gill netters as far as 25 or 30 miles off and as they haul their nets back they just wait and rip the livers out of the fish destroying them , box after box
Even on a more humane level , couple of years ago there was 2 seals in kilmore , one was blind cant remember what was wrong with second one . It was the commercial fleet who provided fish for weeks on end to feed the seals with fish laced with medicine . The industry is not 100% against seals either but they are gone out of control

Zzippy

wexandproud wrote: »

the vast majority of the industry care about the stocks and of course like any industry there are operators who don't care. the problem is that the scientific evidence does not tally with the stocks on the ground and the boats have been dumping more and more fish every year . thrown back dead , all in the name of conservation .
fishermen most certainly recognise the need for conservation and usually when you hear them looking for extra quota , its a bigger share of the overall amount they want and less to be given to the foreign boats operating in irish waters
surely thats not an unreasonable request
no one is blaming the seals totally for the overall decline in fish stocks , but they have a part to play , especially along the shore. In recent years they have even learned to follow gill netters as far as 25 or 30 miles off and as they haul their nets back they just wait and rip the livers out of the fish destroying them , box after box
Even on a more humane level , couple of years ago there was 2 seals in kilmore , one was blind cant remember what was wrong with second one . It was the commercial fleet who provided fish for weeks on end to feed the seals with fish laced with medicine . The industry is not 100% against seals either but they are gone out of control

If the fishermen know better than the scientists, and the fish are there, then why are we having this discussion about depleting stocks? It's very simple, if the stocks aren't there then quotas should be cut and stocks fished sustainably. If they are there then quotas should be set accordingly. But it's the same story for the last 40 years - the scientists estimate the stock size and recommend a quota. The fisheries lobby gets on to the minister and say the scientists are wrong and the quota should be higher. The minister goes to Europe and agrees the higher quota with the other ministers. And meanwhile the stocks keep declining. It's not f*king rocket science! Maybe fishermen are concerned about stocks and would like to fish sustainably, but they don't have that luxury - there are big loans to pay off on boats and a livelihood to make, and quota cuts don't fit into that equation. And their representatives constantly criticise any proposed cuts to quotas, no matter how obvious the need for cuts is. So excuse my scepticism about fishermen's concern for fish stocks and scapegoating of seals.

wexandproud

Zzippy wrote: »

If the fishermen know better than the scientists, and the fish are there, then why are we having this discussion about depleting stocks? It's very simple, if the stocks aren't there then quotas should be cut and stocks fished sustainably. If they are there then quotas should be set accordingly. But it's the same story for the last 40 years - the scientists estimate the stock size and recommend a quota. The fisheries lobby gets on to the minister and say the scientists are wrong and the quota should be higher. The minister goes to Europe and agrees the higher quota with the other ministers. And meanwhile the stocks keep declining. It's not f*king rocket science! Maybe fishermen are concerned about stocks and would like to fish sustainably, but they don't have that luxury - there are big loans to pay off on boats and a livelihood to make, and quota cuts don't fit into that equation. And their representatives constantly criticise any proposed cuts to quotas, no matter how obvious the need for cuts is. So excuse my scepticism about fishermen's concern for fish stocks and scapegoating of seals.

The fact that the fishermen are catching and dumping more and more fish every year would indicate that the fish are there in far greater quantities than scientists are saying , and if as you say the' lobby groups' are so successful in getting quotas raised year after year , how come ireland has fcuk all quota left . Although fishermen might not agree with the scientists , by far the vast majority will operate within the law , and like I said all they have asked for is a bigger share of the overall TAC that is recommended by scientists.
In a recent ICES report concern is raised , stating that the uptake from the north sea is not as high as it should should be . So after reducing the quota's year on year scientist's then complain that yield is not what it should be , conclusion , fish stocks must be down even more , what kind of [ROCKET] scientific research is that?
while you might be sceptical about fishermen , how do you think fishermen feel towards scientists who continually tell them their is no fish there , yet week after week they are dumping ton after ton of fish , that is not supposed to be there , back over the side
just for the record I am not involved in the white fish or pelagic sector but I am a keen bass angler and the only 2 case's of illegal bass i have seen recently down here
were recreational fisherman