FAO Seadog

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Pls could u stop ur friends using electric pulses in the sea asap.

Hypothesis: That if pulse trawling is rolled out across the entire region before meaningful trials are conducted, the political momentum for its continued deployment – whatever the impacts may be – will become unstoppable.

Methodology: Equip 97 ships run by powerful corporations with gear worth £300,000 per boat to create what is, in effect, an irreversible decision. Fish everywhere to create a precedent and lobby and co-opt as many politicians as you can.

Results: Squillions of euros in the bank (preferably an offshore account) for Big Fish, while the small fishers with whom it competes are driven to the wall. Effects on the ecosystem: sorry, what was that?

Conclusion: The commission and its member governments are staffed by incompetent, gullible numpties, incapable of defending either the natural world or the public interest.

Feckin scary innit? Whilst the small boats are tied up alongside the quays and harbours of Cornwall this winter to protect stocks the larger firms are devising even more efficient forms of fishing, note the use of "lobbying" or "bribing" as it used to be known.

Get out of the EU as soon as possible and reclaim our fishing areas......Iceland defended their territorial waters with gusto......oh dear I forgot Cameron has got rid of our Navy (& Army & RAF).....two new Aircraft Carriers.....but of course no aircraft for them.

And I'm pretty sure that Iceland have a really strong economy based around their sustainable fishing of Cod. Mind you if we had protected our waters successive governments would have hawked all the fishing to our neighbours in the form of bonds or favours.

I shouldn't worry too much about seeing Pulse Beamers in South West waters. The local ground is generally too rough. Pulse beaming relies on vast areas of smooth sandy ground like the southern North Sea.

One fishing company in Brixham have looked into pulse beaming but in general the beam trawlers based locally are too small for such a method of fishing. The modern ones being under 24m in length & with engines of less than 300hp.

There are some bigger boats but the lack of sole quota means that they spend a good part of the year scalloping & conversion to pulse beaming would not be viable. Newlyn has a fleet of larger beam trawlers but these are too old to be converted.

As regards to large number of dead fish in the Thames Estuary this is doubtless in part due to pulse beaming but local fishermen are also convinced that large scale dredging in the estuary for the Thames Gateway container is also responsible.

Beamers are the spawn of the devil.

seadog wrote:

Beamers are the spawn of the devil.

And driven by them whilst tweeting.

Well spotted Iggster.