'mmmm

I'm authorised to catch 20 tons of fish.

I "unintentionally" catch an extra 50 tons of unauthorised fish that are supposed to be left to breed to restock the dwindling supplies.

I'm allowed to sell them and make a fat profit from destroying breeding stock.

Yep, that certainly discourages me from "unintentionally" destroying breeding stocks.

Perhaps I'll go out again tomorrow and unintentionally catch some more.

Then I can complain that the fish stocks are going down so I should be allowed to take more of them.

Its not perfect hence the need for more checks on the "mesh" size.
But the fish is being thrown away now, when apparently half the world is starving.
Not that I care sort out here first, but it does seem a waste.

Problem lies with the "quota's" Fishermen with nets have no idea what weight of fish they will catch. If they catch over the limit, they then have to throw the overcatch back into the sea (always dead). In the 70's and 80's we had the wine lake, butter mountain etc courtesy of the EU. Why can't we have an EU fishpond? Surely any overcatch could be put to good use,? Either ground up as fertilizer, or frozen and sent wherever humanitarian aid is needed in the world? Much better than chucking it away.

I agree that it would be better to make constructive use of the bycatch.

However it is essential (as I outlined above) that there is no profit to be made from it. The problem we are trying to address is the further depletion of shrinking fish stocks. You can't expect the fishing trade to regulate themselves. Look at Cape Cod.

A remuneration in fuel costs and wage maybe.
Otherwise why haul back 30 tonnes for nothing, as well as wear and tear to the nets.

Then there could be no real complaints from the fishermen.

Typical, twist and turn things

You dont own the fish anyway.

Enough if this anyway, your still suffering from last night obviously

we don't want to encourage then to over-fish depleted stocks that are protected.

What we want to do is to persuade them not to.

If you can think of a better and more discouraging way, let's hear it.

Think of Cape Cod.

following this logic, I'm going to the local BP garage to demand they return my petrol and fill it in my petrol tank - wish me luck

They'd probably say yes..........but you'll have to give us your house as your share of the compo we've just had to fork out to the yanks.

As a complete ignorant person on fishing matters, I would ask the question.....

why don't they catch less (smaller nets, less trips),?

I get that mistakes happen, but if it happens so often, why is it so hard to catch less fish?


As to the OP, you are not paying for the fish, you are paying for the labour and transport etc.

Fishermen complain becasue of the disgusting marxist laws laid down by the communist SCUM EU.
They also complain because tree-hugging, freedom-hating, liberal lunatic scum like magic bean face or whatever his name is, who think that wild animals in nature belong to the magic fairies, who bring the fish to all for free.

when stocks are depleted, the fisherfolk try harder and harder to catch as many as they possibly can, in order to keep their income up. They resist any attempts to reduce their fishing as from their perspective, times are already more than hard enough and they are convinced they have got to try harder to catch as much as they can.

Unfortunately this has exactly the worst effect on the depleted fish stocks.

Cape Cod used to be a huge resource and is now fished out, for exactly this reason.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cod_fisheries#Collapse_of_the_Northern_Cod_fishery