Greenpeace blocks bass fishermen
Greenpeace activists today stopped two French boats from fishing for bass off the UK coast in an on-going protest over dolphin deaths in trawler nets.
The group said it forced fishermen on the vessels Columbine and L’Arlequin to halt their operation about 40 miles south of Plymouth this morning.
Campaigners, who approached the trawlers in inflatable boats before removing buoys from their fishing net, said there was a school of dolphins in the area at the time.
Greenpeace today repeated its demand for an outright ban on bass pair trawlers, which fish in twos with a huge net suspended between them.
The environmental pressure group estimates the nets could be killing more than 2,000 dolphins a year in the main fishing ground off south west England.
Sarah Duthie, head of Greenpeace’s oceans campaign, said: “These trawlers kill thousands of dolphins every year.
“Independent observers on-board trawlers said so, and the net-damaged dolphin carcasses washing up on beaches tell us the same tale.
“We need action now from Fisheries Minister Ben Bradshaw. He’s got the power to stop dolphins dying a brutal death in these nets and he should use it now.”
Greenpeace’s ship Esperanza left Falmouth on February 17 to campaign for a ban on pair trawling for sea bass in the Channel.
Campaigners claim fishermen have fired warning flares at them and threatened to shoot them in the escalating “dolphin war”.
A call by Mr Bradshaw to have the south west England bass fishery completely closed to pair trawlers was rejected by the European Commission in August.
Last September the Government banned bass pair trawling within 12 miles of the coast of south west England, but for campaigners this did not go far enough.
A British government-funded study found 169 dolphins were killed as “by-catch” in the bass fishing season from November 2003 to April 2004 – up from 30 in 2002-03.
The majority of trawlers in the bass fishery, which reopened in November, are French.
