France faces Pressure to Protect Dolphins From Trawlers

Dolphins located on the French coast are haunted by man throughout the year. To protect this species, Brussels counsel concerned with a sustainable agenda warns France´s Administration. On Wednesday, Allain Bougrain-Dubourg, chief of the League for the Protection of Birds (LPO), said that he might meet with Emmanuel Macron and discuss the matter. He also stated that it is now necessary for us to make every effort to safeguard dolphins from abuse or even the threat of extinction. “This sad situation is unacceptable considering that it is preventable,” Bougrain-Dubourg added. People concerned with dangerous fishing practices, which involve deep-sea and sea-bed trawling, ought to be suspended for several weeks in the Bay of Biscay, which lies between France and Spain.

A higher rate of dead dolphins is observed now, along their February-March coastal eating season, which brings them near to fishing boats seeking their nourishment, small fishes.At the moment we do not have many updates related to the topic”especially very early,” Pelagis said this month. Over the entire of 2022, 669 dolphins washed up, below 1,299 in 2020. Scientists consider that more than 80% of dead dolphins sink or decompose in the ocean rather than cleaning ashore, which points to the actual number of fatalities reaching up to 11,000 per year.According to Pelagis, the majority of the dolphins that have been found washed up on shore displayed indications of being caught in fishing equipment. The LPO specifically pointed out that the dolphins had cuts on their tail fins and distinct markings from nets on their skin.

Half-Solutions

A scientific group called CIEM, which is responsible for monitoring the North Atlantic environment, has called for a halt to fishing activities due to inappropriate fishing methods. However, this proposal has faced significant resistance from industrial fishermen. After being under pressure for months from the European Board and Pro-Dolphin people, the Government just addressed a few solutions without stopping the whole practice. The proposed solutions include implementing a program with voluntary observers on fishing boats, the use of satellite technology control, and equipping trawlers with cameras or devices that drive the dolphins away or sound detect them. France´s state said that a “large-scale experiment” is now working, in which multiple fishing boats have been equipped with the tools to assess their efficacy. However, the LPO revealed that France’s Administration works with a “half-solution that will change nothing and cost us precious time”.

The Ambiental conservationist group said the repellent devices “produce big exclusion areas in dolphins’ feeding areas that cause them to flee from necessary alimentation. The Government is not completely ruling out the possibility of implementing temporary bans on fishing, but they suggest that any such bans should be limited in time and space. They plan to try out this approach in the Bay of Biscay during the winter of 2024-2025, but only if they cannot find effective ways to reduce the number of dolphins accidentally caught in fishing nets.

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