Very. Most people in England eat fish (and that’s not going to change any time soon). So if you eat fish, look for locally-caught fish with a guarantee of no by-catch (long-line fishing kills around a million sharks each year and also harms endangered sea turtles, as the bait resembles their favourite food of jellyfish). A reason also not to release balloons, which nearly always end up in the sea, before they ‘biodegrade’).
Other creatures that suffer by-catch from huge fishing vessels are seabirds, seals and whales. For every ton of prawns caught, 3 tons of other fish are killed. And 20,000 porpoises (close relatives of dolphins) die in salmon fishing nets each year, in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
tuna & cod are both critically endangered fish
Dolphins (that like to swim alongside yellow fin tuna) are particularly at risk from tuna fishing, and both tuna and cod fish are critically endangered, with 90% of stocks already gone. So if present rates continue, there won’t even be any tuna or cod left in the sea. Bluefin tuna is particularly endangered, as it’s used to make Asian sushi. Try this recipe for vegan tuna mayo (The Veg Space).
Cod is now on the critically endangered IUCN Red List, yet is still sold widely (most comes from Icelandic waters, which won’t allow other countries to fish within 100 miles).
Due to the shortage of cod, some chip shops now sell ‘rock salmon’ or ‘huss’ that is actually dogfish (shark).
A local fisherman has caught enough to feed himself and his family for the day. He is resting on the beach. A businessman approaches and asks him ‘Why don’t you catch more fish, then you can buy a bigger boat?’ The fisherman replies ‘Why would I do that?’ The businessman then tells him that if he caught more fish, he would earn more money to buy more boats, employ staff and then earn enough to retire.
The fisherman replies ‘Then what would I do?’ The businessman says he could then relax on the beach. The fisherman replies ‘Bu I am doing that already – without any of the added stress!’
moving mountains fishless fillets & fingers
how to stop over-fishing
- Obviously eat no fish or less fish! Moving Mountains offers wonderful plant-based codless fillets and fishless fingers (also for wholesale). And you can easily find vegan tuna (in tins) in all good supermarkets.
- If you eat fish, look for locally caught fish from traditional small-scale fisheries that use pole-and-line method (dragging a net behind a boat, so basically catching one fish at a time, and releasing accidental by-catch immediately.
- If you are in the fishing industry, use a Monomaster to keep all tackle and waste on your person, until you can safely recycle it (avoid bins that attract nesting birds which get tangled in line – newer designs don’t do this).
- Companies like Seagrown and Sea & Believe (Ireland) are now helping fishing companies learn how to sustainably grow and harvest seaweed, to make high-profit alternative products like burgers and beer!
why England’s needs some ocean sanctuaries
Ocean sanctuaries (one even now exists in Scotland, after a lengthy legal batter) are the obvious answer. These are kind of like the ‘Switzerland of the oceans’. Nobody owns them, and all creatures are safe from fishing and therefore by-catch.
Basically, an ocean sanctuary is a ‘hands-off’ area where nobody (no matter how powerful) is allowed to take fish from the sea, or could face hefty legal action. At present, just 1% of the world’s oceans are classed as protected sanctuaries, campaigners are hoping to soon get this to 40%.
Ocean sanctuaries also become important, as climate change is causing many fish (and marine creatures) to migrate out of natural areas, due to warmer seas and changing food needs and locations. This also brings other issues like non-native species arriving on British shores, often bringing diseases.
what’s the deal with fishing quotas?
You’ve likely heard on the news about issues like EU fishing quotas etc. In a nutshell, there are laws on how much each country can fish. This is now still complicated even after leaving the EU.
Around five families control about a third of UK fishing quotas, and another 25 companies control most of the rest. The world’s biggest tuna company owns John West, and has been rapped on the knuckles for various issues, putting profit above welfare.
Small fishing trawlers in historic ports like Grimsby have now been replaced by massive hauling ships. As the number of fish in the sea decline, the nets get smaller to catch smaller fish for bigger profits (these are often too small for humans, so end up in pet food or garden fertiliser).
Overfishing off the coast of Great Yarmouth (Norfolk) even led to bans on herring fishing for some time, until numbers recovered (the annual catch caused the population to fall by 30 times, in just over a decade).
Other fish at risk from over-fishing are:
- Anchovies (used in Worcestershire sauce). Biona is a good organic vegan brand for your tomato sauce.
- Sandeels (there is now a UK ban due to these silvery fish being the main food for puffins and kittiwakes – the ban is causing uproar on mainland Europe)
- Shrimp & krill – bottom-trawling for shrimp destroys all creatures and endangered coral reefs. And krill (tiny red shrimp) are the main food for endangered whales and many other filter-feeders.
- Alaskan pollock – one expert says if the fish is not labelled, it’s likely pollock. This is the fish used for McDonald’s Filet O Fish (apparently the favourite meal of Donald Trump, which explains a lot).
During COVID, one Mediterranean sea went quiet, when the fishing stopped. When lockdown ended, nobody could understand why local orcas were ramming the boats, and even in some cases sinking them. But some marine biologists believe it was because after relief that they had back their ocean filled with food, they basically got annoyed when everything went ‘back to normal’.
I would like to tell you a few things about this virus and the lessons it should teach us. I would like to say: fish have returned to the Venetian canals, now that humans have stopped polluting them. Nature recovers swiftly, when stop our plundering of Her bounty.
Now I will say what I believe: that this civilization will not learn anything from this virus. All this civilization wants to do is to get back to normal. Normal is cheap lights and cheap lattes, Chinese girls sewing our T-shirts, biblical bushfires and barrels of oil, and African children poisoning their bodies sorting the plastic we have dumped on their coastlines. Normal is nitrate pollution and burning stumps, and the death of our seas. Paul Kingsnorth
