> Alberto Vieira Ferreira Monteiro wrote:
> > Deborah Harrell wrote:
> > I'd already stopped eating shrimp some years back,
> > because of large by-catch loss ("undesirable"
> > animals caught in the nets and tossed back,
> > usually dead), (...)
> Shrimps are created in "farms" now - that's what
> make
> them cheaper while other fish products become more
> expensive.
There is still a very large shrimp fishing industry;
here are an activist's pix of some:
http://www.norbertwu.com/galleries/pew-web/index4.html
(His numbers ratios seem high to me.)
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2005-11-30-sea-of-waste_x.htm
For every 5 pounds of fish caught by U.S. commercial
fishing operations, 1 pound is dumped overboard as
unwanted, according to a new study in the
peer-reviewed journal Fish and Fisheries.
Those wasted fish add up to more than 1 million tons a
year, 28% of all commercially caught fish, the study
says.
"We land 4 million tons, but we throw away 1 million
tons. And that's a lot of high-quality protein that
could be utilized," says co-author Andrew Rosenberg of
the University of New Hampshire and a member of the
White House-appointed U.S. Commission on Ocean
Policy...
Or, if you prefer the Washington Post:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/30/AR2005113001948.html
American fishing operations discard more than a fifth
of what they catch each year, according to a new
report by a team of U.S. and Canadian scientists.
The study, which was commissioned by the marine
advocacy group Oceana and appears in the December
issue of the journal Fish and Fisheries, represents
the first comprehensive accounting of the amount of
"bycatch" in the United States. Fisheries consultant
Jennie M. Harrington, Dalhousie University professor
Ransom A. Myers and University of New Hampshire
professor Andrew A. Rosenberg used federal data
collected from 1991 to 2002 to calculate which
regional fisheries inadvertently kill the most
unwanted fish.
The Gulf of Mexico topped the list, largely because
its shrimp fishery had 1 billion pounds of bycatch --
half the nation's wasted fish in 2002. Gulf shrimpers,
which typically drag trawl nets with steel doors
across the ocean floor, discard about four times as
many fish as they keep, according to the study.
U.S. fisheries on average throw away 22 percent, or
1.1 million tons, of the fish they catch...
...Although federal authorities track bycatch by
placing observers on some vessels, their statistics
are not comprehensive.
And fish farming creates its own problems, such as
antibiotic use, excrement pollution, and destruction
of wetlands/natural habitat. I don't eat farmed
salmon b/c of the first two, and the fact that farmed
salmon have significantly less omega-3 FAs (desirable,
healthy type of fat) than wild-caught.
What can be done to reduce other forms of by-catch,
from the Monteray Bay Aq.:
http://www.mbayaq.org/cr/cr_seafoodwatch/sfw_bycatch_sol.asp
[Using 'pingers' to warn off dolphins, traps instead
of nets for shrimp, longlines with 'scarecrows' and so
forth.]
Here is an article on global bycatch:
http://www.fao.org/docrep/003/T4890E/T4890E00.HTM
(summary; article much longer)
The authors estimate that between 17.9 and 39.5
million tons (average 27.0 million) of fish are
discarded each year in commercial fisheries. These
estimates are based on a review of over 800 papers.
The highest quantities of discards are from the
Northwest Pacific while tropical shrimp trawl
fisheries generate a higher proportion of discards
than any other fishery type, accounting for one third
of the global total.
Of four major gear groups, shrimp trawls stand alone
at the top of the list; bottom trawls, long-lines and
pot fisheries come next. The third group consists of
Japanese high-seas drift net fisheries, Danish seines
and purse seines for capelin. Relatively low levels
result from pelagic trawls, small pelagic purse seines
and some of high seas drift nets. The authors point to
inadequate data to determine the biological,
ecological, economic and cultural impacts of discards
although economic losses run to billions of dollars.
However, it appears most likely that socio-cultural
attitudes towards marine resources will guide
international discard policies.
Techniques to reduce bycatch levels including
traditional net selectivity, fishing gear development
and time/area restrictions, are discussed. Effort
reduction, incentive programmes and individual
transferable quotas (that make the vessel responsible
for bycatch reduction) are seen as promising avenues
for the future. However, quick solutions to the
problem are unlikely and much more information is
required.
[FAO is The Food and Agriculture Organization of the
United Nations.]
Here is a long list of articles on bycatch around the
globe:
http://www.fao.org/DOCREP/003/T4890E/T4890E09.htm
Debbi
Out-Citing Dan?! Maru ;)
____________________________________________________________________________________
Yahoo! Music Unlimited
Access over 1 million songs.
http://music.yahoo.com/unlimited
_______________________________________________
http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
