Photos show ‘shocking’ mass of dead fish floating off the French coast after trawler spill
A layer of dead fish shed by a giant vessel this week floats off the coast of France. (-/AFP/Getty Images)
A huge carpet of fish carcasses floating in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of France has prompted calls for an investigation after activists said the world’s second-biggest fishing vessel shed more than 100,000 dead blue whiting.
Environmentalists who surveyed the spill shared aerial photos of a dense layer of fish bobbing on the water — images that France’s maritime minister, Annick Girardin, described as “shocking.” The minister said she had asked the country’s fishing surveillance body to investigate.
Industry group PFA, which represented the Dutch-owned Margiris supertrawler, said the incident had been caused after the vessel’s net ruptured on Thursday.
“Such an accident is a rare occurrence and in this case was caused by the unexpectedly large size of the fish caught,” the Pelagic Freezer-trawler Association said in a statement Friday. It added that the vessel had recorded the quantities of lost fish with the authorities of its flag state, Lithuania, and that they would be deducted from the vessel’s quota.
However, the French wing of conservation group Sea Shepherd, which took photos of the dead fish in the Bay of Biscay, described it as an illegal discharge of an estimated 100,000 unwanted fish.
Photos by the Sea Shepherd advocacy group on Feb. 4 shows a mass of dead fish off the coast of France. (-/AFP/Getty Images)
The mass of blue whiting, a subspecies of cod used in the manufacturing of fish fingers, fish oil and other products, covered a surface of nearly 32,300 square feet, the nonprofit said. It also noted that the Margiris supertrawler had been banned from Australian waters because of concerns over its impact on the local ecosystem.
Trawlers use long dragnets to catch fish and process them in factories onboard. Environmentalists widely criticize the practice that they say depletes fish stocks and marine life — particularly when other species of fish are caught and discarded, or when the nets injure marine mammals such as dolphins and seals.
The European commissioner for environment, oceans and fisheries, Virginijus Sinkevičius, also said he would launch an inquiry with fishing authorities in the region and the flag state of the Margiris, “to get exhaustive information & evidence about the case.”
