23
Aug
Today we received a substantial donation of £1500 from the Loch Lomond Aquarium SEA LIFE Centre to help support our educational outreach activities.
The Loch Lomond Aquarium and 11 other SEA LIFE centres have also installed a series of information boards highlighting the plight of sharks, with a special focus on spurdog.
Ian Burrett, SSACN’s Project Director [...]
Posted in SSACN Announcements, Sea Life | No Comments »
19
Aug
John Scott MSP - Shadow Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs & the Environment has joined condemnation of Fisheries Minister Richard Lochhead for his refusal to prohibit the commercial fishing of tope, a rare species of shark.
Mr Scott said: “I am dismayed that despite the UK Government recently banning the fishing of tope other than by [...]
Posted in SSACN Announcements, Scottish Executive News | No Comments »
31
Jul
Two British trawlers, so far unnamed, were filmed discarding large quantities of fish in the North Sea by the Norwegian Coastguard.
According to them, British vessels regularly discard fish they have caught inside the Norwegian sector outside of it, as it is illegal to discard fish in the Norwegian controlled sector of the North Sea [...]
Posted in Catching sector, SSACN Announcements | No Comments »
31
Jul
Commercial fishermen within the NWWRAC (North Western Waters Regional Advisory Committee) wrote to the EU to try and have the 5% spurdog bycatch rules changed allowing them to catch more of the species.
Fortunately the Commission has declined this request with a distinct change of language which should be welcomed as it now appears they are [...]
Posted in EU Government News, Other Conservation Sites, SSACN Announcements | No Comments »
27
Jul
The following are written answers from Mr Lochhead to parliamentary questions by Peter Peacock MSP (Lab).
Unsurprisingly they are neither detailed nor particularly supportive of sea angling.
What is particularly galling to us is the fact that the key direction always seems to be ’sustainable management’ - no thought appears to be given to the regeneration of [...]
Posted in SSACN Announcements | No Comments »
26
Jul
After two years of scientific collaboration and consultation, the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) has launched its new Fishery Assessment Methodology designed to improve the quality and consistency of fisheries assessments.
In the past, independent certifiers were required to create an assessment tree for each individual fishery entering assessment, but the new methodology now provides a default [...]
Posted in Processing, SSACN Announcements | No Comments »
23
Jul
The Scottish Fishermen’s Federation (SFF) has criticised the House of Lords report on the Common Fisheries Policy which concluded that no aid should be given to help fishermen survive the fuel crisis.
SFF chief executive Bertie Armstrong said: “The report draws the general conclusion that EU Member States have been slow to reduce fleet capacity to [...]
Posted in Catching sector, SSACN Announcements | No Comments »
17
Jul
Marine life off Bournemouth on the English south coast is set to be enriched by Europe’s first artificial surf reef.
The reef, one of only four in the world, should bring real benefit to the local fish populations, benefit the coastline as it will help reduce coastal erosion and become a diving hotspot.
Construction of the £2.68 [...]
Posted in Other Conservation Sites, SSACN Announcements | 1 Comment »
16
Jul
EUROPEAN fishing ministers last night agreed a massive aid package totaling more than two billion euros (around £1.5-billion) to help commercial fishermen cope with the fuel crisis.
There is little chance that oil prices will significantly reduce, how much more will go to subsidise an industry that cannot run at a profit now.?
So whilst immense sums [...]
Posted in SSACN Announcements | No Comments »