The Scottish Sea Angling Conservation Network

The Conservative party say their report covers every aspect of the quality of life agenda: transport and housing; urban planning and the quality of public space; pollution, waste, biodiversity and the countryside; energy and climate change.
A section - Marine, Coastal and Fisheries available here contains items of interest and value regarding issues around the management […]

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Update :: The following was received from the Minister.
Thanks for this. I am talking to officials about it and hope to come back to you soon with suggestions for a meeting.
Michael
A list of priority species and habitats that will guide future conservation action was recently approved by the Governments of all four UK […]

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Western Australia’s coastline between Lancelin and south of Mandurah will become an exclusive zone for recreational line fishing under a State Government move to avoid the overfishing of iconic fish.
In making the announcement, Fisheries Minister Jon Ford said the Metropolitan Fishing Zone would exclude all commercial line and net fishing of demersal finfish in a […]

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Update :: A good number of volunteers have stepped forward but the offer is still open, email taggingprogramme@ssacn.org if you are interested.
In a recent meeting between SSACN and the Scottish Government Fisheries Department SEERAD we suggested we run a combined tagging programme to find more data about the Spurdog.
The idea has since been accepted and […]

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S3M-446 Robin Harper (Lothians) (Green) :  Don’t Ignore the Plight of Scotland’s Seas— That the Parliament supports Scottish Environment LINK’s calls for a Scottish Marine Bill; regrets that the Scottish Government has made no commitment to introducing a Scottish Marine Bill in the next year; believes that Scottish marine legislation is essential to ensure that […]

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Scallop dredging is a totally non-environmentally friendly method of harvesting scallops, it involves dragging steel bags with sprung-loaded teeth across the sea-bed damaging the sea-bed, reefs and coral beds and trials in Scotland have shown that scallop dredging also destroys large numbers of crabs and other crustaceans along with starfish, shellfish, and burrowing sand eels.
The […]

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Also in the letter from the Scottish Government they also indicate there could also be protection for the Porbeagle on the way
“Finally, I note your point on shark finning and we share your general concerns about the practice. I am aware of wider concern that the ratio of fin weight to shark weight is […]

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THE Scottish public would support restrictions on commercial fishing if it was necessary to protect marine ecology, a new survey has revealed.
The poll was commissioned by the Wildlife Trust to examine public attitudes to our coastal waters. It found that a majority of Scots questioned - 87 per cent - placed the conservation of sea […]

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A study by Government scientists into discards in British waters has found that almost two thirds of the fish caught are thrown back over the side dead.
It is estimated that over 60 million fish per year are discarded in the English Channel, Western Approaches, Celtic and Irish Seas; […]

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