A head- and tailless dolphin was found on a beach in Devon, UK, on Christmas Day evening. It is believed to have been victim to bycatch of the fishing industry.
The sad discovery comes just a week after a report on ten dead dolphins that have been washed up on a single beach in south Devon during the last six weeks. All of them were discovered with only post-mortem wounds, suggesting that they had drowned after being trapped in trawler nets.
It is important to note that there is no proof that the trawlers are actually responsible for these dolphin deaths. However, the sharp rise in the number of dead short-beaked dolphins washed ashore correlates strongly with the increase of giant trawlers in UK waters during the last six weeks. They are thought to be French and Spanish long-liners that take advantage of the wide abundance of tuna since there is no quota on it in the UK waters. Dolphins might end up in the nets where they drown due to lack of oxygen or get heavily injured before the nets are pulled in and the carcasses are thrown overboard as bycatch.
Petitions have been set up and voices were raised to call for the EU commissioner for Environment and Oceans to take urgent action against the cruel and avoidable mass slaughter by the fishing industry. The Blue Planet Society calls for independent observers on the pelagic factory fishery to monitor what they are catching. By now, the Marine Management Organisation is trying to closely monitor the supertrawlers currently operating in the English Channel, while the Blue Planet Society is lobbying the EU for more control over super trawlers.
According to a Blue Planet Society spokesman, “the fishing industry has been allowed to run free. […] If this kind of slaughter was happening on land to any other large mammal, the public would not allow it.”
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