The Issue
As much as 7kg of marine animals are killed to produce 450g of marketable sole
WWF Report: Fish Dish – exposing the unacceptable face of seafood (pdf 1.2MB)
© WWF
© WWF
Around half of all plaice caught are discarded overboard, usually dead.
The North Sea plaice and sole mixed beam trawl fishery, which accounts for the vast majority of catches, is the most wasteful of all — according to a 2000 report, up to 80% of the plaice catch is discarded in some areas.
Why? Because the plaice are either below the minimum landing size (i.e., baby fish) or less valuable than the rest of the catch. The problem stems from the fact that fisheries for these two flatfish are managed separately, despite the fact that they live - and are caught - together.
Mesh size too small
Mature sole are much smaller than mature plaice. Accordingly, beam trawlers “targeting” sole are permitted to use nets with a smaller mesh size than those “targeting” plaice.
But these finer nets also catch plaice from 17cm in length — a full 10cm shorter than the minimum landing size of 27cm. Because it is illegal to land undersize fish, every plaice below 27cm is dumped overboard.
In addition, plaice and sole have separate quotas.
Once the plaice quota has been filled, any extra plaice caught while “targeting” sole are also dumped overboard. And since sole are more profitable than plaice, even marketable plaice are discarded in favour of sole — indeed, the better the sole catch, the more plaice is thrown away.
Bottom living means bottom fishing
Plaice and sole live on the seafloor, often partially buried in the sediment. The most popular way to catch them is to drag beam trawls across the seabed, with heavy “tickler” chains to startle the fish off the bottom.
But it’s not just flatfish which are caught
Sea urchins, hermit crabs, brittle stars, razor shells, starfish, shellfish … all are picked up by the trawl net, only to be dumped back into the ocean dead or dying when the net is hauled in. A whopping 150,000–180,000 tonnes of such invertebrates are discarded each year in North Sea fisheries.
Endangered skates and rays are also caught, as well as large numbers of juvenile fish for which the flat, muddy and sandy inshore habitats of plaice and sole possibly serve as important nursery grounds.
All up, as much as 7kg of marine animals are killed by beam trawlers to produce 450g of marketable sole. The figure is similar for plaice.
Globally, flatfish trawl fisheries discard 51.3% of their catches, the highest discard rate of all trawl fisheries, excluding shrimp.
In the EU, beam trawlers targeting finfish dump 330,000 tonnes of marine life each year. Most of these discards come from the North Sea plaice and sole fisheries.
Side dishes
Baby cod and sole starterYour plate of plaice probably comes with a discarded plate of baby Atlantic cod or sole. Juveniles from these species are also caught as bycatch in plaice fisheries, and then discarded dead or dying back into the ocean.
Baby plaice
The plaice on your plate is likely to be a baby, even if it is above the minimum landing size of 27cm set by the EU: female plaice don’t spawn until they reach 31cm at 2–4 years of age.
Seafloor fricassee
Your plate of plaice or sole left a lasting impression on the seafloor. A huge area of the North Sea is trawled by beam trawlers, the main boats targeting plaice and sole and one of the most destructive fishing practices.
Dutch beam trawlers alone trawl some 171,000km² each year — approximately 40% of the sea’s area. All other countries bordering the North Sea also operate beam trawlers, and the most heavily trawled areas may be trawled three or four times a year.
One study estimated that beam trawling in the southern and central North Sea reduces total seafloor biomass by 39%, and seafloor production by 15%, relative to the unfished state.
Fuel chaser
Trawl fisheries can use well over 2,000 litres of fuel to land every tonne of flatfish. Using an average fuel consumption of 510 litres/tonne for North Atlantic groundfish fisheries, the reported plaice and sole catch of around 124,000 tonnes in 2004 required some 63 million litres of fuel.
Rising fuel prices encourage beam trawlers to fish closer to the coast, which further adds to the discard problem as most juvenile plaice are found along the coast.
Science on ice
Your plate of plaice comes with a large serving of ignored science: EU fisheries ministers have been ignoring advice on plaice stocks for over a decade, and nearly two decades in the case of North Sea plaice.
Quotas have consistently been set higher than the ICES recommendations for all three currently overexploited stocks (North Sea, Western Channel, and Irish Sea).
In 2005 for example, the agreed North Sea quota was almost double the ICES recommendation, while that for the Eastern Channel was nearly 10 times the ICES recommendation. With fishing mortality up to 2 times higher than recommended, the current fishing effort on most plaice is too high to be sustainable.
Say Yes to sustainable seafood
Take a stand against unsustainable fishing and pledge to buy MSC certified seafoodIf you can't find seafood with the MSC label in your local store, please ask for them. Businesses do listen to their customers.
If they think there is enough demand for MSC certified seafood they will stock it.
