United Nations Environment Programme
16th April  2001

Limits on the numbers of dolphins and porpoises accidentally killed in fishing nets are urgently needed if healthy populations are to be restored to the North Sea.

Members of an international conservation treaty backed by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) are making the recommendation.  

ASCOBANS, the Agreement on Small Cetaceans of the Baltic and North Seas, will be pressing the European Commission to restrict the level of marine mammals dying after entanglement in nets to less than 1.7 per cent of their populations as a first step towards improving their conservation.  

It is hoped that these "by catch limits" will form part of a review of the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) which has been launched by the Commission and which is due to be completed in December 2002.  

Klaus Toepfer, the Executive Director of UNEP, says that "studies indicate that in some parts of the North Sea and adjacent waters, such as the Celtic Sea, 6 per cent of small cetaceans are being killed after becoming entangled in fishing nets.

This may amount to more than 2,000 harbour porpoises annually in the Celtic Sea. Scientists advise that this level of by-catch is unsustainable and threatens to undermine conservation efforts".  

He adds that the decision to review the CFP, partly with a view to make it more environmentally-friendly, offered a "golden opportunity" to address the threat to dolphins and porpoises from trawlers and other types of fisheries.  

"Placing a clear limit on the levels of dolphins and porpoises being lost in fishing gear could play an important role in guaranteeing a recovery of these charismatic and intelligent marine mammals in European waters", says Mr. Toepfer.  

Mark Tasker, the newly elected Chair of ASCOBANS, says technologies such as pingers were available which might help fishermen reduce the level of by-catch. Pingers are small devices which, when attached to nets, emit sounds that are designed to warn marine mammals of imminent danger. Tests in British and Danish waters indicate that the by-catch of small cetaceans can be cut by more than 90 per cent when pingers are deployed.  Other technologies, which might help establish how and why marine mammals get caught and which may be commercially available soon, include special underwater video cameras.  

Dr. Peter Reijnders, the former Chair of ASCOBANS, adds that other measures, some of which have been pioneered in the United States, might also be key. "The United States is in some ways ahead of Europe on the conservation of small cetaceans. Different types of fisheries have been ranked according to the risk or threat to dolphins and porpoises and appropriate action has been taken", he said.  

These actions can include closing or restricting the time that fishing vessels are allowed in areas where marine mammals are known to congregate. "However, enforcement will be crucial to the success of reducing cetacean by-catch. We also need independent observers on fishing vessels to monitor levels of by-catch and to verify that technologies and measures brought in are working", says Dr. Reijnders.  
Robert Hepworth, Deputy Director of UNEP's Division of Environmental Conventions, stressed the importance of plans in 2002 or 2003 to carry out a survey of small cetacean populations.

The Survey, called "Small Cetacean Abundance in the North Sea" or SCANS II, follows a similar survey carried out in 1994 in the North Sea and adjacent waters. For the first time it gave Governments, scientists and wildlife groups an assessment of the abundance of marine mammals including harbour porpoise, minke whale and white-beaked dolphin in the region.  

Mr. Hepworth says the second survey, being orchestrated by Dr. Phil Hammond of the Sea Mammal Research Unit at the University of St. Andrews in the United Kingdom, would provide important knowledge on whether populations are rising, falling or are stable. "Without this kind of survey, it will be difficult to assess whether the 1.7 per cent limit on by-catch is working", he says.  

Rudiger Stempel, Executive Secretary of ASCOBANS, says that the new proposals extended the range of the survey south and west into Irish, Spanish and Portuguese waters. "By bringing in more important fishing nations, we should be able to extend our knowledge and thus protection of several threatened species of small whales and dolphins", he adds.  

ASCOBANS, whose members are Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, Sweden and the United Kingdom supported by scientists and wildlife groups, has studied five fisheries where the issue of accidental entanglement is known or suspected to be a problem.

These are the Celtic Sea and the Central and Southern North Sea bottom set net fisheries; the bass trawling fishery in the South Western Approaches; fisheries in the Swedish Skagerrak and pelagic trawls for fish such as hake, tuna, herring and horse-mackerel carried out at a variety of locations.

Top  

Next