The EU has been accused of a “land grab” by fishing groups as it has drastically increased the amount of “fly-shooting” boats in UK waters.
Fly-shooting is a controversial fishing method in which multiple nets are used to encircle and capture entire shoals of fish, and heavy ropes drag across the ocean floor, displacing whatever is underneath.
There were originally just a handful of fly-shooters in our waters, but now there are 75 high-powered boats using the method all across UK waters to scoop up bass and mullet.
The Chair of New Under Ten Fishermen’s Association Jeremy Percy told The Fishing Daily: “According to French inshore fishermen, it is a waste of time going to sea after these boats have been fishing locally as there is nothing left.”
Fly shooting has been compared to pulse fishing, which was banned by the UK after we left the EU. This method decimated fish stocks by setting off electric pulses in the ocean.
These boats have been licenced by the Marine Management Organisation, which says it will monitor the situation to see if there are impacts on fish stocks.
In a letter to Defra, the fishermen said this is not acceptable. They wrote: “We have concerns regarding the clear increase in the presence of very large and powerful fly shooters that are being seen increasingly in our western waters.
“We have received an increasing number of calls over the last couple of years with regard to the fishing effort and impacts of these vessels in the eastern Channel, especially with regard to non quota stocks. It does appear from our perspective that their presence in western waters is something of the marine equivalent of a land grab and this has not been helped by the reported lack of data on the number of vessels using this method of fishing and their catches, either historically or presently.”
They have asked for the licences to be reviewed, pointing out that the new Fisheries Act gives the UK the power to provide or deny access to our waters based on the social and economic benefits of individual vessel operations to our own coastal communities.
Mr Percy added: “The under ten fleet in the UK has been hanging on by its fingertips for years, increasingly reliant on fewer and fewer species, hemmed in by everyone from the EU fleet parked on our 6 mile line to increased calls for inshore MPA’s, licences capped, promises of a fair allocation of quota broken time and again, a draconian licencing regime and yet more restrictions on those few species that we are allowed to catch.
“Yet a fleet of hugely impactful, foreign owned vessels that provide next to no social, economic or environmental benefits to our coastal communities are licenced to fish in our waters whilst the powers that be decide on longer term access. Shutting the door after the horse has bolted comes to mind.”
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