“Off La Rochelle”, specifies Sea Shepherd, which posted several photographs on the social network of a vast white sheet on the surface of the water which one might think was sea foam, but which is turns out to be made up of thousands of dead fish, whiting, the tweet says.
Verification made on a site for tracing maritime routes, the Sea Shepherd ship “Age of Union”, which can be seen in one of these photographs near the school of dead fish, was sailing very offshore from La Rochelle, at more than 300 kilometers from the Old Port, and to the right of the southern tip of Finistère. This position was close to the last one issued by the factory ship “Margiris”, nineteen hours earlier.
The “Margiris” arrived from the Netherlands, and the Sea Shepherd vessel from La Rochelle.
South West infographic.
The photographs disseminated are sensational, in the first sense of the word, edifying to say the least. Sea Shepherd France captioned them by evoking “100,000 dead hake”, before correcting with “white whiting”. The tweeted message explains: “This is what is happening right now in the Bay of Biscay off La Rochelle. »
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What happened offshore? The very probable meeting between the “Margiris” on the one hand, and the “Age of Union” on the other hand. The first had sailed on January 28 at the end of the day from the port of Ijmuiden, near Amsterdam in the Netherlands, before heading direct to the Bay of Biscay. In view of the lowering of his speed at sea revealed on the tracing site, it is likely that he started fishing on the 1er February, around 7 a.m.
As for the Sea Shepherd ship, it sailed directly from La Rochelle, where it was stopping over, to the probable point of “interception” of the factory ship. On board both, the two AIS beacons (satellite tracking systems) of the ships were cut off two hours apart on February 2, like two “enemies” wishing to stealth.
Dubious practice and dolphin mortalities
“These fish discards are not necessarily those of the “Margiris”, comments the president of Sea Shepherd France. It could be him, or one of the other three factory ships currently in the area. The organization intends to file a complaint to shed light on these facts.
“These vessels do not have the right to discard these bycatch of fish that do not interest them because they are juveniles, or because that is not the species they are targeting, or because they are out of quota, continues Lamya Essemlali. In any case, European Union regulations require them to land them. They discard at sea because this fish takes up space on board. »