On Thursday in Madrid, our Spanish land team organised the "other" fish market. Different species of deep sea life collected by the crew of the Esperanza, from the deep sea trawler Playa de Menduiña where taken to Spain, in order to display the other part of the catch - the animals which will never reach the markets, but are still part of the destruction carried out by these ships.
Every time one of these trawlers haul their nets, it is not only commercial species that come to the surface. It is also a big variety of species that will be thrown back into the sea, dead. The "other" fish market was made of deep sea sharks, strange squid, weird crabs, and fishes from the deep... creatures which inhabit the deep sea ecosystem that deep sea bottom trawling is threatening all over the world.
This fish market was organised in front of the Spanish Foreign Affairs Ministry, which is responsible for the representation of Spain at the United Nations. It was also a good opportunity to explain to the officials of the Foreign Affairs Ministry the reasons why a moratorium on deep sea bottom trawling on the high seas is urgently needed to preserve these habitats all around the world. In addition, it was a very graphic way to expose the media the truth about the fish reaching our countries - that they are actually only a portion of what is really extracted from the sea.
Finally, the "other" fish market was taken to the Spanish Natural History Museum, where all these dead sea creatures were well received and will become part of their collection.
- Sebastian, Oceans Campaigner
Comments
This is desperately horrible. Do you think you can list the scientific names of these species that are being caught in large numbers, and make links into the marine database on species? That way we'll be able to get a grip on how little is known and how great the damage is.
Posted by: Julian Todd at November 15, 2004 04:27 PM
