AR-News: (Asia) Antarctic research used to defend fish in the Southern Ocean

[Animalara2003 at aol.com]

Thursday, 5th February, 2004 

Two kinds of ships cast lines and nets into Antarctic waters – those fishing 
for cash and those trawling for answers. 

Over the last decade, legal and illegal fishing fleets have come farther 
south into Antarctic waters, filling their holds with krill, Patagonian toothfish 
and mackerel icefish. Researchers sample the same seas, trying to understand 
the marine resources in order to protect them from overfishing. 

“If you’re going to make intelligent judgments about how much is too much in 
fishing management, you need to know what’s going on,” said Dan Evans, a 
seabird researcher with the National Science Foundation supported Long Term 
Ecological Research project at Palmer Station. 

For both fishermen and scientists, the stakes are high. The payoff for a 
metric ton of Patagonian toothfish is about $7,000, but in certain areas where 
pirate fishermen are taking fish without regard for the regulations, scientists 
have cautioned that toothfish could be decimated in a few years, along with 
many seabirds. In the Prince Edward Islands south of South Africa, intensive 
illegal fishing for toothfish has already depleted the population to a few percent 
of its pre-exploitation level, according to research published by the 
Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR). Other 
CCAMLR research found the toothfish population around Heard Island has also 
dropped since 1998. 





full story:
http://www.portfocus.co.nz/news.php?cat_name=feat&s=601



"The world is a dangerous place,
not because of those who do evil,
but because of those who look on and do nothing.",
Albert Einstein

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