Now states in the U.S. are attempting to do something about it off their own coasts:
In a bid to save oceans from overfishing, California wildlife regulators are creating the nation's most extensive network of "marine protected areas" -- stretches of ocean where fishing will be banned or severely restricted.(MSNBC.com | Environment: California creates underwater protected areas)
This comes days after a similar move in Florida:
The final element needed to complete the largest marine reserve in North America off Florida's southwest coast won approval Tuesday from Gov. Jeb Bush and the state Cabinet.(MSNBC.com | Environment: Florida bans fishing off part of southwest coast)
The panel voted 3-1 for a management plan banning fishing in a 61 square-mile section of Dry Tortugas National Park in the Gulf of Mexico and Florida Straits about 75 miles west of Key West.
The new Research Natural Area will be added to the existing Tortugas Ecological Reserve, where fishing has been prohibited since 2001. Combined the two areas will prohibit fishing in 261 square miles.
Fishermen, of course, are not happy.
These moves come on top of international opposition to a type of "fishing" that is implicated in depleting the oceans of important species of marine life: deep-sea trawling:
The governments referred to by Gianni include Spain, Russia, Portugal, Estonia and Norway. (MSNBC.com | World Environment: U.N. report: Deep-sea trawling ravaging oceans)U.N. delegates are scheduled to discuss a moratorium on bottom trawling next month in New York.
The General Assembly passed a nonbinding resolution in 2004 urging all nations to consider temporary bans on trawling. Nations whose fleets do much of the world’s trawling, including Spain, Japan and Iceland, oppose a broader moratorium
*snip*
The Deep Sea Conservation Coalition on Tuesday called opposition within the European Union the most significant obstacle to the moratorium.
“Opposition flies in the face of scientific evidence, public concern and plain common sense,” said the coalition’s Matthew Gianni. “The rest of the world cannot allow itself to be dictated to and its global heritage to be plundered by a few states protecting short-term economic interests.”
Japan has been in the hotseat at AAFL lately for its annual dolphin drive, which senselessly slaughters thousands of dolphins each year. Environmentalists and animal rights activists are no longer alone in speaking out against the practice:
...in a potentially influential escalation of that battle, mainstream scientists and administrators of zoos and aquariums -- some of whom have been criticized for buying surviving dolphins for use in their shows -- have united to condemn the practice.
Scientists argue that "the hunt is nothing less than a ritual massacre of creatures that, according to a growing body of research, are not just intelligent but sophisticatedly self-aware," and that "the hunt is 'a brutal and inhumane practice that violates all standards for animal welfare.'"The fisheries attache at the Japanese Embassy in Washington, defended the massacre as a "centuries-old national tradition," as if tradition is a valid excuse to continue barbaric, out-moded practices. If that line of reasoning held any water, slavery would still be legal. Critics in the article don't speak to the morality of killing animals unnecessarily, but they do assert that there "is no appropriate way to hunt animals as smart and complex as dolphins," comparing their intelligence and sophistication to non-human great apes, for which Japan has been a leader in gaining protections.
In an online statement released today, campaign organizers call for the Japanese government to stop issuing permits allowing the hunt and for a halt to the purchase of dolphins caught in the drive. It also aims to get 1 million people to sign an online petition to the government. (The Washington Post | Front Page: Intelligence Of Dolphins Cited in Fight Against Hunt)
Labels: dolphin slaughter, overfishing
