Posted on February, 22 2002
Every year at least 7,000 harbour porpoises die in fishing nets which are set on the bottom of the southern and central North Sea to catch cod, turbot and plaice. According to WWF, the number of harbour porpoises accidentally killed in this way far exceeds the maximum limits set by international agreements such as ASCOBANS (International Agreement on the Conservation of Small Cetaceans of the Baltic and North Sea). Recommendations in WWF's harbour porpoise recovery plan include halting fishing in areas with high harbour porpoise by-catches, the use of pingers - boxes which are attached to fishing nets and emit a sound that discourages porpoises from entering the net, reduced fishing in North Sea gillnet fisheries, and a new harbour porpoise population survey in the North and Baltic Sea.
"WWF's plan also calls for intensive research on new fishing equipment, which could radically reduce the accidental capture of harbour porpoises," said Heike Vesper, Fisheries Officer at WWF-Germany. "Some other ideas that still need testing include using acoustically reflective nets to deter the porpoises from being caught in the fishing nets. If some of these measures are not implemented urgently, the harbour porpoise will face extinction."
Though harbour porpoises are protected by several international conventions such as ASCOBANS and the European Habitats Directive, concrete action to protect this species is rare. WWF is calling on EU Fisheries ministers, responsible for the reform of the EU Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) this year, to agree on concrete measures to reduce bycatch, to eliminate over capacity and to stop overfishing. The harbour porpoise is one of the species most threatened by bycatch in European waters, alongside the common dolphin and the striped dolphin.
An opportunity to address the problem of harbour porpoise bycatch and to implement a harbour porpoise recovery plan will be the upcoming International North Sea Conference (NSC, 20-21 March in Bergen, Norway). WWF calls upon the environment ministers of the NSC member states to make a firm commitment for the protection of harbour porpoises and to urge their fisheries minister colleagues to implement sustainable fisheries within the CFP reform.
With an average length of 1.5 metres and a weight of 50 kg, harbour porpoises are among the smallest cetaceans. They are the most common cetaceans in parts of the North Sea and adjacent waters and in several areas the only resident cetacean species. The only harbour porpoise sighting survey for this area was carried out in 1994. The number of harbour porpoises in the North Sea was estimated to be 267,000 to 465,000 animals in the whole North Sea, and only 599 animals in the Baltic Sea. How many animals remain after all these years is unknown but a serious depletion of population is highly probable, according to WWF.
"The harbour porpoise is the innocent victim of the over-intensive fishing that results from too many boats chasing too few fish," said Alois Vedder, WWF Germany's Harbour Porpoise Campaign Leader. "Nobody wants to kill harbour porpoises but their future is endangered by fishing methods that could easily be improved."
For further information:
Julian Scola, WWF European Fisheries Campaign Communications Manager, tel. +32 2 743 88 06
Kyla Evans, Head of Press Office, WWF International, tel. +41 22 364 95 50