Super Trawlers: are they concentrating off Donegal?

News from the Celtic League:

Just days after the documentary ‘Atlantic’ which highlighted the activities of super trawlers was broadcast by RTE cataloguing the damage that they are wreaking on the livelihood of local fishing communities we started tracking some of the largest of these vessels including the Annelies Ilena and the Willem Van der Zwan. At 14,000 tonnes the Annelies Ilena is the largest trawler in the world.

We found them fishing off Northern Scotland near Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) and then they started to make there way south (link):

https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=1179302675451825&id=805941286121301&substory_index=0

They are currently S W of the Hebrides on a fixed track towards N W Ireland.

If these fishing juggernauts do concentrate off Donegal they have a collective catching and processing capacity of about 550 tonnes of fish per day.

How long can the seas sustain such industrial fishing?

Images: Annelies Ilena

BERNARD MOFFATT
Public Relations Officer Mannin Branch

Issued by: The Mannin branch of the Celtic League.

16/12/16