“Carpet of dead fish” off French coast, environmental group furious with Dutch company | Abroad

Sea Shepherd released images of the massive amount of dead fish found 300 kilometers off the coast of La Rochelle in the Bay of Biscay. It would be more than a hundred thousand animals. They are closely packed and move like a floating carpet over the surface of the water.

The ship that lost the fish is the FV Margiris. It sails under the Lithuanian flag, but is owned by a Dutch company: Parlevliet & Van der Plas. It is the second largest fishing boat in the world. In a statement, trade association PFA writes that the fish was lost around 6:00 am on Thursday due to a hole in the net. That gap would have been created because the catch that day was unexpectedly large. It is blue whiting.

“We understand that these kinds of images evoke emotions,” writes the PFA. The organization adds that it is not in the interest of the fishermen to lose fish that are caught. “We regret that this fish will not be available for consumption.”

Text continues below the tweet

Sea Shepherd spokesman Lamya Essemlali told French media that she suspects the fork is very different. She states that the fishermen were looking for other species, and threw the fish back to free up space in the ship. That is illegal, says Sea Shepherd.

French Minister of the Sea, Annick Girardin, announces on Twitter an investigation into the matter. She calls the images ‘shocking’. Virginijus Sinkevicius, European Commissioner for the Environment, Oceans and Fisheries, also wants clarification on the matter, reports the British newspaper The Guardian.

The FV Margiris is a so-called ‘pelagic freezer trawler’, reports industry association PFA. It catches fish by moving a net many hundreds of meters wide through the seawater*. This method is widely criticized by the environmental movement. In 2012, the Margiris, then called Abel Tasman, was banned from Australian waters.