Sheltered animals face a painful death.
At the bottom of Lysekil harbour there are about 60 dogfish and several rays. The spiny dogfish, the spotted dogfish and the thornback ray are classified as critically endangered and endangered. Tobias Dahlin’s/DeepSea Reporter’s close-up photos show with uncomfortable clarity that several of the sharks are still breathing, but dying.
The discovery was made by some students studying marine biology in Lysekil. Valdemar Klemming says they were walking along the harbour in the evening and spotted the white bellies of the protected sharks. The youngsters dove in and examined the dead and injured fish.
– It’s so tragic. That it should be allowed to be like this in Sweden, that protected fish can be treated in this way. Bottom trawling is damaging the sharks, torturing them to death, says Klemming.
Another of the young people, Emily Okcu Van Dyke, says that there is a growing youth movement in Lysekil, which is passionate about marine life and stopping harmful bottom trawling.
Martin Rydgren, an investigator at the Swedish Agency for Marine and Water Management, states by email:
– Protected species that are caught must be released immediately, so it is not ok for them to be dumped in the harbour!
In recreational fishing, it is relatively easy to release a protected fish that you have accidentally hooked. It is more difficult to understand how to do this when the fish is in the middle of a trawl. But the fisherman is obliged to try to save the life of the endangered fish.
If this were on land, the dumping of injured animals would be considered cruelty to animals – but wild fish are not covered by the Animal Welfare Act. Or is it a crime to mistreat fish that have been caught? Deep Sea Reporter is researching the topic. We will also put the question to the relevant authorities:
How do you protect protected and endangered fish as long as bottom trawling is allowed?
Other students who participated in the discovery are Robin Kanthe, Gustav Nyström, Erik Siemers, Kelvin Hyle’n, Victor Aron, Emanuel Nordin
